Nothing but a win will be acceptable for Melbourne City when they head to Western Sydney Wanderers for a Liberty A-League clash on Sunday.
In their final game before the finals, City could still be crowned premiers but need a victory over the Wanderers to have any chance over supplanting leaders Sydney FC.
The Sky Blues play Adelaide United in a late afternoon kick-off on Sunday, in a tricky fixture.
However, Adelaide — who are three points adrift of City with one game to play — won’t be able to improve on their third place unless the lowly Wanderers cause an upset earlier in the day.
The Wanderers v City clash was pushed back to Sunday with Parramatta’s CommBank Stadium unable to host two matches on the same weekend due to recent wet weather, but instead of fixturing the title-deciding A-League Women matches simultaneously, Sydney will know City’s outcome before they take to the field some hours later.
It is something City head coach Rado Vidosic said could have benefited the competition, with matches played simultaneously on Friday night to decide the race for finals.
“It was nice to see the Melbourne Victory game at the same time as Perth Glory’s … it was exciting and I think something they could have done,” he said.
“But obviously I’m not privileged to know all the details with Channel 10 and Paramount, and how that stuff works.
“They had their reasons and we trust they’re going to do the best they can for the good of the game in this country.”
Regardless, City are in form having won five of their past six games, and would expect to brush aside a Wanderers outfit that haven’t won in eight outings.
“It benefited us because we had an extra day to rest …physically we are ready and mentally we just need to be ready for that,” Vidosic said.
“If we can play to our best I would expect to win the game.”
Western Sydney are ninth on the ladder, only above bottom side Wellington Phoenix on goal difference.