Frans Thijssen will hope his Brisbane Roar FC side return to football normality when they host Suwon Bluewings in their ACL clash on the Gold Coast this Wednesday night.
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The reigning Hyundai A-League champions saw their hopes of reaching the Season 10 finals take a hit in spectacular fashion last Sunday, losing 5-4 away to Sydney FC.
The positives and negatives for the interim Dutch coach to take from that remarkable encounter at Allianz Stadium are obvious.
Scoring four times against a legitimate title challenger is encouraging.
Shipping five at the other end, including giving away two penalties, is not.
Having opened the door to fellow finals hopefuls Melbourne City, the result threatens to derail the Roar’s steady progress since the dismissal of Mike Mulvey. Under Thijssen, Brisbane have been all about smart, efficient football, picking up points, keeping a few clean sheets and slowly climbing back up the table.
The powers that be at the Suncorp Stadium club justified dismissing their title-winning coach by citing the need to produce competitive performances in Asia.
They certainly did so in Japan earlier this month, beating Urawa Reds 1-0 away from home. A first victory in the competition was a welcome tonic indeed after the pain of conceding in injury time to lose by the same scoreline at home to Beijing Guoan in their Group G opener.
This week they welcome last season’s K-League runners-up Suwon to Cbus Super Stadium. The Korean side have experienced a mixed start to 2015, beating Urawa 2-1 at home but losing 1-0 away to Beijing Guoan in their two ACL matches to date.
They lost their first match of the new K-League campaign 1-0 to Pohang Steelers, but responded by seeing off Incheon United 2-1 on Saturday, both of those results coming at home.
Suwon arrived in Queensland early to acclimatise to conditions dramatically different from a chilly Korean peninsula, with coach Seo Jung-Won setting a share of the spoils as the minimum expectation for his side.
“Surely it will be a very hard game for us,” he said.
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“Roar is a very strong team and I believe they showed their quality at the game against Urawa. It will be not easy, but our goal in Australia is to get a point, at least.”
Roar will need to get past South Korea international goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryong to come out on top on the Gold Coast, while Brazilian duo Santos and Leo Itaperuna are among the visitors’ outfield dangermen.
Roar were without Luke Brattan through suspension away to Sydney, but the holding midfielder is likely to come straight back into the XI for this one, as are forwards Andrija Kaluderovic and Brandon Borrello, who came off the bench in the second half at Allianz Stadium.
