Melbourne Victory’s long 2009/10 campaign finally comes to an end on Wednesday night with a trip to Korea to take on the team which has been the form side of Group E in this season’s Asian Champions League.
Date: Wednesday April 28
Kick-off: 8pm (AEST)
Venue: Tancheon Sports Complex, South Korea
TV and Radio: Television Live and exclusive on Fox Sports 3 HD from 8pm.
Head-to-headPlayed 1: Melbourne Victory 0, Seongnam 1
Previous meeting
Melbourne Victory 0, Seongnam 2, AFC Champions League match day 2 at Etihad Stadium, March 9
Past five rounds
Melbourne Victory:
AFC Champions League: Match day 1: Beijing Guoan 1, Melbourne Victory 0
Match day 2: Melbourne Victory 0, Seongham Ilhwa 2
Match day 3: Kawasaki Frontale 4, Melbourne Victory 0
Match day 4: Melbourne Victory 1 Kawasaki Frontale 0
Match day 5: Melbourne Victory 0 Beijing Guoan 0
Seongnam Ilhwa
AFC Champions League: Match day 1: Seongnam Ilhwa 2 Kawasaki Frontale 0
Match day 2: Melbourne Victory 0, Seongham Ilhwa 2
Match day 3: Seongnam Ilhwa 3 Beijing Guoan 1
Match day 4: Beijing Guoan 0 Seongham Ilhwa 1
Match day 5: Kawasaki Frontale 3 Seongnam Ilhwa 0
Analysis
Melbourne Victory’s long 2009/10 campaign finally comes to an end on Wednesday night with a trip to Korea to take on the team which has been the form side of Group E in this season’s Asian Champions League.
Seongnam is already guaranteed to top the group after four wins in five matches so far in the group phase, including an impressive win over Melbourne back on match day 2 at Docklands.
The Victory, in contrast, cannot qualify for the knockout stages by finishing in the top two in the group following just one win and a draw from its first five games – the latest being a 0-0 draw at home against Chinese side Beijing Guoan a fortnight ago.
However the Victory faced a difficult task from the outset given its first three matches in the group stage also clashed with the culmination of the recent Hyundai A-League season which saw Melbourne perform superbly to host the grand final only to lose on penalties to Sydney FC.
Not surprisingly after such a long season, Melbourne’s injury list has begun to pile up with strikers Archie Thompson, Robbie Kruse and recent short-term signing Nik Mrdja all ruled out of Wednesday night’s encounter leaving much of the goalscoring responsibility to Costa Rican pair Marvin Angulo and Carlos Hernandez.
Melbourne coach Ernie Merrick is likely to use the game to give some valuable experience on the big Asian stage to some of the club’s many talented youngsters and with that in mind and considering the Victory’s lack of strikepower for this final group game of their second Asian adventure, a draw would be an outstanding result for the Victory.
Melbourne Victory squad: 1.Mitchell LANGERAK (gk), 2.Kevin MUSCAT (c), 3.Mate DUGANDZIC, 6.Leigh BROXHAM, 8.Grant BREBNER, 15.Tom PONDELJAK, 16.Carlos HERNANDEZ, 17.Matthew FOSCHINI, 19.Evan BERGER, 22.Nick WARD, 23.Adrian LEIJER, 24.Luke PILKINGTON, 25.Aziz BEHICH, 26.Marvin ANGULO, 27.Stephen HATZIKOSTAS, 28.Diogo FERREIRA, 29.Petar FRANJIC, 30.Sebastian MATTEI (gk)
Unavailable: Archie Thompson (knee), Matthew Kemp (knee), Billy Celeski (knee), Nik Mrdja (hip), Robbie Kruse (ankle), Rody Vargas (rested)
Seongnam Ilhwa squad: 1. Jung Sung-Ryong, 2. Ko Jae-Sung, 3. Yun Young-Sun, 4. Saša Ognenovski, 5. Cho Byung-Kuk, 6. Jeon Kwang-Jin, 8 Fabricio Souza, 9. Cho Dong-Geon, 10. Dženan Radoncic, 11 Mauricio Molina, 13 Jeong Ho-Jeong, 14. Song Ho-Young, 16. Kim Sung-Hwan, 17. Kim Cheol-Ho, 18 Namkung Do, 19 Shin Young-Chol, 20. Kim Jin-Ryong, 21.Jung Eui-Do
