Shane Stefanutto and Mohamed Adnan are set to be injected back into the Brisbane Roar starting eleven tonight against Beijing Guoan as the team looks to extinguish the stage fright experienced in their opening AFC Champions League fixture.
Shane Stefanutto and Mohamed Adnan are set to be injected back into the Brisbane Roar starting eleven tonight against Beijing Guoan as the team looks to extinguish the stage fright experienced in their opening AFC Champions League fixture.
Two weeks ago, the Brisbane club were made to sit back as a fast-tempo FC Tokyo side pressed high on the park and eventually came away with a 2-0 victory. At the same time Beijing failed to overcome a strong Ulsan Hyundai outfit in a 2-1 defeat to the Chinese.
Even at such an early stage in the competition, Brisbane Roar Head Coach Ange Postecoglou was prepared to put his best foot forward, reintroducing his experienced defensive pair who were rested in Saturday night-s Hyundai A-League win over Newcastle Jets at Hunter Stadium.
“Shane and Mohamed will come back in,” he said.
“They-ll provide a bit of energy because they obviously didn-t play on Saturday.
“It won-t disrupt anything from an organisational point of view but them being a bit fresher will help us, particularly late in the game.”
Since arriving in Beijing-s extremely cold conditions late on Sunday night, Postecoglou has been pleased with the attitudes of his players, finding no faults in the way they-ve prepared mentally and physically for the mid-week match.
The Roar players enjoyed a light session on the Workers Stadium pitch last night before partaking in their usual video analysis this morning with the club officials doing their utmost to ensure the squad had recovered properly from their most recent game.
The Brisbane coach said their mentality ahead of the Beijing fixture would be crucial if the side were to perform their typical mobile, quick-passing style of football.
“We didn-t play as well as we wanted to on the first night but it-s a tournament and there are still five games to go,” Postecoglou said.
“We haven-t lost anything by any stretch and we-re determined to go out there and play our football tonight.
“It-s part of the experience for us to test ourselves against the best in the region and see how we stack up.
“The important thing is that we play our style of football and not to get into a negative mindset worrying about whether we win, draw or lose.
“We-ve built our success on playing in a certain way and that-s what we want to do in this tournament.”
Midfielder Massimo Murdocca is expected to be the other change in the Roar eleven while opposition team news shows that former Roar favourite Reinaldo will line up against his former side for the first time since departing the club in 2010.
Brisbane Roar face Beijing Guoan tonight in match day two of the AFC Champions League 2012 season. Kick-off at Workers Stadium is at 9.30pm AEST with Fox Sports providing the live broadcast.
