With just one point from their opening two AFC Champions League fixtures, Brisbane Roar captain Matt Smith says tonight’s match day three clash with South Korean side Ulsan Hyundai is the ideal time to record a positive result in the competition.
With just one point from their opening two AFC Champions League fixtures, Brisbane Roar captain Matt Smith says tonight-s match day three clash with South Korean side Ulsan Hyundai is the ideal time to record a positive result in the competition.
Brisbane were given a shock start to their Asian campaign, suffering a 2-0 loss to Japan-s FC Tokyo at Suncorp Stadium in early March but produced a significantly better performance against Chinese Super League club Beijing Guoan two weeks later in China.
Coupled with their morale-boosting semi-final win over Central Coast Mariners in the first leg of the grand final decider on Saturday, Smith said the momentum was there to be carried across both competitions.
“We-re very much looking forward to the challenge of Ulsan,” he said.
“We-ve come off the back of the weekend-s win in Brisbane and the players are ready.
“We can take a lot of confidence from our last game in Beijing where I think we played very well and we-re again looking to continue from that match.”
The Roar are currently bottom of Group F with Ulsan and Tokyo heading the group with three point gap and Beijing sitting marginally above Brisbane, just on goal difference.
Following tonight-s match, Smith still has three remaining fixtures – including two at home – to lead his side to a top two finish and progress into the ACL knock out stages.
But, the Roar skipper refused to look too far into the future, focusing on their challenges match by match starting with Ulsan.
“For us, it-s a game that we-re looking to win, we-re always looking to win every single match.
“This is a key part of the group stages and it-s important for us to come away with a positive result.”
Ulsan Hyundai vs Brisbane Roar
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
Ulsan Munsu Football Stadium, Ulsan, South Korea
Live and exclusive coverage on Fox Sports 1 (501) begins at 8.25pm (AEST)
