Melbourne City ‘ready’ for the challenge PFC Nasaf present

Ahead of their home Quarter-final match in the AFC Women’s Champions League, Melbourne City’s head coach Michael Matricciani and defender Taylor Otto spoke to the media about facing the Uzbekistan side of PFC Nasaf.

“We’re really excited, we’ve done a lot of research, and we’re ready for the match,” Matricciani said.

Their opponents have a excellent track record in the Uzbekistan Women’s League, where they have won 17 titles, and 92 of their last 98 games, but there’s no footage of this available to City.

“We can’t get any information from their local league,” he said.

“They qualified last November to the Quarter-finals so we have those three group stage matches. We also have the three preliminary rounds which was a month or two prior.”

This footage, combined with the study of the Uzbekistan Women’s National team, which is where a number of Nasaf players have been playing most recently in the Women’s Asian Cup, is what has made up the research component of City’s preparation.

“There’s different coaches but when they played against Philippines a few weeks back… that match, there was nine players in the starting line up for the Uzbek National team that [are] going to be playing [for PFC Nasaf],” he said.

Individual player analysis has been the focus for Melbourne City, as they look to once again progress into the finals of the AWCL, in which the Semi-finals and Final are played in a centralised hub.

“We’ll see in the first five minutes what they’re going to throw at us and we’ll be able to adapt,” Matricciani said.

“Focusing on this game, all we want to do is make sure we get this job done and put ourselves in a situation where we can make better memories than last year,” Taylor Otto said, referencing when Melbourne City came close to securing the inaugural trophy, losing on penalties to Wuhan Jiangda.

“We’re just taking everything in stride and taking everything we learnt from last year to do our best this year,” she said.

City have managed to retain a trio of young players in Alexia Apostolakis, Shelby McMahon, and Danella Butrus, who have all been selected to play in the Under 20’s Women’s Asian Cup, which kicks off on the 2nd of April in Thailand.

“Alex [Epakis] called me three or four weeks ago suggesting that [City] have a few players that are in contention to get selected to the Under 20’s Asian Cup,” said Matricciani.

With City’s Quarter-final match not taking place around an A-League Women fixture, as their Bye Rounds this season have been optimised for their AWCL games, the three are available to play and will fly out to join the Under 20’s on Monday.

Between the AFC Women’s Champions League and their domestic commitments, no A-League Women side has played more football than Melbourne City, but this doesn’t pose any worry for Matricciani, who has trophies in his sights for his team that only managed to secure the Premiership last season.

“We’re really excited to be part of this competition again, we had some beautiful experiences last season,” he said.

“The more football the better.”

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