Melbourne Victory with nothing to lose against Gamba Osaka

MELBOURNE Victory will head into tonight’s do-or-die match against Group G leader Gamba Osaka with nothing to lose. Nothing less than three points are required for the Victory to have a serious chance of progressing to the knockout stage.

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Melbourne could feel a little unlucky after conceding two late goals to lose against the Japanese side in Melbourne a fortnight ago but the Melbourne Victory captain Kevin Muscat says the the team is confident it can cause an upset.

“The boys were really hurting after our loss against Gamba a couple of weeks ago and this is our chance to make amends and get one back,” Muscat said.

“I’m confident we’ll play well in Osaka and hopefully we can bring home three points and give ourselves a chance of finishing on top.”

The Victory is currently in third spot in Group G with three points from three games. To give themselves a mathematical chance of getting to the next round they need at least a draw from tonight’s match but realistically anything less than a win will do.

Even if Melbourne do win tonight, they need Gamba to drop points against either Chonburi FC or Chunnam Dragons in the remaining Group G matches which will be a hard ask.

There will be only one change for the Victory squad and that will be Tom Pondeljak who has yet to make his debut for the club since moving from the Central Coast Mariners earlier on this year.

The squads

Gamba Osaka: 1.M ATSUYO Naoki (gk), 2.Sota NAKAZAWA, 3.Huenes Marcelo LEMOS, 4.MIZUMOTO Hiroki, 5.YAMAGUCHI Satoshi (Captain), 6.FUKUMOTO Yohei, 7.Yasuhito ENDO, 8.Shinichi TERADA, 9.Lucas SEVERINO, 10.Takahiro FUTAGAWA, 11.Ryuji BANDO, 12.Kodai YASUDA, 13.Michihiro YASUDA, 14.Shoki HIRAI, 16.Hayato SASAKI, 17.Tomokazu MYOJIN, 18.Jader Volnei SPINDLER, 19.Takumi SHIMOHIRA, 20.Shu KURATA, 21.Akira KAJI, 22.Yosuke FUJIGAYA (gk), 23.Takuya TAKEI, 24.Kenta HOSHIHARA, 25.Hideya OKAMOTO, 26.Masaki KINOSHITA (gk), 27.Hideo HASHIMOTO, 28.Ryujiro UEDA, 29.Atsushi KIMURA (gk), 30.Masato YAMAZAKI

Melbourne Victory: 1.Michael THEOKLITOS (gk), 2.Kevin MUSCAT (Captain), 4.Steven PACE, 6.Steve PANTELDIS, 7.Matthew KEMP, 9.Daniel ALLSOPP, 11.Nathan ELASI, 12.Rodrigo VARGAS, 13.Kaz PATAFTA, 14.Adrian CACERES, 15.Leandro LOVE, 17.Daniel VASILEVSKI, 18.Leigh BROXHAM, 19.Evan BERGER, 20.Mitchell LANGERAK (gk), 21.Sebastian RYALL, 22.Nick WARD, 24.Billy CELESKI

Gamba Osaka vs Melbourne Victory
Expo ’70 Stadium, Osaka
23 April 2008
Kick-off: 7:00pm (Japan), 8:00pm (AEST).

Match live on Foxsports 3 Viewer’s Choice from 7:30pm