Melbourne Victory A-League Men’s Head Coach, Giovanni Savarese, and defender Jason Davidson have addressed the media ahead of the Club’s AFC Champions League Two Group Stage fixture versus Thể Công–Viettel.
The match day one clash takes place at Hang Day Stadium, Hanoi, on Wednesday, September 16, kick-off 10:15pm AEST, with FC Seoul and Persib Bandung facing off in the other Group E contest.
Giovanni Savarese
On being in Vietnam:
“The welcome has been fantastic since the moment that we arrived, and it’s great to learn about the city and get to know the culture as well. But we came here for this match tomorrow.
“We’ve been in pre-season playing the Australia Cup, and we know that this type of competition is always a difficult competition. We understand our team; our players understand that we have to prepare for each match.”
On the ACL Two MD1 opposition:
“It’s a team that has won the competition here in Vietnam. We have been able to see some of their matches, and we expect a difficult game.
“This is a higher level of competition when you come and play in the Champions League, so we’re very excited to be able to play. The players are ready, and it will be good for us to have our training to acclimatise to the weather and be prepared for tomorrow.”
On signing Guillermo May:
“He didn’t travel at this particular moment. He is in Melbourne; he’s practising, and he will join the team to travel very soon. We have a strong team. We have a good culture. We have a group of players who are very much together, and we move forward in this direction.”
Jason Davidson
On targeting a winning start:
“It’s a great opportunity for the boys to experience another country, a different culture, and we’ve come here to get a result.
“It’s the first game of the campaign for us in the Champions League, so we want to get off to a good start. It will be difficult, and we understand that, but all the boys are super excited and ready.”
On returning to Vietnam:
“I’ve been here a few times with the national team and with Ulsan. I’m super excited to verse the team again tomorrow in a competitive match.
“It’s a blessing to have this job and to travel around the world and to experience different things and to play against different teams from different countries.”
On Savarese’s solid foundations:
“Since the coach came in pre-season, we have a big emphasis on being together, being a family, and that starts with defending.
“The pleasing thing as a defender is that everybody wants to contribute to defending. So our first defender in our team is our striker, and everyone works back from there.”
Watch the full press conference below.
