On the eve of the 2024/25 A-League Men’s season, Melbourne City Head Coach, Aurelio Vidmar, says his team is ready to go after a strong pre-season.
City face Newcastle Jets on Saturday 19 October in Round 1, before hosting a blockbuster home opener against arch rivals Melbourne Victory next Saturday 26 October. Don’t miss it.
ITCHING TO GO…
Vidmar has been pleased with the team’s progress throughout his first pre-season in charge.
“We’ve had a great pre-season,” Vidmar said. “I think around about 80% of our players have completed pre-season which is encouraging.”
“Pre-seasons are extremely important. The beauty of having these last four months is that we’ve been able to do a hell of a lot of tactical work, get structures right, expectations, behaviours, all those sorts of things that we instilled at the beginning of the pre-season.
I think everyone is really itching to get out there and show what they can do. We’re really looking forward to it.”
AKKA’S BACK, AZIZ IS READY…
City’s Head Coach opened up on Nathaniel Atkinson’s return to the Club and gave an update on Captain, Aziz Behich, following his return from international duty with the Socceroos.
“[Atkinson] got back about four to five weeks ago, and he’s been excellent,” Vidmar said.
“He hasn’t played for a little while… he got here reasonably de-conditioned but he’s worked the last four or five weeks very well, he played 60 minutes against Western United a couple of weeks ago, around 70 minutes last week against Adelaide.
The fitter he gets, the better he’s going to be.
Aurelio Vidmar on Nathaniel Atkinson.
“Aziz got back late Wednesday night, so he had a modified session yesterday and he’s absolutely fine and he’s ready to go.”
TAKING EVERYTHING ON BOARD…
City welcomed international trio, Andreas Kuen, Yonatan Cohen and Germán Ferreyra in the off-season, with all three impressing the gaffer thus far.
“You obviously have hiccups with injuries, we’re not the only team who has gone through that in the pre-season, and foreigners who are coming in late and not really conditioned who are getting used to the intensity with the way we train and the extra things we do here as well so that also takes a little bit of time.
“What’s really pleasing to be honest, is that they’ve really taken it on board, they’re really lapping it up, taking in the information, whatever work we’re doing on the track and in the gym, the way we do our recovery sessions, they’ve really taken it on board so we’ve been pretty pleased with the pre-season so far.”
