Melbourne Victory to learn from Wanderers’ ACL success for 2016 campaign

Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat says the Western Sydney Wanderers 2014 AFC Asian Champions League glory has set a new benchmark for Australian teams.

Victory are heading to their fifth AFC Champions League campaign and unveiled their 2016 champions league jersey today. Muscat believes the game has grown in Australia and the Wanderer’s were pivotal in the rise.

“We all look back on the support of Australian Football, we all look back on what the Wanderers did with fond memories,” Muscat said.

“We all embraced what the Wanderers did, we’re all in the position where we want to emulate their success in the competition.”

Victory will be in Group G for this campaign, with return fixtures against Shanghai SIPG (China), Gamba Osaka (Japan) and Suwon Bluewings (South Korea).

The Blue and White of Melbourne have struggled in previous campaigns, yet to reach the knockout stages in their history.

The Victory boss, however, dismissed claims previous failure was significant to this campaign.

“The fact we haven’t progressed or passed the group stage isn’t a motivating factor for us, he said.

“Winning all domestic trophies last season, we were committed to wanting to progress in this tournament, so history doesn’t hold any bearing on that.”

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Various clubs in the Chinese Super League have also invested in bringing a number of talent to Asia, Muscat says it has brought more of a challenge up this campaign.

There were also rumours circulating on the possibility of an Asian signing to Melbourne Victory, however, it was confirmed today there will be no new faces.

“I just hope Shanghai don’t make any last minute signings because their window is still open for a couple of weeks,” he joked.

“The competition now, we don’t need to look to far to see what’s happening in China in the last couple of weeks, to see what sort of investment these countries are making.

“It’s brought a spotlight in terms of the competition this year, more than ever before.

“We didn’t get anyone in (to sign an Asian player), it is a situation that I explored, unfortunately for many reasons, it would take too much to go through all the reasons.”

Only two current players, Leigh Broxham and Archie Thompson have been involved in every Champions League campaign. Broxham, who is the acting captain, says the club has evolved since then and there is more awareness.

“We’ve learnt a lot, I think from when we first started to now, I think the players view the competition a lot differently,” Broxham said.

“The hype around the competition is a bit different this year, I think the players have come to this club this year knowing we’re playing in a champions league campaign.

“I think home and away we were a lot smarter in the last campaign, there were a lot of lessons that we took last time as well.

“We could beat high quality opposition and we succumbed to them as well, so I think there were a lot of lessons we could take from them.”

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