Roar Guru
A win tonight for the Melbourne Victory against Yokohama F Marinos will go a long way to securing passage to the next round of the Asian Champions League. Join us for live scores and commentary from 9:30pm AEDT.
Melbourne are coming off a tough one-all draw against Sydney FC in the A-League, and face an even tougher task tonight in the ACL.
The Victory travel to Japan to take on a Yokohama outfit desperate to get back to winning ways following their defeat in the first-leg of the tie on March 18.
The J-League club needs a win at home to keep their chances of progressing past the group stages alive. Yokohama will look to dominate possession and create plenty of chances in front of an expectant home crowd.
The Victory will most likely play on the counterattack, given that tactic worked wonders against Yokohama in Melbourne.
Kosta Barbarouses will be a key figure for the Victory going forward tonight. The New Zealand international tormented Yokohama and could have easily finished with two goals had one effort not been ruled out for offside.
It will be interesting to see if former Japanese international Fujimoto starts tonight for Yokohama. Fujimoto caused a lot of havoc against Melbourne when he was introduced in the second half and looked the player most likely to score in their last meeting.
Given how well he played in Melbourne, expect Fujimoto to start tonight in a bid to provide Yokohama with some added spark in attack.
This should be a very entertaining contest. Yokohama will be going for the win, but the Victory are very capable of hurting them on the counter as they did in Melbourne.
Yokohama at home usually rise to the occasion and may do enough to seal a very important win.
Yokohama to win 2-1.