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Japan’s Kashima Antlers plan to deliver a small measure of relief and hope to their stricken nation by beating Sydney FC in Wednesday’s ACL game at the Sydney Football Stadium.
Kashima’s scheduled home match against Sydney on March 16 was postponed in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan.
They resumed their ACL campaign with a 1-1 draw away to Suwon Bluewings last week and like Sydney have accrued two points from as many games.
The winner of Wednesday’s encounter will go level on points with group leader Suwon, with all teams having played half of their six games.
Sydney probably have greater need for a win, as their three remaining games will all be overseas, while Kashima can look forward to three home fixtures.
Kashima midfielder Takuya Nozawa made it clear his team had more motivation than usual to do well against Sydney.
“By playing the game tomorrow we’d like to give hope to all the people in Japan,” Nozawa said through an interpreter.
“That’s what we think and that’s what we all share as a team, so we definitely have to win tomorrow.
“As a team we are united, single-minded.”
Kashima will field a near full-strength side, while Sydney could be missing up to three players, according to Sydney coach Vitezslav Lavicka.
He confirmed key midfielder Nicky Carle is definitely out, but wouldn’t elaborate on their other injury worries, believed to be defender Sebastian Ryall and striker David Williams.
Sydney captain Stuart Musialik conceded it would be more difficult to break down Kashima if they went in without Carle and Williams, probably their two most creative and dangerous players.
Kashima coach Oswaldo Oliveira was wary of a potentially understrength Sydney.
“I’m in football for a long time and I have seen too many times this information, a team who lose two or three players and play better than before,” Oliveira said.
“I think for us it will be a very difficult game and we have to fight very much to get a good result.”
Musialik felt the SFS surface took away some of the home advantage Sydney had and thought it had probably deteriorated further since last week after more rugby league games had been played on the ground.
He was adamant a draw against Kashima wouldn’t douse Sydney’s prospects of advancing to the knockout stages with three away games to follow.
“It’s not the end for us if we don’t win, but it definitely would make life a lot easier for us if we can get the three points to go top of the table at the end of the first round of the group stage and set us up for the away games,” Musialik said.
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