Socceroos back for City but Leckie to miss Sky Blue trip
Socceroo trio Aziz Behich, Marco Tilio, and Kai Trewin all look set to come straight back into Melbourne City's side for their ALM trip to Sydney but Mat Leckie is sidelined with a calf injury.
Preparing to make the trek to the Sydney Football Stadium to take on Sydney FC for the first time this A-League Men season – even though it’s round 24 – Melbourne City boss Aurelio Vidmar will be without attacker Mat Leckie due to a calf injury for a fixture whose ramifications could stretch well beyond those of the two belligerents. He does, though, anticipate that returning Socceroo trio Aziz Behich, Kai Trewin, and Marco Tilio will all be available.
Leckie suffered what City described as a “moderate-grade calf strain” in their smash-and-grab 1-0 defeat against Newcastle in their last game before the international break, the latest in a string of injuries that have dogged the attacker throughout the 2024-25 campaign. The 34-year-old, who is contracted for next season, has been limited to just five starts across ten appearances this game; a hamstring injury forced him to miss almost two month’s worth of football between November and January.
Fortunately for City, who are four points back of second-placed Western United but possess a game in hand, Leckie’s latest affliction isn’t anticipated to keep him out for any kind of extended period, with it hoped the 78-time Socceroo will be able to return for his side’s home clash with Brisbane Roar on April 11.
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“He's [been] back on track [doing] running and ball work since Monday,” said Vidmar. “And it looks like he will be able to join the group next week. We're looking forward to him joining the group on Monday to give him a week's training, and then the plan is to have him ready for the Brisbane game.
“He’s frustrated as well. He got himself going over the last six weeks and was performing very, very well. And then to get a little bit of a setback with this little calf strain has irritated him a little bit. But he's got his head down and he's working through it.
“The positive sign is that the last [injury] he had, it took a lot longer for him to recover, to get to the first stage, and with this one here, within three or four days, he was already jogging, so he's recovered a lot quicker with this injury.”
Meanwhile, the City contingent that was part of the Socceroos’ most recent squad – Behich, Trewin, and Tilio – all landed back in Melbourne from Hangzhou on Friday morning.
A 5-1 win over Indonesia and a 2-0 victory over China putting the Australians in a strong position to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Behich played all 180 minutes of both fixtures, ostensibly leaving him most at risk of a fatigue-governed absence, while both Tilio and Trewin were unused.
After being sent home to rest and recuperate after landing yesterday, Friday morning will be the first time the triumvirate heads into the club and trains since landing back in Australia but, speaking before his side hit the track, Vidmar wasn’t expecting any knocks or egregious levels of fatigue that would prevent their travel to Sydney.
“I spoke to all of them yesterday and they're in really good spirits,” Vidmar said. “Aziz had 180 minutes, so he's probably a little bit more fatigued than Kai and Marco. But I spoke to him again earlier, just this morning.
“They feel fine, they feel fresh. We'll go through a training session today, and if they're fine, then I can't see why they wouldn't start.”
After recovering from a hamstring and concussion, Yonatan Cohen and Germán Ferreyra will both return for City, while Patrick Beach will start after serving as a train-on player for the Socceroos’ ahead of their meeting with Tim Garuda in Sydney.
Serving as his number two, at least for this week, will be 17-year-old VPL1 keeper Lachie Charles, who has been elevated after primary backup James Nieuwenhuizen was forced to undergo surgery to repair an ACL rupture in his right knee.
Having already lost Jamie Young to a midseason retirement, City was forced to dip into stocks of 14- and 15-year-old academy goalkeepers for senior training in the wake of Nieuwenhuizen’s injury and Vidmar confirmed that the club was looking to sign a senior figure, preferably one with A-League Men experience, by the time City hosts Central Coast next week.
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“The difficulty is trying to find the right person,” the coach explained. “We haven't really found anyone who's available, which makes it very, very difficult.
“Hopefully we're able to sign someone in the next week or so.
“Lachie has done a great job at NPL level. He's a young keeper without the experience that's playing as much as he can in the NPL, performing pretty well, but he's still got a long way to go. At 17 years of age, as a goalkeeper, you're not developed. So he's going to take, it's going to take him a little while, but we have a lot of faith in him.
“Someone who is reasonably mature with a little bit of experience is probably the right play. But most of those guys are contracted, contracted at NPL level or somewhere else. So, it's a little bit of work to do to get that over the line.”
Sitting fourth on the A-League Men table with 34 points heading into the round, City could, depending on results elsewhere, move into third place with a win against the Sky Blues or fall as low as sixth in defeat.
A failure to pick up three points by the Harboursiders, for their part, would deal a blow to their finals aspirations as the regular season enters its final month – albeit fifth-placed Melbourne Victory and sixth-placed Adelaide, both on 33 points, being fixtured against each other will ensure they don’t fall egregiously even if they remain on 30 points for another week.
“We know we're in for a very, very tough game,” Vidmar said. “They're a good side. We know they're very good with the ball. They've got great attacking weapons, highlighted with the boys up front.
“But we have to be positive as well. We're not going to sit back and let them dictate. We've got to try to play our own game and we do that regardless if we're home or away. And that's what we're trying to do. So I think it'll be a good game, and hopefully we can get a positive result.
“There’s a competition there for points as well as positions on the table. In the next two or three weeks, you would probably think you start to get a clearer picture of how it's all going to end up in terms of the top six.”
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