Central Coast Mariners Head Coach Mark Jackson says he is excited to be back at Our Paradise, speaking in his pre-match AFC Champions League Elite press conference on Monday.
“First and foremost it’s great to be back at our home ground, it feels like it’s been a long time. We are very excited to be back here and we’re excited to see the fans, I hope we can make the stadium as full as possible.” Jacko said.
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“We’re looking forward to the competition, it’s tough for us coming into this level of competition against teams who are much further into their season, but we feel like we are ready to perform and we’re excited to be playing in such an elite competition.”
š What’s expected from Buriram
“We’ve watched a lot of them, they clearly have some exciting players particularly in attacking positions. They’ve got experienced players too.” Jacko said.
“They can play different ways, they press teams or drop off and be more pragmatic with their positional play off the ball. I expect them to come here and press us and go after the game. I could be wrong because they can do different things.”
“Their head coach is very knowledgable and experience, I’m sure he’ll have them prepared.”
Match Preview: Champions League Elite coming to Our Paradise
š§ What was learned from MD1 in China:
“The level of the competition is significantly higher than the AFC Cup. The level of teams and players is really high but we deserve to be here, we’ve got to remember that.” Jacko said.
“We understand that if we stick to our game plan and execute it well then we can compete, we’re confident that we have developed our understanding over pre-season and since the Shandong game. We’ve worked on a lot of things and we’re confident we can execute them.”
š§¤ “We’ve got three really exciting, young, Australian goalkeepers”
“We’ve got three really exciting, young, Australian goalkeepers who are fighting every day for that number one spot. There is no definitive number one for me yet.” Jacko said.
“When a goal is conceded, defenders and goalkeepers get looked at straight away but there is a bigger picture for us. We have to understand how we control situations and embed our principles with the ball to stop those situations where we can concede.”
Storm Roux: “We want to make the most of this opportunity”
“As Jacko said, we’re excited for the competition. We did so well last year in the AFC Cup and we deserve to be here. We’re excited to test ourselves against better opposition and see how far we can go in this competition.” Roux said.
It’s been a long time coming so we want to make the most of this opportunity.
“It’s always tough to travel overseas and play against really good opposition, but we’re used to it from last season, it’s normal for us.” Storm said.
“We’re really excited for a home game against another really good opposition and we want to take all three points.”
