Melbourne Victory hosts City in a Derby clash in the NPL2 West at Epping Stadium on Sunday.
Summary
Victory is coming off back-to-back draws at home to Box Hill United and Springvale White Eagles.
It had its chances but was unable to find a breakthrough against Springvale in Round 15.
Midfielder Stefan Ristic, 18, and left-back So Nishikawa, 17, went closest to scoring for Victory in tough conditions.
However, Victory also did enough to keep a third clean sheet of the season, with goalkeeper Matthew Sutton, 19, making some fine saves.
Victory sits in eighth in the NPL2 West ahead of the Derby clash against City, which is ninth in the NPL2 East.
The teams are meeting for the first time since January, when City recorded a 3-2 win in the Foxtel Y-League.
Head coach Gareth Naven’s pre-match thoughts
“It’s always something of a game, that’s for sure. We’re looking forward to doing a bit better than what we did last week. The last two weeks we’ve definitely improved in certain areas – better intensity in the match, doing things better on the pitch. It’s a really nice test against like for like opposition in a more technical, tactical game and we’re looking forward to doing our best against a City team that has been consistent over the past couple of years with their players and a nice challenge for our players to match that and be better than that.”
This week
NPL2 West 2019 Round 16
Melbourne Victory v City
Sunday, June 9, 3.00pm AEST
Epping Stadium, Melbourne
U20 NPL2 West 2019 Round 16
Melbourne Victory v City
Sunday, June 9, 12.30pm AEST
Epping Stadium, Melbourne
Last week
NPL2 West: Victory 0 Springvale White Eagles 0
U20 NPL2 West: Victory 3 (Velupillay 14’/39’/66′) Springvale White Eagles 1
U18 NPL West: Victory 5 (Duratovic 5’/23’/31’/43′, Serra 25′) Brunswick City 0
U15 NPL West: Victory 2 (Manolopoulos 20′, Tanic 55′) Brunswick City 1
