Musialik's marking key in Blues clash with Victory
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday December 19, 2009
PERHAPS more than any other player who runs onto Etihad Stadium tonight, Sydney FC holding midfielder Stuart Musialik knows he's carrying the greatest responsibility of all.It's not his job to score or create goals, or even to stop them. Musialik has just one job, but he can't afford to get wrong: stopping Carlos Hernandez. The Costa Rican midfielder is enjoying the best form of his glittering three-year spell with Melbourne Victory and his prolific partnership with soon-to-be-recalled Socceroo striker Archie Thompson has propelled Melbourne three points clear on top of the A-League table.But while Musialik is small in size, he isn't short on heart, skill and grit and knows that if he can get the better of Hernandez, who'll be his direct opponent on the night, then the Sky Blues have a genuine chance."He's definitely in top form and is one of those players who can be very unpredictable," Musialik said. "You never know what he's going to do when he's on the ball and as one of the best players in the league, he's capable of doing pretty much anything he wants."The Sydney FC coaching staff have been working on Operation Hernandez all week and the message for Musialik is that he needs to be monitoring the A-League's most expensive player for the whole 90 minutes."The main thing for me is when we're attacking, I have to make sure that I don't switch off and forget where he is because that's when he does most of his damage," Musialik said. "What happens when an opposition attack breaks down is that he often gets the ball early, giving him a chance to punish you. So a good way for me to close him down is to stay concentrated when we've got the ball and not forget my defensive duties. If we do lose it, I'll need to stay as close to him as possible."However, Musialik plans to be more than just a shadow and has promised to make a strong contribution in his own right."I don't think I'll have to change my game too much," he said. "In my position it's important that I help contribute to the attacks because I'm still part of the midfield. I'll have to be a bit more careful than I would in other weeks because he's so dangerous but I'll try not to let it affect my natural game."Confidence is high in the Sydney FC camp after their 3-0 triumph over Melbourne at Etihad Stadium earlier in the season and Musialik reckons they might posses the key to unlocking Melbourne's attack - not that he's going to share it."I think we've got a few things in the bag but I'd get in trouble if I came out and said them," he said. "We did a video session on Thursday and [assistant coach] Tony Popovic put together some clips of Melbourne and how they play. It focused a lot on their style, the areas in which we can shut them down and where we might be able to exploit them."We've certainly done our homework, now it's just a matter of putting it together on the park."The Sky Blues are likely to go into the match with two changes from last weekend's win over Wellington, with Simon Colosimo making way after the club decided against appealing his red card suspension whilst John Aloisi, who pulled out in the warm-up with a calf injury and was replaced by Chris Payne, is unlikely to be gambled upon. Coming in for Colosimo will be ex-Victory defender Seb Ryall while Melbourne's thorn last time, two-goal hero Mark Bridge, is back to taunt the home fans."It's not very often that you see results like that where you run away with the game so it might be a bit tougher for 'Bridgey' to repeat himself," Musialik said. "We're expecting Melbourne to come right at us from the start and that they will have sorted out what went wrong for them last time."But, in saying that, these are the games every player wants to play in, so we'll be right up for whatever they want to throw at us."
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald