Wellington Phoenix Head Coach, Ufuk Talay says his side are hungry to keep their cup run going ahead of Wednesday's Australia Cup Quarter Final against Macarthur at Campbelltown Sports Stadium.
Wellington are chasing a second straight Semi Final appearance after reaching the final four for the first time last season.
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Wellington defeated Devonport Strikers 4-0 in the Round of 32 before knocking out Melbourne City for the second season in a row with a 2-1 win in the last 16.
Talay guided the club to its first semi-final appearance in January and with the Cup returning to the pre-season this year Talay is cherishing the competitive matches.
“We’re going to go as far as we can go,” Talay told media ahead of the team’s trip to Sydney. “For us the Cup has always been important for pre-season.
“I think our pre-season has panned out quite well with these Cup games and also what we’ve done in between to get more minutes for players that weren’t involved or didn’t get regular game time in the Cup.
“We’ll go there with the mindset to try and win this game and play the next and hopefully we’ll go all the way, which then leads into the season.
“The Cup final is a week out from the start of the season which gives us good prep for the A-League.”
Wednesday's match will be the first Cup meeting between the two clubs, with their six A-League matches level at two wins apiece with two draws.
Talay will go head-to-head with his former Sydney FC team-mate Dwight Yorke, who has taken over as Macarthur’s head coach.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for Dwight to start his coaching career,” Talay said.
“He was a fantastic player. It’s not easy to coach. It’s a different ball game on the other side of the fence, but so far he’s doing a good job.”
Yorke’s side have beaten Magpies Crusaders United and Modbury Jets on their way to the last eight, scoring ten goals in the process against a pair of sides from the second tiers of their respective states.
Two of the competition’s top scorers so far in Al Hassan Toure and Ben Waine who sit equal second on the leading scorers charts with three goals to their name apiece go head-to-head in Wednesday’s Quarter Final.
The Phoenix have travelled with the same squad that got the better of Melbourne City in the round of 16.
Brazilian midfielder Yan Sasse is in contention for a greater role against Macarthur, after making a late cameo against City, while new Polish striker Oskar Zawada will have to wait to make his debut after only joining his new team-mates on Tuesday night.
Opta Stats: #MACvWEL
- This will be the first meeting between Macarthur FC and the Wellington Phoenix in the Australia Cup; however, the Phoenix are undefeated in their last three games against the Bulls in the A-League Men (W2 D1).
- Macarthur FC have won three of their four games in the Australia Cup so far, keeping a clean sheet in each of those wins; however, they lost their only previous game in the competition against fellow A-League opposition (0-2 vs Sydney FC in 2021 Round of 16).
- Macarthur FC have scored 10 goals in the 2022 Australia Cup, 4.7 more than their tally of 5.3 Expected Goals; no team has outperformed their xG by more.
- Wellington Phoenix FC have scored three headed goals in the 2022 Australia Cup, more than any other team; in fact, they’ve done so from just five headed shots of which all have been on target.
- Filip Kurto (Macarthur FC) has a passing accuracy of 95% in the 2022 Australia Cup, the second-highest of any goalkeeper in the competition.
Macarthur FC v Wellington Phoenix
Date: Wednesday 31 August 2022
Time: 7:30pm AEST
Venue: Campbelltown Sports Stadium
Tickets: CLICK HERE
