Above: Melbourne City women huddle. Image: Melbourne City.
By Emma Burke (31/10/25).
Ahead of their opening fixture against Sydney FC, Melbourne City head coach Michael Matricciani spoke to the media about his side’s preseason, the Asian Women’s Champions’ League, and round one of the A-League Women.
“The last eight weeks we’ve been in preseason mode, played a few friendly games, trying to add some new concepts on top of our philosophy that we were already doing,” said Matricciani.
City’s preseason has also included the arrival of a few new faces, including four Junior Matildas that they want to develop for the future.
“We ended up signing seven or eight new players, including four young players that are 15, 16 year old girls that we feel have really good potential,” he said.
Those players are Kaya Jugovic, Izabella Rako, Kiera Sarris, and Danella Butrus.
Melbourne City, alongside their cross-town rivals Melbourne Victory, have both established their own Victorian National Premier League Women’s sides that will compete in 2026, giving young players like these the opportunity to continue to gain valuable minutes at a high standard, while linked to the club.
“Players that aren’t playing [In the A-League] are able to play NPL minutes which I think is going to be huge for the development of the players that are in our space in Victoria and football in general,” said Matricciani.
“We’re going to be able to develop some really good, promising players especially under our City style.”
Melbourne City also have to contend with added fixtures to their season, as they will once again participate in the Asian Women’s Champions League.
Matricciani’s side will soon travel to Vietnam to participate in the Group Stage of the competition, facing Lion City Sailors, Stallion Laguna, and Ho Chi Minh City Women, in early November.
“The day-to-day focus is on how we improve ourselves and obviously this week is how we’re preparing for what we expect Sydney are going to be, we get through that game, we review, we get ready for Central Coast [Mariners], and then once that finishes next Saturday, we switch our mind to travel and preparation for the three group stage games.”
With his minds on their first game against Sydney, Matricciani has done his homework on the Sky Blues, and certainly isn’t counting them out after last season’s uncharacteristically poor showing.
“They didn’t have the season that everyone expected last [season] but history shows they’ve arguably been the best side or one of the best sides [in the A-League Womens],” said Matricciani.
“We’re always ready for whatever gets thrown at us, that’s the beauty of round one, you never quite know.”
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