For Sky Blue star Adam Le Fondre, Wednesday night’s home AFC Champions League clash against Shanghai SIPG is 2013 all over again.
Coming up against a star-studded Chelsea line up six years ago, Le Fondre finds himself coming up against a similarly star-studded Chinese outfit tomorrow night, including one familiar face from that headline-grabbing evening at the Madejski Stadium – Oscar dos Santos Emboaba Junior.
Le Fondre will be out to replicate his performance from that famous night, and again steal three points off Oscar and co. in what will be a pivotal clash in the 2019 AFC Champions League.
“Chelsea had an arsenal of attack, they had a lot of great players at the time including Oscar, as a team we couldn’t just focus on one player because they had so many ways to hurt you,” Le Fondre recalled.
“I can remember the game, I remember Lampard scored, Mata scored the first, and we were 2-0 down and I came on for the last half hour and scored two in the last five minutes to salvage a point for us. The last five minutes will live with me forever.
“First and foremost, we focus on ourselves and implementing our game plan on them [Shanghai],” Le Fondre continued, looking ahead to Wednesday night.
“They have key players which can hurt you, it’s well reported the sort of salaries they’re on and what they’re worth and that’s because they’re brilliant players.
“It’s on us to dictate the game, bring the game to them and make them play our football. If that’s the case we’ll be better than them on the day.”
Le Fondre said the squad would be buoyed from their #BigBlue win at the weekend, as the Englishman said he’s relishing his first taste of continental competition.
“It was a massive victory at the weekend and that gives us great momentum now for the league campaign and building into this,” he said.
“We’ve got great confidence amongst the squad and great depth which is what we need.
“I’ve loved it [the AFC Champions League], it’s certainly been a challenge with the travel and tiny turn around between games but I’ve loved every minute of it.
“I don’t want it to end at the group stages, I want to try and fire us through and see how far we can get because we’ve got a really talented squad here.
“We’ve just got to try and implement our game on them and if we’re on our game we’re a force to be reckoned with.”
Sydney FC face Chinese Champions Shanghai SIPG in a massive AFC Champions League clash on Wednesday night at home at Jubilee Stadium (kick off 7:30pm AEST). Be there to back your boys in blue and #BringItOnAsia
