Melbourne Victory and Tianjin Teda have blamed each other for a physical recent Asian Champions League clash, ahead of Wednesday night's return bout.
Victory earned their first point from three group matches with an away 1-1 draw in their previous meeting with the Chinese side, on April 5.
They now need to beat Tianjin at Docklands to have any realistic hope of progressing from their group.
Acting captain Adrian Leijer says the memory of the previous meeting, when Tianjin's Serbian captain Marko Zoric was sent off for a crude tackle, will add an edge.
"It makes it fresh," Leijer said of the feeling between the sides.
"They spoke about us being physical, but it was probably the other way around.
"There were a few little tricks that they had going on, which kept it interesting."
But Tianjin coach Arie Haan says it was the Victory that were the physical aggressors, and suggested the referee allowed them more latitude.
"I have the idea when I see some games between the Australians and the other teams in Asia, that the referees are a little bit different. They let more go when Australian teams play than when they don't play," Haan said.
He also blamed the refereeing and Victory's physical style for the goal scored by Melbourne's Kevin Muscat in the previous match.
"It was a foul, the goal was a foul for Melbourne," Haan said.
"Two players were not looking at the ball, but only catching my two players, so Mr Muscat can get free to head in."
But Leijer says his team deserves credit for that performance and had improved greatly under caretaker coach Mehmet Durakovic, who took over from Ernie Merrick, after a 5-1 belting from Gamba Osaka in the opening ACL match.
Durakovic planned to start star striker Robbie Kruse, whose performance off the bench was critical to Melbourne overcoming an early deficit in the previous match.
The coach says with Archie Thompson and Isaka Cernak also in the side, they will be chasing hard for a win.
"We want to push up as much as we can, we want to push Robbie as much as we can forward, we want to push Isaka as much as we can forward, help Archie up there," he said.
"We'll be going with an attacking line-up, hopefully with three up front, so we'll see how we go."
Zoric is out suspended.
- AAP
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