Monday, 21 October 2019:
 | | Newly appointed Melbourne City Head Coach ERICK MOMBAERTS speaks during a Melbourne City A-League media opportunity at CFA Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia. | |
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Melbourne City coach Erick Mombaerts says his team's 2-1 A-League win over Adelaide holds them in good stead to defeat the same opponent in Wednesday night's FFA Cup final.
City face the rare prospect of confronting the same team twice in four days and Mombaerts says striking the first blow will give his players confidence.
"Honestly I prefer to have won this game," he said on Sunday.
"I prefer to have won this game for the confidence.
"But maybe for the Adelaide coach (Gertjan Verbeek), maybe it's different ... but for the confidence, it's always better when you win."
City's men's team have won just one trophy in their history - the 2016 FFA Cup - but Mombaerts says he isn't feeling any pressure ahead of Wednesday night's showdown at Coopers Stadium.
"No, I have no pressure - I have no pressure," he said.
"I enjoy (being) here. I enjoy also to have the chance to win the trophy.
"But no pressure. Pressure sometimes it is not dangerous but you can lose your good tactical decisions, so I have no pressure, no pressure.
"I want to win all the games. So it's a final, I know that, it's a final away but it's a good challenge - for us it's a good challenge."
City looks likely to rotate their starting line-up ahead of the match.
Mombaerts made four changes to his round one starting XI, with Jamie Maclaren returning from international duty and Richard Windbichler, Rostyn Griffiths, Ramy Najjarine also starting.
Curtis Good, Josh Brillante, Javier Cabrera and Adrian Luna were all benched.
"We tried to find a good balance, tried to win two games - so that's why we have organised some rotation about our starting XI and some were interesting but some substitutes were not effective enough," Mombaerts said.
"So we'll see for the next game, try to play with our best XI at the moment."
