Soccer: Auckland City facing tough ask

Coach Ramon Tribulietx and captain Ivan Vicelich plot the downfall of Raja Casablanca during a training session in Agadir. Photo / Getty

Raja Casablanca remain strong favourites to oust Auckland City at the first hurdle of the Fifa Club World Cup in Morocco, despite sacking coach Mohamed Fakhir last week.

New boss Faouzi Benzarti has had a short amount of time with the Moroccan champions, but hardly enough to make fundamental changes to a team that has slumped to sixth in their national league.

Ahead of the clash in Agadir tomorrow, defender Mohamed Oulhaj said anything but victory would be a huge disappointment for the Moroccan people "who are fed up with defeats''.

"We have our hearts set on overcoming this first hurdle.''

Despite Raja's controversies on and off the park, Auckland City coach Ramon Tribulietx believed the home side held all the aces.

"The new coach will know what he has to do, he is an experienced coach and he's been to a number of clubs all over Africa, a number of big tournaments.

"He'll make sure they are ready for this competition. They haven't done well in the league but it's easy to switch over and motivate the players for this one-off game.''

In contrast with Raja Casablanca, Auckland City's preparations for the Club World Cup have been impressive. A 1-0 win over the Wellington Phoenix in pre-season, an ASB Charity Cup win over Waitakere United, and top of the ASB Premiership table after four rounds represent a more than healthy return.

The 1-0 defeat to RCD Espanyol in Barcelona last week left plenty of positives for Tribulietx to pick over, too. New players like Cristobal Marquez, John Irving and Mario Bilen have also stood out.

But Tribulietx prefers to be pragmatic about his side's chances at the new 40,000-capacity Agadir Stadium.

"To suggest we're a better squad than in recent years is really hard to say. But we believe we're in a good space, we have different ingredients, we can play to feet, exploit spaces in behind, so perhaps we're more complete than in the past,'' he said. "In the past few years we showed we can be competitive hopefully this year it will be the same.''

Auckland City's selection options are wide open with the club noting no injury concerns ahead of the clash.

Skipper Ivan Vicelich will lead out the team and said the All Whites' failure to qualify for next year's World Cup leaves Auckland City with a big responsibility in Morocco.

"For the country it was disappointing not to qualify for the Fifa World Cup again. Especially after such a great time in 2010,'' he said. "We have a couple of players from Auckland City involved with the All Whites and the disappointment of the country is now hopefully for us to fly the flag for Oceania and New Zealand.''