Reid won’t be taking any part in the encounter after his late sending off against Preston last Friday night, but the defender will be travelling to Canberra with the team.

“It’s been a little bit frustrating,” he shared, “I’d love to love to be involved this weekend in such an important game. But I guess the suspension has sort of allowed us to use it as a de-load week for myself and try and get on top of a couple injuries that I’ve been nursing through the first few games.

“[We’ll] try and get that sorted for the last couple of games, knowing that - depending on this weekend’s result - they’re going to be crucial games to make sure we qualify for the next stage.”

Mixed with the disappointment of missing Round 4 is the satisfaction of knowing he prevented a clear goalscoring opportunity in the dying moments of an important match.

“Yeah, there is a little bit of [satisfaction],” he admitted, “I was a bit frustrated at the time when it did happen because you always think, ‘Yes, I took the player out, but I would love to get the ball as well and not give away the foul and get myself sent off…’

“But at the same time, it meant that, potentially, I prevented them from having a really good goalscoring opportunity, and fortunately they weren’t able to capitalise on the free kick.

“[After the match], a lot of the boys got around me and gave me a pat on the back and pretty much said, ‘Thanks for taking one for the team.’

“Sometimes if you need to do that, it’s definitely worthwhile if it means that you can get a point.”

Group C is turning out to be the most competitive group in the competition. After three rounds, it’s the only group where the top two are equal on points, with just two and three points separating second from third and fourth respectively.

“There’s been a few mixed results and it’s definitely made it a little bit more interesting than the other groups where you’ve got a couple of dominant teams breaking away from the rest of the pack,” said Reid.

“But what it does mean is that every game that’s left in the group stage is very crucial, and you can’t really take anything for granted.

“I know we beat Canberra Croatia the first time we played them, but they managed to then knock off Preston, who we couldn’t.

“So, we know that if we don’t play as well as we can, we’ll be in for a rude shock come this weekend. It definitely makes it a little bit more edgy - you can’t really relax.”

Reid suspects the game might follow a similar pattern to the first, where Avondale controlled the ball but had to work hard to create openings.

“… the first time we played, they sort of sat off a little bit and gave us a lot of possession,” he recalled.

“They were very hard to break down, particularly in that first half, so the message [from Avondale coach Jonatan Germano] is just to be … really patient and keep the ball moving, wait for our moments and obviously capitalise when we get into good areas.”

After the trip to Canberra, Avondale will play their final two group matches at home against NWS Spirit and Preston on November 9 and 15 respectively — fixtures that Reid is looking forward to.

“Seeing how well we’ve been doing in this tournament so far, I’d hope that for the last couple of games at home we get a really good turnout [like we did in Round 1],” he said.

“I’ve got no doubt there’ll be a big crowd in our last round, seeing as we’ll be playing Preston who always get big numbers to their games — and they’ll love that they don’t have to travel too far to go to an away game, which would be good for them as well.

“So hopefully we can get just as many numbers there to match their crowd and it’ll be a really good atmosphere.”

Avondale’s final away match of the group stage kicks off on Saturday, November 1 at 1 p.m. AEDT.