The Sky Blues could face both Brett Emerton and Vince Grella in next month's mouthwatering tournament at the SFS with the likes of Blackburn Rovers and Glasgow Rangers in town.

How excited are the players for this (July) tournament coming up?
Very excited, we've been hearing about this for a little while but to have it actually confirmed is exciting for all the boys. We may never get a chance to play against (English) Premier League clubs again, so it's going to be unreal to have these guys come out.

For you personally, is there a particular team that you're most excited about?
I think, being Australian, having guys like (Brett) Emerton and (Vince)Grella, Blackburn is a game that we'll all be looking forward to. But in saying that, Rangers is a big club, AEK Athens is Greek Champion as well so all games are going to be excellent. But, being Australian we're looking forward to playing against the Aussie boys.

There are fans that say you should've gone to the World Cup. Does playing in this type of tournament smooth over that disappointment for you at all?
I'm not really disappointed, I didn't think I had too much of a chance, so I'm not looking at anything that happens now to ease the pain, so to speak. I'm just buzzing to get back into training with Sydney and playing games like this, it helps going into our season and it's exciting for the club. But, I guess personally as well to play against these clubs; we're just buzzing about it.

There is a big 12 months coming up for the club, is this type of tournament a good way to continue the high from last season's double?
Yeah definitely, last season was incredible to win the Premiership how we did on the last day and then to win the Grand Final down in Melbourne was unreal and now leading into this season, to play against teams like this - they're big international games so it's a good test for us to see where we stand compared to clubs like this. Even though it's a pre-season tournament, like you saw with the Socceroos game last week, there won't be too much friendliness in them and it will be a good test to see where we are and then a good lead up for our season and the (Asian) Champions League.

 Do you think this will have a positive effect on the A-League overall?
I think so, obviously it increases the awareness of the A-League and especially if we can hold our own and do well against these clubs, with a three-year deal struck to continue this in the future, it'll bring out even bigger clubs and it'll just be great for the league in general.

The team will be pushing into Asia with the Champions League next year, but is this a good way for the club to engage fans from other parts of the world as well?
Yeah of course, I think a lot of fans from all three of these teams, which there are a lot of Greek fans, English fans and Scottish fans will come out to these games and hopefully they like what they see when they see us play as well and that's the important thing, if we can do well against these teams with the bonus point per goal scored - if we can score a few goals and be exciting about the way that we play, then I think it will definitely increase our support and the amount of fans we get coming in through the season.