Vasilevski, 26, and Pace, 24, both made impressive debuts for Victory last season after being recruited from Altona Magic and the Preston Lions in the Victorian Premier League.

Vasilevski became a regular in Victory’s starting 11 towards the end of the season following a string of consistent performances that saw the right sided midfielder adopt a more defensive role.

“I’m rapt,” Vasilevski said. “I had a good second half of last season and I worked my way into the team and worked really hard, and I’ve got my rewards now with a new two year deal.

“I was at Perth Glory in the first year of the A-League and it didn’t really work out for me, so I went into the VPL, did the hard yards and played well.”

Victory Football Operations Manager Gary Cole said Vasilevski had made the most of his opportunity with the club.

“He played 12 games in all towards the end of the season and perhaps reinvented himself in a position at right back, where we had a few challenges,” Cole said.

“He’s done a particularly good job and the club’s done the right thing and rewarded that.”

Pace displayed remarkable amount of strength and courage in the last game of the season against Sydney, playing the majority of the second half with a broken leg, which will keep him out of Victory’s first two AFC Champions League matches.

“Pace came into the dreaded position of central defender for us, which is a bit of a curse, because we lost Daniel Piorkowski, so he came in as an injury replacement,” Cole added.

“He again has done a good job, until he broke his leg about ten minutes into the second half against Sydney.

“He did an amazing job to get through that and he’ll be right for the AFC Champions League campaign after Match Day 2.”

Victory also confirmed their three spots allocated for foreign players in the AFC Champions League 2008 will be filled by Carlos Hernandez, Grant Brebner and Leandro Love, with Joseph Keenan on standby.

“The squad for the AFC Champions League is everyone that’s available, except for Joseph Keenan, he’s our unlucky visa player that misses out,” Cole said.

“We’ve got four visa players in total for the A-League and only three allowable in the AFC Champions League, so we’ve gone for the most attacking group that we can and Joseph misses out.

“There is a small out clause up until March 9, we can replace any of the players with an injury replacement player, so we’ll monitor particularly Grant Brebner and Steven Pace, and if we think there’s a problem we’ll be able to make a change.”

Victory will take on Korean FA Cup winners the Chunnam Dragons in their first AFC Champions League match at Telstra Dome on Wednesday, March 12.