Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat praised Tim Cahill but described the Australia great as "the enemy" ahead of Saturday's derby.
Cahill has taken centre stage ahead of the clash at the Etihad Stadium, with the Socceroo set to make his A-League debut for Melbourne City.
"Tim's been great for our code and our country, but right here and now, he's the enemy," he told a news conference on Friday.
"We'll get the game out of the way. He's certainly in good enough condition at the moment so he's going to be a threat, no doubt. We've analysed that throughout the week.
"We've got some serious threats going forward as well and that was evident last week that when teams turn the ball over or when we're in comfortable possession, we're going to want to threaten and it'll be no different tomorrow.
"That's why I think it'll be a much more open game than what we saw last week."
Muscat's attacking options have taken a hit with James Troisi out with a broken collarbone and Marco Rojas having only returned from international duty on Friday.
"He'll be fine. He'll be in this morning, we'll assess him, but we've already received reports from the New Zealand FA and he's fine," Muscat said.
"He came off in both games so he'll be fresh."
