Adelaide United coach Carl Veart has urged his charges to recapture their pre- international break form when they return to action against Brisbane Roar.
United won three games on the bounce, scoring nine goals in the process, before the A-League Men season paused for the start of the World Cup in Qatar.
The Reds travel to Queensland to take on Brisbane in Redcliffe on Friday night.
"It's a sort of restart. We started slowly at the beginning of those six games but then hit our straps just as we hit the break so it's important we pick up from where we left off," Veart told reporters on Thursday.
"We've had a real focus on that at training, especially the last week when we've looked at a lot of video from what we did well before the break and that's what we want to get straight back to."
Socceroos gun winger and Reds skipper Craig Goodwin will play a role but Veart planned to wait until game day to assess whether that would be as a starter or off the bench.
"He's had quite a few big highs over the last couple of weeks and with travel and the heat of playing in Qatar as well takes a toll," he said.
"We've let him get as much recovery as he can into him and then we'll make that assessment tomorrow."
Veart was confident the Reds had tuned up enough to hit the ground running.
"It's always difficult when you've got such a long time between games but we went and had a friendly game last week in Melbourne with Western United which really focused the players for this week," he said.
"It got them back into their routine of playing a game and recovering and then training and preparing for the next game."
Full-back Harry van der Saag had meniscus surgery on Wednesday and will miss three months while Ben Warland (knee) is also sidelined.
Nestory Irankunda returns to the squad after he was dropped for the Victory game for disciplinary reasons while Josh Cavallo has been named to return from an enlarged spleen.
Long-term injuries Zach Clough and Bernardo remain sidelined.
