A strong start today could be key to victory on Sunday for Southern United.
The team remains a title chance heading into the final weekend of the Futsal Super League in Wellington.
It begins with two games today, before another two tomorrow to complete its round-robin.
The semifinals and finals are on Sunday.
Making those semifinals is the goal and today's games will vital.
Southern holds a two-point lead over Auckland in fourth place and it can extend that to five when the two sides meet at 11am.
If Auckland loses to Capital and Southern beats lowly Bay of Plenty, it would leave Southern a lock for the top four.
That would give it flexibility for Saturday's games, giving it the option to rest players before the finals.
"You have the ability to decide how you want to see out the weekend," Southern coach Darren Hart said of the importance of today's games.
"We'll see. We're going to go great guns in the first day, push hard and know if we can get it all right we can decide what to do about the rest of it on the Saturday and not worry about
it too much.
"But if we're starting to fall behind the curve on the Friday then we'll have to push ourselves in all of those games on the Saturday to get back into it."
If the team falls into that trap, then there is potential for the players to become tired for the final.
Six games in three days was a lot and being able to reduce workloads of the top players could be key, Hart said.
The side was still building, although was slightly behind its normal progress due to the shorter pre-season.
That was the same for every team though. It had produced a more hectic, less controlled league.
Southern will be without experienced goalkeeper Fraser Hunter, who has left for the United Kingdom.
Kasam Ali and Rahan Ali were both unavailable as well, although Ben O'Farrell had overcome an injury scare to be fit.
Southern begins at 11am against Auckland, before playing Bay of Plenty at 5pm.
It then plays Waikato at 1pm on Saturday and Northern at 8.30pm.
The semifinals will be on Sunday morning, followed by the final at 12.30pm.
