Melbourne City's marquee man Tim Cahill has called on the A-League to observe the international playing window.

Tim Cahill wants the A-League to observe the international playing window.

The Socceroos' leading goal-scorer signed on as Melbourne City's marquee man for the A-League season with a little help from Football Federation Australia (FFA).

But the 36-year-old has criticised the FFA's policy which sees the A-League continue when national teams are playing.

It means he is likely to miss Melbourne City's first game of the season away to the Wellington Phoenix, with the hosts set to lose up to five players to the All Whites.

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Cahill said it was clear what needed to be done.

"It's not rocket science is it? I'll let the fans answer that question, but as a player we're left in the situation that you'd never turn down your country.

"Every other league in the world stops...it's obvious what should happen."

It had been a hard pre-season knowing he would be out of the first game, Cahill said.

"I've been giving everything these last few pre-season games. It's so important that you try and make an impact on the games now, leading into missing the first one.

"I"m a player that doesn't like missing game, but at the same time the players don't put themselves in that predicament, it's out of our hands.

"I just feel the league loses out, fans lose out and it's out of the players' hands.

"The way you start the season is the way you want to go forward and it will be the same for Wellington. They will want to start with their strongest side and it's massively unfortunate for both of us.

"How do they prepare this week going into the game? They've obviously got to leave out the players they won't have for week one to prepare to play against us at the start of the season, so I definitely feel for their coach and their fans.

Cahill was impressed by the Phoenix when they beat his side 4-1 in Townsville two weeks ago.

He was tipping them to easily make it into the playoffs.

"You could see in that game they were very strong, they've got a good mix of physical and football and they've got that and they will be a strong contender this year, in the playoffs for sure in my opinion.

"I don't think they'll surprise anyone, I think they'll perform well and people will say 'we expected that'."