Appropriately, Matthews will achieve the milestone against Hawthorn, the club that made him famous as a player. He ran out for 332 games as a Hawk between 1969 and 1985.
Matthews, whose strongest recollections are, not surprisingly, of Grand Final triumphs, prefers to focus on the present rather than the past.
"It's a lot of games being involved and they tend to come and go pretty quickly," he says.
"I move on pretty quickly and don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about what's gone.
"I tend not to look that far into the past and I don't look that far into the future. I am just really enjoying what I am doing at the moment.
"All you can concern yourself with is what you want to do now and I've got no parts of my brain and my being that doesn't want to do what I'm doing."
Following a decorated playing career that featured 915 goals, six club goalkicking awards, five years as captain, eight best-and-fairest awards and four premierships, Matthews moved into the coaching arena in 1986.
Since then, he has won a further four flags. While coaching Collingwood for 224 matches (1986-95), he took the Pies to their first Premiership in 32 years. After moving north in 1999, he has racked up 193 games with the Brisbane Lions and snared a rare “three-peat” of Premierships.
His skill and courage as a player is widely renowned, with the AFLPA naming the league's most valuable player award after him. He was also voted by the media as the game's best player of the 20th century.
Former teammate Peter Knights did not waver in suggesting Matthews is the greatest player he has ever seen.
"I might be biased, but I have no hesitation in saying he's the best player I ever saw. If you asked me to remember some his finer moments, I really can't nominate one or two simply because he was just so consistent," Knights told afl.com.au.
"He was tough, courageous and fearless, but what often gets forgotten is that he was wonderfully skilled and, obviously, so dangerous around goal. He could do anything really."
Knights says it isn't surprising Matthews has developed into the influential coach he has become, given the leadership skills he demonstrated as a player.
"John Kennedy once said that if Leigh played well, Hawthorn generally played well. That's how influential he was as a player. That is reflected, I guess, in the fact that Hawthorn had such great success over Leigh's entire career," he says.
"He was always a leader, right from the time he became entrenched at the club. He didn't really say too much but when he did speak, people listened.
"As he got older, you could tell he was destined to have a career in coaching. When he was captain and I was vice-captain in the days after Allan Jeans arrived, we'd have meetings and Leigh's knowledge of the game was apparent when we'd sit and discuss the game ahead.
"He just understood football and he was able to communicate that knowledge in those meetings."
Since becoming a coach, Matthews’ sides have won 248 games, lost 163 and drawn six. Included in those games are, of course, Collingwood’s Premiership in 1990 and the Lions’ three flags between 2001 and 2003.
Former Collingwood captain Tony Shaw, who played under Matthews between 1986 and 1994, says the way Matthews played the game is certainly reflected in the way he coaches.
"He didn't play favourites at all. I can honestly say that if you didn't perform, if you didn't stick to the team rules or you didn't do what Leigh wanted, you didn't play. Simple as that. As an example of that, even when he made me captain, he made it clear that he couldn't guarantee me a game if I wasn't performing," Shaw says.
"He brought across a little bit of the Hawthorn culture with him when he came to the club in the pre-season of 1986. They'd been very successful when Leigh was playing and he quickly showed that he wanted us to adopt the sort of strengths Hawthorn had as a club and he had as a player.
"He sort of just sat back and took everything all in at the start, so he was in the background a little bit when Bob Rose was in charge. When he eventually took over, you knew you were either going to do it his way, or you wouldn't last long.
Former Brisbane captain Michael Voss believes Matthews will be long remembered for how he helped develop the game in the northern states.
"Apart from his achievements on the field as a player and a coach, what a lot of people outside of Queensland probably don't appreciate is that he's been excellent in raising the profile of the club and the game up here in Brisbane and Queensland," Voss says.
"That's probably something that a lot of other coaches don't really have to concern themselves with, but Leigh has done a great job in building the profile of the game in his time up here.
"So his legacy to the game goes a lot further than just the on-field success and the three flags [with the Lions]."
Despite being involved in football for 38 years, Matthews remains content doing what he does best.
"I've really enjoyed coaching the group this summer. It's been a really good footy team to be involved with, both on and off the field, which has been really stimulating," he says.
"One of the things that adds to that stimulation is that when we started playing games [during the pre-season], we played quite well and that's ultimately what you want to exist for.
"You can be as harmonious as you like behind the scenes, but if you're not playing well on the field, you're not getting the end result."
Matthews becomes only the third person in AFL history to reach the 750-game milestone, behind Jock McHale (878 games for Collingwood – 261 as a player and player/coach and a further 617 as coach) and Kevin Sheedy (864 games – 251 as a player for Richmond and 613 games as Essendon coach).
