Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat admitted he was delighted with the way his battle weary players fought to pinch a late winner in their elimination final against Sydney FC last night.
Coming off the back of two games in the week preceding the match, the Victory coach was proud of the way his players ran out the 90 minutes, praising the work rate they showed to get into the box for the final moments.
“That was a totally contrasting game from Tuesday night but we found a way to win last night,” Muscat said.
“When Adama went through and I could see it was one of us on the edge of the box and it was coming towards Gui, I was pleased because I knew he’d score.
‘It must have been an exciting game to watch but as I said I was pretty proud – three games in six days and I was pretty pleased with the enormous amount of effort to still make the play and still to try and be in control of the football game.”
Muscat also admitted the way they nicked the game late on was perhaps harsh on Sydney but on balance, felt they deserved to progress to the next round.
“I would’ve liked to be 2 or 3 up at half time and relax a little bit but again that’s our third game in six days tonight,” he said.
“I thought we were making the best of the play and I thought we were trying to get at them, we’re always probing so for those reasons I thought we deserved the result.
“The fact that it’s come quite late is hard on Frank [Farina] but I thought we deserved the result just for the sheer persistence and trying to make the play.”
Yesterday’s result was Melbourne’s first win against the Sky Blues for the season, and it has coincided nicely with the Victory squad settling for the first time all season, with only a handful of injury concerns coupled with an extended break from international periods.
The team have been without Archie Thompson, Gui Finkler, Paolo Contreras and Adama Traore through injury this campaign as well as the periodic absence of Mark Milligan and Kosta Barbarouses to international duties but all six players took to the field on the weekend.
“We had a bit of a hiccup a couple of months back but then we got a settled side back, internationals stopped and we had a full squad and that full squad has had to be used,” Muscat said.
“We want to threaten, we make no secret about that. I said a few weeks back that I thought we were playing some decent football, retaining possession, playing in areas that we want to play in but I wanted to maintain a threat going the other way, even when we didn’t have the ball.”
Victory’s next match will be their ACL match-up against Korean side Jeonbuk Motors, and with the way the group has panned out, it seems three elimination games in a row are on the cards for Melbourne, with a knock-out final against Western Sydney Wanderers the reward for last nights win.
“We’ve got a game on Tuesday night and that’s my only focus. It’d be disrespectful to the playing group if my attention weren’t fully on Jeonbuk,” The head coach said.
“We want to make sure that result and that performance on Tuesday night doesn’t get wasted.
“We’re going to go across there and the way the cards have fallen in terms of the goals and the points, we have to win a game for football – I can’t wait, I’m not running around but I can’t wait.”