Victory in Melbourne 

There is one thing you can say about matches between Melbourne Victory and Perth Glory is that they are never going to end 0-0. They are always full of goals and usually it’s Perth doing the damage, especially on their home turf. So it was good to finally see the Victory take away all three points and break a run of four matches in Perth without a point. Again Carlos Hernandez was the difference, ably supported by Archie Thompson, who probably played his best game of the season. For my thoughts on the game and the fact everyone is concentrating on the “crisis” up north, rather than on the fact that Melbourne and Sydney appear to be slowly taking control of the league, you can read my latest 442 blog.

It’s also that time of the year when I grow some bad facial hair (as you can see above) as part of Movember to help the fight against prostate cancer & men’s depression. Please donate to this worthy cause here.

It was always going to be interesting to see how the Victory would bounce back after last week’s humiliation at the hands of Sydney, particularly against traditional bogey team (if there can be such a thing), Newcastle. And for forty-five minutes it looked like we were going to be in for a repeat of last week’s performance. Fortunately, Merrick saw the light and replaced Ney Fabiano with Mate Dugandzic and switched to a back three, having almost instant impact. There was also the small matter of Carlos Hernandez playing an absolutely blinding second half and being involved in all three of our goals. My 442 readership is probably getting sick of me harping on about Hernandez, so I gave it a miss and wrote about everything bar the Costa Rican in my latest blog that you can read here. Also if you missed the match, you can get all the highlights from my minute-by-minute analysis of the match.

Welcome to Victory In Melbourne’s first ever minute by minute analysis of a Melbourne Victory match as they take on the Newcastle Jets at Energy Australia Stadium.

Brebner in for Broxham and Pondeljak in for Kruse. Moss (gk), Sukha, Vargas, Muscat (c), Leijer, Kemp, Brebner, Carlos, Ney Fabiano, Pondeljak, Thompson.

Boo-boy Ljubo out for the Jets. Kennedy (gk), Topor-Stanley, Song, Thompson (c), Elrich, Bridges, Kantarovski, Vignarolli, Patafta, Haliti.

4 min: Great save by Moss from former Melbourne old boy, Patafta followed quickly by a yellow card for Thompson for a foul on Hernandez. Ben Williams stamps his authority early on.

7 min: Close call for the Victory as confusion reigns in the penalty box. Fortunately the offside flag was up.

8min: Hernandez has Melbourne’s first shot on goal. Well wide of the mark. Good to hear the Melbourne fans in full voice.

11min: Yellow card for Kemp for a robust challenge on Song.

12min: Brebner gives away a free kick in a dangerous position, fouling Vignarolli. Free kick straight into the wall.

18 min: Mark Bosnich in commentary continues to state the bleeding obvious.

22 min: GOAL! Haliti scores for the Jets. Put through by a brilliant through ball by Elrich. Extremely soft goal. Haliti sure likes to score against the Victory. 1-0 to the Jets.

27 min: Newcastle goal ruled out for offside. Moss caught well out of position. Melbourne defence again looking very shaky. After dominating the early stages, Melbourne now on the back foot.

32 min: Kemp thwarts a promising move for the Victory with a bad first touch.

36 min: Melbourne again lucky to be only 1-0 down as they scramble the ball away for a corner.

42 min: Ljubo spotted in the crowd with a blonde. Very reminiscent of his year at the Victory.

45 min: Now that Ben Kennedy has got himself a contract extension maybe he can afford to get himself a decent haircut.

45+1 min: Yellow card for Brebner for a cynical foul on Vignarolli.

45+2 min: And Ben Williams blows his whistle for the end of the first half. After what was a promising start for the Victory, Newcastle dominated the remainder of the half. Melbourne’s defence has been looking at sixes and sevens for the second week in a row and will need to improve in the second half if Melbourne is to get back into this one as Newcastle look dangerous every time they go into attack. In contrast, Melbourne has rarely threatened the Newcastle defence.

Melbourne make their move. Ney Fabiano off for Mate Dugandzic. Melbourne definitely looking for a more mobile attack to test the Jets defence. Hopefully it has the same effect as it did against Adelaide a few weeks back. Melbourne switching to a 3-5-2 formation.

45 min: Second half underway.

49 min: Thompson shoots over the crossbar after some good lead up play from Dugandzic. First decent attempt for the match.

55 min: Free kick to Melbourne right on the edge of the penalty box. Extremely close to being a penalty. Hernandez’s free kick goes straight into the wall. Things looking a lot more promising for the Victory in the second half.

59 min: Patafta off for Ali Abbas.

62 min: GOALLLLLLLLLLLL! to the Victory. Archie Thompson brilliantly lobs Kennedy after getting onto a great long ball from Hernandez. 1-1.

65 min: Moss pulls off a fantastic save to deny Haliti. Looked like a handball by Bridges there in the earlier play.

66 min: Broxham on for Sukha and almost straight away gives away a penalty for a handball of his own from the resulting corner. Fortunately for the Victory, both the referee and linesman failed to spot it.

72 min: Broxham hits the side netting looking to score from the impossible angle. Just as Melbourne were looking much more assured at the back, Haliti hits the crossbar with header.

74 min: Handbags at ten paces between Bridges and Leijer. Bridges somehow gets the free kick. Abbas goes near post and fails to put Moss under pressure.

78 min: Yellow card for D’Appuzzo for a foul on Brebner.

80 min: GOALLLLLLLLLLLL! Pondeljak gets on the end of a rebound after a long range effort from Hernandez comes crashing back off the crossbar after beating Kennedy to put Melbourne ahead 2-1.

81 min: Moments after scoring, Pondeljak comes off limping to be replaced by Nathan Elasi making his A-League debut. Not his first game for the Victory as he did make some appearances during our first ACL campaign.

84 min: GOALLLLLLLLLLLL! Hernandez makes it three for the Victory after tucking one between the legs of Kennedy. Hernandez has been on fire in this second half being involved in all three Melbourne goals.

90 min: Crowd figure of 6,029. Where have all the Newcastle fans gone? It’s not like their team plays shit football.

90+4 min: And Ben Williams blows the final whistle and Melbourne comes away with a 3-1 victory over their bogey team. Nice way to bounce back from last week’s disappointing loss against Sydney. You would have to say the introduction of Mate Dugandzic for the second half was an inspired substitution from Ernie Merrick. The Victory attack looked much more potent in the second half with his presence. Here’s hoping that Merrick persists with the 3-5-2 formation against Adelaide next week.

Whilst it’s good news for us, it’s disappointing to see that Carlos Hernandez has missed out on a call-up for Costa Rica’s final round of all-important World Cup qualifiers. Hopefully it spurs him onto even greater things for the remainder of the season because there is nothing more than I would like to see than him play in South Africa, that’s if Costa Rica qualify of course. It’s a win-win situation for all. I would certainly be buying a Costa Rican shirt with Hernandez on it if they both make it.

No question about it, better than anything that Robbie Fowler has or will offer this season. Quite frankly, best goal in the history of the A-League. Not that I am biased at all.

There wasn’t much else to cheer about that night against Juventus (unless you were a Juventus fan) but this Carlos Hernandez goal was a worthy effort. And guess who was in goals - Gold Coast United’s Jess Van Stratten. Just a friendly reminder that’s all.

The above photo was taken just after Carlos Hernandez scored his stunning free kick to give Melbourne the early lead against Wellington Phoenix. It was absolute chaos and what followed was the loudest Carlos Hernandez chant that I have ever heard in the South End (which in reality is not saying much as I have only been standing there for three games, but it pretty impressive nonetheless). It also seem to kick our counterparts in the Northern Terrace into action and their chanting could be heard clearly from our vantage point.

However, that was as good as it got for us Melbourne fans as what followed was one of the most insipid performances that I have ever seen from a Victory team. To be dominated so much by an opposition team on our home turf was just plain depressing. It also paints a bleak picture of what the remainder of the season may look like without both Billy Celeski and Danny Allsopp.

The poor performance where that weren’t that many positives made it hard work to write my weekly blog for Australian FourFourTwo, so I got all nostalgic and went to my happy place. You can read it all here.

Coincidentally this is 200th post that I have written for Victory In Melbourne after approximately 850 days in existence. That’s a post every 4.25 days, which is a considerable slowdown considering that my first 100 posts only took 242 days to complete. Maybe now I am just a little more selective about my subject matter.

Saturday night’s game will certainly go down as one of the most exciting games we have seen so far in the short history of the A-League. And that’s just on the quality of the goals alone with five of the six scored being absolute crackers.

But the game was also the story of how Melbourne’s makeshift central pairing was unable to deal with the combined presence of van Djik and the slippery fish, Henrique. Matthew Kemp is probably one of the best right backs going around but as a central defender he looks a lot less assured.

Merrick’s other gamble of playing Nick Ward as Kemp’s replacement also didn’t work. And much like Fred’s exploitation of Greg Owens in the 2006/07 Grand Final, Henrique was too much of a handful for Henrique and left Kemp exposed too many times for everyone’s liking. From what we saw on Saturday night, Surat Sukha needs to be given a starting spot and a proper central defender is needed to shore up the currently leaky defence.

One person that seemed to be copping a lot from the crowd, was former Wellington Phoenix custodian, Glenn Moss, with the Victory faithful seeming to blame him for all our goals. This is extremely poor form by large sections of the crowd and in my latest blog 442 post I take them to task.

Carlos Hernandez, what else is there to say apart from - “We have been two years for you to score from a free kick!”

The worst kept secret in Melbourne Victory was finally confirmed today with the signing of Carlos Hernandez on a three year deal, thus making me one of the happiest Victory fans going around. It also means that the Victory will be getting a shirt purchase out of me for the upcoming season.

Also announced today was the signing of Thai international defender, Surat Sukha, from Chonburi FC (former home of Ney Fabiano) to bolster our weakened backline. It’s certainly a historical day for Melbourne Victory as they pay their first significant transfer fee and sign the A-League’s first player from South East Asia. Bring on the new season I say.

When word got out that Melbourne Victory was calling a press conference, it was with anticipation that maybe it was to announce the signing of Carlos Hernandez. However, it wasn’t to be and instead they announced a new major sponsor and an exhibition match against Fulham whilst showing off the new kit for the upcoming season. So all in all, it wasn’t such a bad press conference after all.

First off, the new major sponsor is to be Intralot Australia, who have signed on for two years with the option of a third. Intralot Australia is a subsidiary of Intralot S.A., who describe themselves on their website as:

INTRALOT S.A., a public listed company, is the leading supplier of integrated gaming and transaction processing systems, innovative game content and sports betting management, to state-licensed gaming organisations worldwide.

With presence in over 40 countries across five continents, with 4.200 people and revenues of over (AUD) $ 1.36 billion for 2007, INTRALOT has established its presence on all 5 continents.

It’s broad portfolio of products & services, its know-how of Lottery, Betting & Video Lottery operations and its leading-edge technology, give INTRALOT a competitive advantage which contributes directly to customers’ efficiency, profitability and growth.

Beginning operations in 1992 and floating on the Athens Stock Exchange in 1999, INTRALOT has grown to be the fourth largest company in Greece with a market capitalization of approximately (AUD) $3.7 billion.

Intralot Australia certainly doesn’t have the prestige of previous sponsor, Samsung and one could even consider it a little in bad taste considering last year’s events, it certainly is a sign that Melbourne can still attract a sponsor with an international flavour.

As for the new strips, the away kit is the biggest departure from its previous incarnation and looks quite impressive with the blue ‘V’ on a white background. The home kit is only a slight variation on last year’s one with the addition of some stripes on either side of the shirt. The stripes also make an appearance on the away kit. I’ll certainly be looking to purchase the new strip and hopefully I’ll putting Hernandez and No.16 on the back.

Also announced today, although not at the press conference was that Melbourne Victory would be making a return to Olympic Park to play in a Bushfire Appeal Match against an All-Star VPL side next Tuesday 12th May. Kickoff is at 7:30pm. It will be great see the Victory in action again and it will also be a chance to check out that new strip and in all the name of a good cause.