Victory in Melbourne 

Welcome to Victory In Melbourne’s minute by minute analysis of Melbourne Victory’s first match of its 2010/11 A-League campaign against SydneyFC. All the action kickoffs at 8:00pm AEST and we will be keeping you up-to-date with all that happens on the pitch.

Note: This page does not automatically update so you are going have to keep hitting that refresh button like mad to keep abreast of what’s going on.

Whilst you are watching the game or following this minute by minute feel free to pass on your comments as the action unfolds, by either of two methods:

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7:18pm: Aren’t we all a little sick of seeing Melbourne Victory play Sydney FC with this being the fifth time in a row that the two teams have met each other. Without a recognised striker after Kruse was a late omission (not that you could really class him as a striker in all honesty) it will be interesting to see how Ernie Merrick sets out the team.

7:44pm: Today is Kevin Muscat’s 37th birthday and he’ll sure to be wishing to expunge the memories of the last time that these two met.

Victory staring XI: Petkovic (gk), Muscat (c), Dugandzic, Sukha, Broxham, Brebner, Vargas, Pondeljak, Hernandez, Berger, Leijer

The other team: Reddy(gk), Ryall, Keller, Foxe, Musialik, Carle, Brosque, McFlynn(c), Bridge, Jamieson, Byun

0 min: And we’re off. Oh great, we have Matthew Breeze in charge which should make things interesting.

4 mins: After a fairly cagey opening on what looks like a pretty poor surface (a combination of the weather and the egg-ball code one would think) Hayden Fox heads over the crossbar from a Scott Jamieson cross. Melbourne will surely need to defend better at set pieces than they did at that one. Seeing that Melbourne is playing without a recognised striker (surely there is someone on the youth team) Hernandez, Pondeljak and Dugandzic are playing as a front three. Don’t really like this tactic as it robs Melbourne of Hernandez’s creativity in the midfield.

8 mins: Byun still probably thinking about that penalty last season dwells on the ball too long and allows Dugandzic to steal and force him to concede a corner. It appears that Vargas’ shaved head has confused the Sydney FC supporters (which doesn’t take much) as they booed his hopeful long ball thinking that it was Muscat who had hit the long ball.

14 mins: Does the start of this season remind you much of the Victory’s first season. Back in that season they started their campaign away to Sydney and followed that with a first home game against Perth Glory at Olympic Park. Fast forward to this season and Melbourne is playing away to Sydney and following that up with their first home game at the new AAMI Park. Back to more footballing matters, Dugandzic is creating a heap of problems for the Sydney defence. On two occasions he has made it to the byline and pulled the ball back. Unfortunately for the Victory, no one has been there to finish off his good work. Melbourne looking much more composed than their opposition at the moment.

20 mins: An update for Jesse Fink and all those other Nick Carle lovers out there. The player of Uruguayan and Chilean descent and that ill-fated rabone has been rarely sighted so far apart from a decent cross that again found Hayden Foxe unmarked. Once again the redhead defender put it wide of the mark.

30 mins: Not much to report in the last ten minutes or so with much of the play taking place in the middle  of the park. Neither team is really imposing themselves on this one.

35 mins: Petkovic in his first official game in Victory colours is quickly off his line to deny the serial diver as the ball is delightfully chipped into his path. And who says I can’t pay those boys in baby blue a compliment. Moments later, Carle picks up the first yellow for the game. Good to see that his time in England hasn’t improved his tackling at all.

36 mins: Goal. A horrendous error from the birthday boy sees Sydney pinch a goal as the Melbourne Victory defender has pocket picked by Bridge only metres out from goal in a monumental brain fade. It’s a simple finish from Brosque to put the Sydneysiders a goal up. Sydney fans obviously loving the irony of the moment but I’m not.

45 mins: And there goes the half time whistle. Considering that Melbourne a playing without a traditional striker it was all going rather well until that Muscat cock up which gifted Sydney a goal. With Celeski, Ward and Angulo on the bench I really can’t see Merrick taking a backward but we really need that striker Geoff Lord was talking about earlier this week.

46 mins: Second half kicks off with Melbourne needing to create some goal scoring chances to put the pressure on their baby blue opponents. No changes at the half for either team. It will be interesting to see what the crowd figure will be tonight considering the other codes that have been in action in Sydney today. Via the television coverage it’s pretty difficult to really to ascertain what the crowd is.

53 mins: Goal. Another defensive error and another goal for Sydney. This time it’s Berger’s failure to clear with a header that allows McFlynn to loop his own header over a despairing Petkovic. During the Sydney celebrations, Billy Celeski comes on for Surat Sukha. It’s good to see him back.

58 mins: That is an extremely soft yellow card to Vargas as he tangles with Alex Brosque, with the serial diver making the most of the slightest of contact from the Victory defender. Resulting free kick crashes into the wall.

61 mins: I really wish Simon Hill would stop referring to this match as ‘The Big Blue’. It is rather a lame name for a clash that will be soon be demoted to our second spot in terms of hated rivals. Is there even the need for a name for a clash between teams from two different cities. It’s not like Manchester and Liverpool have a name for their matches.

65 mins: GOOAAALLLLLL!!!!!! Broxham pulls one back for the Victory with a clumsy looking finish as headed the ball onto his foot and into the goal. Coincidentall

67 mins: GOAAALLLLLL!!! Who says we a striker as Dugandzic brings the Victory back on level terms as he gets on the end of a Pondeljak cross to shut The Cove right up. Shortly after Muscat almost contrives to gift Sydney another goal but Bridge somehow manages to find the knees of Petkovic with the goal at his mercy. The game certainly has liven up as Pondeljak is winding back the clock and exposing Byun’s lack of defensive accountability.

71 mins: In all that excitement I forgot to mention the crowd of 12,106 which is not much better than the crowd pulled by that other Melbourne team on a Thursday.

73 mins: GOAAALLLLL!!!! Celeski puts Melbourne ahead with an easy tap-in after some brilliant lead up play from Mate Dugandzic who in combination with Pondeljak have turned this game on its head. I thought for a moment there that the young winger had wasted the opportunity but showed brilliant composure to take out three defenders and set up Celeski. Sydney looking extremely shellshocked by this turn of events.

79 mins: The mood in this house has just gone up a notch. It wasn’t looking that good fifteen minutes ago but now with a little over ten minutes to go we now need the boys to hold onto the game. Not long after Melbourne’s third goal a voice could be heard from the stands directed at Hayden Foxe questioning his defensive abilities: “Thats what you get paid for!”

87 mins: I lose coverage for a minute or two there as somehow Sydney pulls a goal back. Not sure exactly what happened there apart from Shannon Cole grabbing the equaliser possible due to a Petkovic error.

90 mins: Three minutes of stoppage time coincides with the irony of Brosque complaining about Broxham going rather too easily under a challenge. Mr Pot meet Mr Kettle.

90+3 mins: Sydney almost grab a late winner as Vargas clears a goal bound effort from the goal line and then Brebner uses his posterior to deny Carle a winning goal on his Sydney debut.

90+4 mins: And thus it ends 3-3 in what was a scintillating second half. Muscat absolutely fuming after the match as he questions the free kick that resulted in Sydney’s third goal. My apologies to Michael Petkovic for the third goal as it was a well taken free kick rather than a ‘keeping error. I know a tipped a draw for this one and would have been happy with that result at the start of the game but when we were 3-2 up a win against all odds would have been great.

With Kevin Muscat venting his frustration at the end of Wednesday night’s match against Beijing Guoan, taking aim at everything to do with the ACL it surely wasn’t long before we would get a comment from Ben Buckley. And again he showed why he starting to look out of his depth as the man in charge of Australian football.

Buckley went on to slam Melbourne’s attitude towards the ACL, suggesting if the Victory didn’t want to compete they would be better off forfeiting their place to another A-League side.

and

If Kevin’s comments reflect the attitude of the leadership of Melbourne Victory, then they should withdraw from the competition and let others who want to participate take part,” Buckley said. ”Such an attitude is clearly an impediment to success and Melbourne Victory’s performance in the tournament is reflective of that.

Of course we want to participate in the ACL tournament, why the hell do you think we tried our darndest to qualify for next year’s competition much to the detriment of this year’s ACL campaign. And as I have said before a little support from the FFA would not have gone astray instead of these cheap shots at a team who have had just had a tough run of results in the last month and a half. The comments from Buckley were ill-conceived and untimely and he should take some of his own advice and haul himself over some coals.

Earlier this week in my latest 442 blog I proposed that of most concern to Ernie Merrick and his backroom staff in the lead up to last night’s major semi-final first leg was that in 270 minutes of football so far this season against the boys in baby blue we had failed to find the back of the net.

So it was with some relief that when Nik Mrdja scored the opening goal for the Victory that 270 wouldn’t becoming 360 minutes. And then when Carlos Hernandez found the back of the net (captured so spectacularly in the image above) it looked like we would have a handy two goal advantage heading into the second leg. However, it wasn’t to be as supposed Melbourne Heart recruit, John Aloisi found the back of the net via a massive deflection from Kevin Muscat’s outstretched leg.

So I guess having a lead of 2-1 going into the second leg isn’t better than no lead at all although our serious issues with actually putting a striker on the pitch might be of significance after Nik Mrdja’s brain explosion and the resultant red card after elbowing Shannon Cole. Although the incident happened in the goal right in front of me I didn’t actually and have yet to see any replays. It was a stupid thing to do although to be honest I think Cole milked it for all its worth as he seem to get up rather quickly after it all happened. Also of interest is the fact that the linesman from over forty metres away could spot the incident but the one fifteen couldn’t. Linesman astound me sometimes.

Considering the players missing I thought the team put in a pretty solid effort and outplayed Sydney for the most part. Only when we were down to ten men did they really apply any pressure but more often than not it came to nothing. Now we have to have to wait over two weeks for the second leg with our first Asian Champions League match against Beijing Guoan coming up on Tuesday as a taster filler. Hopefully by the next leg (pardon the pun) Archie Thompson or even Robbie Kruse makes some kind of miracle recovery so we don’t end up playing a 4-6-0 formation.

So in the end three wins from three games in six games proved too much for the Melbourne Victory on Friday night. A combination of injuries before the game (Thompson) and during the game (Kruse) made what was going to be a difficult task anyway and much more difficult especially when there was no out-and-out striker to replace them in the squad or on the bench.

Leading up to the game, we were hoping for the free-flowing football of our last encounter at Skilled Park at it looked like we were going to get it with the opening ten minutes a feast of end-to-end football. However former Victory player, Steve Pantelidis put paid to that with his cowardly hit on Robbie Kruse. From then on, the game particularly in the first half degenerated into a slug fest with Kevin Muscat exacting his revenge with an elbow to Jason Culina’s face. Both players will come under investigation, its just a matter of how many weeks they get.

In the end, Gold Coast’s weight of possession told in the second half with a spectacular goal from Zenon Caravella capping it off. As for Melbourne, not having a recognised striker out there on the pitch resulted in very few chances being created as both Hernandez’s and Angulo’s creativity was stifled by their requirement to play as out and out strikers. Even though Nathan Elasi is not having his contract renewed at the end of the season surely it would be worthwhile having him on the bench in lieu of youngster, Aziz Behich.

Any loss of Muscat will probably effect the Victory more than the loss of Pantelidis will do for the Gold Coast as the two teams compete with Sydney for the Premier’s Plate and the automatic ACL qualification. It sure makes for an interesting finish to the season, much like last season and hopefully it will be the same result.

For more of my thoughts on the game and my ponderings as to why Robbie Kruse always seem to be the target for attention, check out my latest 442 blog.

Welcome to Victory In Melbourne’s minute by minute analysis of Melbourne Victory’s clash against the Newcastle Jets at Energy Australia Stadium, kickoff at 5pm AEST.

(Note: This page does not automatically update so you are going have to keep hitting that refresh button to see what’s going on.)

Angulo gets a start in his debut: Mitchell Langerak (gk), Kevin Muscat, Leigh Broxham, Matthew Kemp (c), Archie Thompson, Rodrigo Vargas, Carlos Hernandez, Robbie Kruse, Nick Ward, Adrian Leijer, Marvin Angulo. On the bench: Glenn Moss, Grant Brebner, Tom Pondeljak, Mate Dugandzic

Newcastle Starting XI: Neil Young (gk), Adam D’Apuzzo, Nikolai Topor-Stanley, Ljubo Milicevic, Ben Kantarovski, Jin-Hyung Song, Matt Thompson (c), Tarek Elrich, Jobe Wheelhouse, Michael Bridges, Labinot Haliti. On the bench: Ben Kennedy, Sasho Petrovski, Sean Rooney, Ali Abbas. Look for plenty of puns with Neil Young in goals for the Jets. Hopefully he has a heart of gold towards the Victory and lets in a few goals.

2 mins: In the week leading up to this game, Jobe Wheelhouse reckons that South Americans (sic) don’t like to get kicked so he’s going to give Hernandez a few.

5 mins: Langerak pulls off a brilliant save to deny Michael Bridges. An early warning for the Victory.

10 mins: Sloppy opening from both teams early on. No one able to really assert themselves on the game.

13 mins: Can anybody explain to me why the Energy Australia Stadium pitch is in such bad condition? Looks like they have been holding tractor demonstrations.

14 mins: Angulo gets wrongly called offside on the edge of the penalty area denying Melbourne are scoring opportunity. Wheelhouse still yet to get near Hernandez to carry out his promise.

18 mins: Kevin Muscat gets the first yellow card of the game for a flying kick on opposing captain, Matthew Thompson. Probably a tad lucky to still remain on the pitch, it was fairly blatant.

19 mins: How about a bit of variety of the free-kicks, sometimes it pays not to take them quickly. Although looking at Broxham’s delivery they be the best option. Earlier the linesman on the opposite side of the pitch also forgets the rule book and calls Newcastle offside from a throw-in.

22 mins: Kantarovski picks up Newcastle’s first yellow card for an act of petulance.

26 mins: Matt Thompson puts the Jets in front after being set up nicely by Michael Bridges. It begs the question why he was left unmarked that close to goal. Maybe the goal will bring some composure into the Victory game, have been looking a little sloppy so far.

28 mins: Langerak denies Haliti from close range. Another example of some poor defending from the Victory as the Jet’s striker was allowed to much space in the front third.

31 mins: Maybe the Jets have Kruse confused with Hernandez, as the former Roar player has been getting kicked left, right and centre.

33 mins: PENALTY to Melbourne Victory for a blatant shirt tug by Kantarovski on Robbie Kruse in the area. Second yellow for Kantarovski sees him take an early shower and the Jets are down to ten men. Kevin Muscat duly converts the resulting penalty to bring the scores back to level pegging.

36 mins: Yellow card to Michael Bridges for a foul on Leijer. One has to think that Wheelhouse must be giving the team talks instead of Culina.

41 mins: Nick Ward gives us a fine example of the Maradona spin on the edge of the area, unfortunately it comes to nothing. Kruse looking the most dangerous of the Melbourne forwards, with Archie Thompson being rarely sighted.

44 mins: Goal to the Jets as Michael Bridges slips in unmarked at the back post. Another example of some poor defending sees Newcastle take a 2-1 lead. Poor effort by the Victory considering they have the man advantage.

45+2 mins: Matthew Breeze blows the whistle for half-time. Some seriously poor defending has seen the Victory give up to easy goals to the Newcastle Jets. Hopefully, Merrick will give them a good talking to in the half time interval and the second half will see the Victory make the most of their man advantage. The debutant, Marvin Angulo has rarely been in the play so far.

Half-time: A-League website has Melbourne having 71% of the possession. Slight exaggeration of Melbourne’s possession there don’t you think, probably more like 60%. Now to make that possession count. The lovely Mel McLaughlin tells us that Brebner is coming on for Angulo and Sean Rooney will be coming on for Bridges for the Jets. If I was a betting man, I would take Sportsbet up on that $3.25 for the Victory to win.

49 mins: Hernandez gets his first shot on target for the match. Unfortunately its straight at the Jets’ keeper.

51 mins: Melbourne defence again gets caught napping by a beautiful Song cross, fortunately for the Victory Rooney blazes it well over.

54 mins: Kemp robs Song blind and then makes a run into the penalty area that comes to nothing.

55 mins: Goal to Haliti (this guys sure likes to score against the Victory, his third in as many matches). Beautiful volley but again the defending leaves a lot to be desired. Also cops a yellow card for removing his shirt.

58 mins: Andy Harper is blaming Melbourne’s poor form in this match on lethargy from possible intensive training. No excuse really, considering they are a man up.

61 mins: Keep your arms by your side Vargas, that should have been a penalty to the Jets. Melbourne’s chance of taking the premiership could very well hinge on Perth’s performance against Sydney FC in the match following this one.

64 mins: Langerak saves a free Sean Rooney header. If that had gone in, it would have definitely been curtains for the Victory.

65 mins: Yellow card to Leijer for pulling on Matt Thompson’s shirt. Can’t see why he’s complaining about that one really.

72 mins: Simon Hill describes it as a most un-Melbourne like performance. It’s looking very much like Melbourne’s last start performance against the Fury so I guess that makes it two un-Melbourne like performances in a row. Whilst a lot of the blame could be placed at the feet of the defence for the result so far the front third is looking extremely unimaginative. Would have liked to see Nathan Elasi get a game in this one as he provides a different option going forward.

78 mins: Langerak gets down low to deny a Song free-kick that was bent nicely around the wall.

81 mins: Socceroo Matthew Kemp makes way for Mate Dugandzic. Who would have thought that after his relatively poor start for the Victory three seasons again that he would get a Socceroos starting spot.

82 mins: I give Abbas a 2 out of 10 for a dive that took place about fifteen minutes after being fouled.

86 mins: A crowd of 6,979 announced. Most of them who would be pretty happy with what they are seeing. Although there is a good Victory travelling contingent and they definitely wouldn’t be happy with they are seeing.

90+1 mins: GOAL to Hernandez! Probably a little too late you would have to think as Hernandez curls his shot around a despairing Neil Young.

90+3 mins: Matthew Breeze blows the final whistle just as Ali Abbas takes another theatrical dive after clashing with Kevin Muscat. A poor performance from the Victory, especially considering that they had a man advantage for almost an hour. Uninspiring in attack and sloppy in defence and as Simon Hill correctly stated, hands the advantage to Sydney FC in the race for the premiership. Two ordinary performances in a row on the road by the Victory, the home fans will surely be expecting a better home performance next week against Perth Glory.

I was very disappointed not to see Kevin Muscat’s name not appear under the Sport category of The Age’s Melbourne Magazine’s Melbourne’s Most Influential People.

For a player who is constantly accused of influencing referees and match officials; getting away murder on the field; having more power than Ernie Merrick; and is despised by every other opposition fan surely would get on the list.

On a more serious note, you would think that Geoff Lord should have been on the list, considering that he has taken the Melbourne Victory from nothing to be the A-League’s most successful team both on and off the field.

Instead we had five out of the eight people have some relationship to the AFL. Considering that the three of the members on the selection panel (Jake Niall, Bruce McAvaney and Peter Hanlon) of the Sports category have some sort of AFL affiliation it’s hardly surprising. Surely you would have Michael Lynch or someone of his ilk on there to balance things out.

The good teams always seem to bring the best out of the Victory boys and Saturday night’s game against Gold Coast was no different. And with the new boys looking to knock us of perch it was great to see Melbourne play some of its best football of the season. Much has been said about Kevin Muscat’s penalty that ultimately handed Melbourne the three points and you can read what I have to say about the decision in my latest 442 blog. No point repeating it here. But I must say, sucked in Gold Coast!

Everyone’s worst fears were confirmed today with the announcement that Kevin Muscat would miss between four and six weeks with a hamstring tear.

However what is more worrying perhaps is the news that Gary Cole confirmed the club is looking at signing another striker, rather than a defender, with the spot left vacant by Jose Luis Lopez’s departure. Hello? We have just lost a key central defender for a number of weeks and we are looking at another striker.

The last time I looked, we have four decent strikers - Archie Thompson, Danny Allsopp, Ney Fabiano and Nathan Elasi - and far as I know all fully fit. In the aforementioned article, Muscat notes that last year he had a similar injury pre-season and returned fully fit and played every game of the season.

However, Muscat is now a year older and has that full season under his belt. Surely it would better for the Victory to sure up it’s backline and not sign another striker of which we appear to have a glut. Are we being a tad deluded to think that we can do with a makeshift central defensive pairing whilst Muscat is out injured.

Matthew Foschini, a Victory Youth League player, has been touted as a possible replacement and personally I would like to see him given a run early on in the season. Merrick has a pretty good record with young defenders with both Adrian Leijer and Sebastian Ryall being success stories in the past. Should be on the bench at the very least.

In the last couple of weeks, the word succession has been on the tips of tongues everywhere. I have also jumped on the succession bandwagon as I have chosen it to be the topic of my latest 442 blog post, which you can read here.

It has been a big couple of days for Melbourne Victory with a series of big announcements. First up, we had the news that Michael Theoklitos would not be renewing his contract and would be heading overseas to try his luck.

This news is hardly surprising considering that the Victory had signed New Zealand international ‘keeper, Glen Moss before the end of last season. Theoklitos was one of the foundation players for the Victory and was a key component of the side for the last three seasons.

His stats for the record are: 72 games, 0 goals, 201 saves and 27 clean sheets. We wish him the best of luck with his endeavours overseas and I’m sure I speak for a lot of Victory fans when I say that we will miss chanting “Theo! Theo! Theo!” when a crucial save was made. “Moss! Moss! Moss!” or “Langerak! Langerak! Langerak!” just have the same ring to it.

My Michael Theoklitos highlights are as follows:

Favourite moment: Theoklitos’ crucial save in the dying moments of the 2006/07 semi-final against Adelaide shortly after we had taken the lead; Least favourite moment: Theoklitos’ brain snap that saw him stamp on Sasho Petrovski’s foot during last season; and the funniest moment was when he let Joel Griffiths know exactly how he felt about him by the use of an appropriate hand gesture.

Secondly, Melbourne finally confirmed the worst fears of all opposition supporters by signing captain, Kevin Muscat to a new three year deal. Only what’s different about this deal is that the deal is an one year playing and two year assistant coaching deal. So in many respects, this year will very much a testimonial year for Muscat although I am not sure how it’s going to work if (or should I say when) we progress from the ACL group stages next year.

Personally I think having Muscat involved in the coaching side of things is a good thing and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him take over the reins as Youth Team coach once he finally hangs up his boots. We definitely need Muscat for another year as we transition our defence to future years without him. It was also mentioned that Melbourne were sniffing around a state league player for their last signing. I would hazard a guess at it being some sort of defensive signing.

Finally, the other big news is that Melbourne Victory has finally joined the social networking scene by joining myself officially on twitter and also starting up an official Facebook page. So if you haven’t joined or started following them already - do so now.