Elimination or glory? It’s do or die for Wellington Phoenix and Melbourne City.
Missing out on the Premiers’ Plate, fans will only be content with the championship silverware. Relegated to the middle of the ladder, it’ll be a tough ask for these two to make it to the grand final. Melbourne fans at least are happy to see that not one but two teams have made it into the finals series, giving the large Greek football-mad community there a lot to cheer about.
Victory already had fans in raptures as they hoisted up the Premier’s Plate, after a well deserved 3-1 win against Central Coast Mariners last week.
Now as the team rests before the semi-final, Melbourne City has to fight for its finals place.
Overall in the season, City has had trouble nabbing definitive wins. Phoenix has clocked up 14 to City’s 9.
Most of those wins for Phoenix were thanks to goal machine Nathan Burns, who took out the club’s Golden Boot award and Player of the Year award.
He will be integral in securing a win for Phoenix and City knows this. Coach John van ‘t Schip will be putting the best of the best around him to keep him away from the goal.
While their last five results weren’t anything to be proud of, Melbourne City has shown it’s well prepared to drive its opponents crazy with its strong defence.
While Phoenix’s route to goal might be obvious, Melbourne City certainly doesn’t have that. The team has had 19 different goal scorers this season, a league record. That fact means that Phoenix won’t be able to predict where their goals will come from. Top goal scorer Aaron Mooy will be flanked by Robert Koren, Josh Kennedy and Harry Novillo, hoping to create enough opportunities to get them through.
Phoenix hasn’t been that consistent coming into the finals series, recording one win in its last five matches despite dominating the top of the ladder for a good part of the season.
Despite the lack of momentum, Wellington Phoenix’s skipper Andrew Durante says their preparation has been strong enough to give them a fighting chance.
“Ideally, you’d like to go in with a bit more momentum. But the style of football’s been good enough that if we can just get that ball in the back of the net early on, we’ll go on to win games,” he said to NZN.
“Finals games, there could be a team that’s lost three in a row going in and win it. There could be a team that’s been in form and slip up in that game.”
They at least have the home advantage this time, and are favourites to take the win.
Brisbane Roar and Adelaide United played their elimination round on Friday. The winners of the two matches will go on to face Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC next week in the semi-finals.