Wellington Phoenix might have left their home match with the wooden spoon, but all eyes were on Melbourne Victory.
On Sunday, Melbourne Victory scored a 3-2 win against Phoenix to cement their third place ranking.
Coach Ange Postecoglou was happy to see his team bounce back from last week’s disappointment against Perth and come through the match at Westpac Stadium with no injuries.
“We won the game. We were pretty keen on sticking in third spot because I think where you finish on the ladder is still important in terms of your season,” said Postecoglou.
“We lost last week and if we’d gone in (to the finals series) with a couple of defeats it wouldn’t have been great for us. So it was great to get the result.”
Victory led 2-0 with around 25 minutes to play after goals to Marco Rojas and Marcos Flores. But they saw that lead wiped out by quick-fire goals from Stein Huysegems and Jeremy Brockie and it took an 84th minute strike from Archie Thompson to seal the win.
“The performance was okay, nothing flash,” said Postecoglou.
“To Wellington’s credit they had nothing to play for and were quite adventurous and caused us a few problems.
“In the end we got the win and came through unscathed so from that point of view it’s a positive thing.”
Postecoglou handed teenager Jason Geria his first start in defence, opted to rest Billy Celeski until the 72nd minute when he replaced Flores and gave returning Socceroos Mark Milligan and Archie Thompson the full 90 minutes with one eye on Friday’s
elimination final in Melbourne.
“Mark Milligan and Archie Thompson were away for a good 10 days and didn’t really play much so it was good for them to get some minutes under their belt,” said the coach.
“Flores got another hour or so because he’s been out for a while.
“The primary thing was to get through unscathed and hopefully get three points. We did both of those.”
Back in Melbourne already, the team is looking towards its first final game against Perth Glory on Friday.
Postecoglou knows that the team will have to up their performance to survive
“There’s a lot more edge to (finals football). There’s a lot more pressure to every situation. The tempo is usually higher and the intensity is definitely higher … particularly if you’re playing knock-out football,” he says.
Victory play Perth Glory at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne on Friday, at 7:30pm.
