A supremely-confident Archie Thompson can’t wait to take on Adelaide in the Hyundai A-League Grand Final on Saturday night and believes the Reds have no hope of beating Melbourne if the home side is at its best.
But Thompson rubbished any suggestions that his side were arrogant, saying while the confidence in the team was high, there was still a healthy respect for the Reds.
“I don’t think any team in the league can compete with us when we are playing on song,” he said. “If I’m going to go into this game feeling like I’m going to lose then what’s the point of turning up? It’s not arrogance, it’s confidence. That a big difference.”
The most prolific striker in Hyundai A-League history could barely contain his excitement at Tuesday’s fan day at Federation Square. He said he was intent on enjoying this Grand Final more than the 2006/07 which admitted feeling nervous leading into.
“We’ve all prepared very well over the past two weeks. We’re all excited about Saturday, the confidence is very high. We know who we are playing now and we’re starting to work on what we have to do. We’re just very excited,” he said.
“I’ve been jumping out of my skin. I’ve been a nightmare to live with, my wife wants to kick me out of the house. I’m just so excited, and I’ve got that feeling that I had two years ago.”
“We probably didn’t enjoy it last time. It just went so quickly. We are going to enjoy it until kick-off. And we’re going to enjoy it after the game, hopefully.”
Thompson put on a stunning turn in that Grand Final two years ago, scoring five-goals, a feat which is unlikely to be matched ever again. He knows he will be a prime target for the Adelaide defence, but won’t change the way he does things.
“They’ll have their game plan, we’ll have ours. We won’t change the way we’ve been playing all season for one game. Obviously it’s a huge game. We’ve got plenty of confidence. We’ve had some good results over them this year. We’re just hoping to do the same this Saturday,” he said.
He has already admitted that he finds big Adelaide defender Sasa Ognenovski one of the toughest men to play on in the competition, suggesting that he was eating steaks at four months of age. But considering the Victory put six goals past Adelaide over the two legs of the Major Semi-Final, Thompson feels his team has the firepower to get the job done.
“He’s been great for Adelaide this year. He’s a tower of strength in the backline. We’re not going to change our game plan. We’re gonna play attacking football, try to get Hernandez on the ball as much as we can and look out Adelaide!” he said.
“We’re confident, we’ve got a home crowd. We’ve got 50,000 people and it will be a sea of blue.”
