Melbourne Victory skipper Kevin Muscat has not ruled out retiring after Saturday night’s Hyundai A-League Grand Final against Adelaide at Telstra Dome.
Muscat will attempt to become the first man to captain two A-League championship winning teams as Melbourne aims to emulate its 2006/07 grand final win against Adelaide when the Reds were on the receiving end of a 6-0 thumping.
At 35, Muscat will have little left to prove if the Victory cap off a dominant season – in which it has already lifted the pre-season title and won the Premiers’ Plate for finishing on top of the ladder at the end of the home-and-away season – by winning Saturday night’s grand final.
While Muscat is adamant he has not given any thought to his football future beyond the grand final, he has not ruled out calling it quits after the championship decider.
“(Coach) Ernie (Merrick) has tried to speak to me about it a number of times over the last month but it’s the last thing on my mind, it honestly is,” Muscat says of his playing future beyond Saturday night.
“I have got other things I want to exert my energy into before I start thinking about that.”
But Muscat admits the prospect that this could be his last season in a glittering career – which also saw him captain Millwall to an English FA Cup Final (although he missed the final against Manchester United due to injury) – has been a motivating force throughout the season.
“As soon as you tick over 30 it’s always in the back of your mind of when it is going to be your last game,” he said.
“I got to that stage a little while ago where I started treating every game as my last game and I have used that as motivation over the last six to 12 months.”
Muscat is one of six players in Melbourne’s likely grand final squad of 16 aiming to be part of a second Championship success with the Victory with the others being keeper Michael Theoklitos, fellow defender Rody Vargas, strikers Archie Thompson and Danny Allsopp and midfielder Grant Brebner, who is expected to be used off the bench on Saturday night.
The Victory skipper believes the players have been far more relaxed going into this year’s championship decider than two years ago, even though Melbourne heads into the 2008/09 Grand Final even hotter favourites than they were against Adelaide in 2006/07 after having beaten the Reds in all five meeting so far this season.
“A couple of years ago it was like walking into the unknown but this time around we know what will happen,” he said of the grand final build-up.
“Certainly enough of the boys have experienced it (a grand final before) but the only thing we have concentrated on is turning up and performing to our full capacity because more times than not when that happens then the result will look after itself.”
