Victory midfielder Grant Brebner has lamented his team’s inability to capitalise on its chances as it went down 4-2 on penalties to Sydney FC in Saturday night’s Hyundai A-League Grand Final.
Having suffered the pre-match setback of losing Tom Pondeljak to a hamstring injury the hosts were then flattened when they lost star striker after just a dozen minutes to a serious knee injury that is set to sideline him for several months.
But while Melbourne responded to that ‘huge blow’ and then did so again later as Adrian Leijer cancelled out Mark Bridge’s earlier goal, Brebner and his team-mates couldn’t quite score again during the final nine minutes of normal time and then 30 minutes of extra time.
Leijer went within millimetres of doubling up with another header and Aziz Behich also had a chance before missing his opportunity as Clint Bolton saved, and Brebner was still trying to put his finger on how his team lost after dominating the closing stages of normal time.
“It’s not really sunk in yet,” Brebner said. “We just sat and witnessed a game that I felt that we did enough to win.”
“We switched off at a crucial time … we got punished for it (with a goal), we came back into the game well but toss a coin we’ve lost on penalty kicks.”
Arguably Victory’s best player in the loss, Brebner ‘would’ve swapped it (playing well) for a winners’ medal’, and was also shattered for the club’s fans.
“Our fans were unbelievable tonight, the noise of the crowd, I’m probably more gutted for them than I am for myself because they’ve been fantastic all season and we’ve let them down a bit tonight,” he said.
And while skipper Kevin Muscat missed his spot kick, sending Bolton the wrong way but striking the left post with his attempt, Brebner and Leijer were quick to back both Muscat and Marvin Angulo, who also missed a penalty.
“(It’s) devastating that he missed but there’s nobody that’s disappointed in Musky at all, Musky’s pulled this club along for four or five years now,” Brebner said.
“He’s been fantastic for us and on the night it hit the post, (it was) millimetres out.”
“We are a tight unit, we do things together, it’s a team sport (so) if one of them misses we all miss, that is why this group is so good and why we were in the grand final,” Leijer added.
