When Adrian Leijer switched on the television in his Wellington hotel room last Friday night, it was a football match he expected to watch.
But what he saw – Brisbane Roar’s 7-1 dismembering of Adelaide United – was more akin to a horror movie that left the Melbourne Victory captain genuinely shaken.
“They were, yeah, quite scary,” said Leijer of Roar’s master class after training at Gosch’s Paddock on Thursday.
“We were in Wellington watching the game and I suppose we started thinking about next week already.”
Leijer and his Victory teammates managed to refocus on the task at hand to notch their first win for the new season, 2-1 against Phoenix on Sunday.
But every moment since has been devoted to finding a way to inflict Brisbane’s first defeat in 32 matches in Saturday night’s clash at Etihad Stadium.
“Defensively we were probably not at our strongest,” Leijer said of Sunday’s win.
“We gave them a couple of chances … and if we give Brisbane Roar those chances we’re going to leak goals.”
“Maybe this week there’s a little bit less pressure on us because we’re probably not expected to win.’
“But we’ll take this in our stride and hopefully use that to our advantage.”
Leijer said Victory will take confidence from a strong recent record against the titleholders.
The teams traded wins in the league last season before Brisbane snatched a controversial draw in their third encounter at AAMI Park when Matt McKay scored in extra time immediately after Roar keeper Michael Theoklitos handled outside the area.
“We pushed them to the limit last year in every game we played,” Leijer said.
“We were the last team to beat them (In the league), we had a draw against them where they scored in the last minute and we beat them in the pre-season.”
“How much you look into that I don’t know, but we’re confident we can push them to the limit.”
