A supremely-confident Kevin Muscat has predicted his Melbourne side has the mental edge heading into Saturday’s Major Semi-Final against Adelaide United.
Muscat said the results of earlier in the season, in particular, the 3-2 win over Adelaide at Hindmarsh Stadium where the Victory came from behind, have given his side a confidence going into the match at Hindmarsh Stadium.
“You can draw confidence from past results but this is finals football, and you can expect anything. Hopefully a few of them are still scarred from that game, but we’ve done quite well. We’ve identified how we will go about things and where we can get some joy and hopefully that can happen on the weekend,” he said.
The Melbourne skipper said the experience of the Victory’s successful finals campaign two years ago had taught the players a lot, but that he didn’t need any extra motivation for this encounter.
“I think what we’ve learned is that you can’t go through the motions like any other match, it’s certainly not. Your preparations have to be as normal as possible, but once you step out over that white line it’s certainly different,” he said.
“Mental strength is certainly an aspect that we think you can get a lot of joy from. We like to think that we are a lot mentally stronger than we were two years ago.”
“I look upon it that I don’t need any motivation to win a football match. There’s a bigger prize at the end of the game, it’s not like other games and I respect that.”
“The tempo will be a lot higher, the game will be a lot faster, but I’m looking forward to it. We’ve done quite well in Adelaide in recent matches and hopefully that won’t be any different,” he said.
Melbourne has made no secret of the fact it intends to attack at Hindmarsh Stadium, looking for a valuable away goal which will give it the edge in the two-legged tie. But Muscat said that even if the Victory don’t beat former teammate Eugene Galekovic on Saturday, they are confident they can get the job.
“It would be nice to get a goal. It proved a couple of years ago that it didn’t really matter. We didn’t get an away goal and we still went through. It’d be nice to get the three points, and that’s certainly what we’ll try and achieve. We’ve maintained out best form of defence is attack, we’ve got a superb strike force,” he said.
Muscat said the start of the finals signalled a whole new journey for Melbourne. The aim of that journey is simple; book a home Grand Final and reward the Victory fans.
“We set out at the start of this month, with a big goal to achieve. We want to try and bring a home Grand Final to Melbourne. Our fans certainly deserve it. Our underlying incentive at the moment is to try and make sure we get a home Grand Final,” he said.
“It’s massive. First and foremost for our fans, who have been superb all season, by a stretch the best fans in the competition. It will be a nice way for us to give something back to them, so they don’t have to travel if we do make the Grand Final.”
