Gold Coast United coach Miron Bleiberg has heaped more criticism onto Melbourne Victory’s physical playing style, accusing them of waging a war against his side in Sunday’s 2-0 win.
In the wake of Kevin Muscat’s horror tackle on Adrian Zahra in last week’s Melbourne derby, which saw the skipper suspended for eight weeks, Victory endured wide-ranging criticism of the club’s alleged culture of physicality.
Bleiberg re-iterated those concerns after what he termed a ‘brutal’ match at AAMI Park, saying that while he accepted his side had been outplayed, Melbourne had all-but crossed the line in terms of the physical pressure they put on Gold Coast in the first half.
“There’s no question that Melbourne Victory deserve to win, but I think the game was bordering between physical game and I don’t know what, I don’t want to use the word dirty, but on the border in between. They stretched it to limit,” he said.
“I don’t mind to lose a football game, but what happened today was a war in the first half. It wasn’t the A-League the way I want to see it.”
Bleiberg took particular exception to a tackle from Grant Brebenr on van den Brink in the opening minutes of the game which forced the in-form Dutchman from the ground.
“We had Bas ven den brink, the last few weeks, he’s our hero, he’s giving assists, he’s scoring goals and he was fixed in the first 60 seconds, he was out of the game,” Bleiberg said.
“I am annoyed, I came here to play with my game plan and after seven minutes I lost one of my best players and we have to reshuffle.”
Gold Coast captain Michael Thwaite, a former Victory player, backed his coach’s assessment of the game and said that such a physical approach was beneath his team.
“In two years, we’ve never lowered ourselves to play that physical style. We’ve always tried to maintain a footballing culture in our club. We won’t lower ourselves to play brutal like that. We need to learn a little from every team, learn a bit from this loss tonight,” he said.
Bleiberg is known for his calculated media outbursts and with the two teams likely to meet again in the first week of the finals, Sunday’s rant was timed to cause maximum hurt to a Victory club stinging from a week of off-field criticism.
“I’m not proud to put salt on the wounds of what has happened over the last few weeks, but maybe it’s affected them,” he said in reference to the Muscat furore.
He defended his right to use whatever means possible to ensure that the next time they meet, the game is policed effectively.
“At the end of the game, they got two yellow cards, one for dissent. That’s Victory’s experience, they know the job, they can play football, but they also know how to win games if they are allowed to win it that way,” he said.
“But I will do everything in my power, including propaganda before the game, including referee, everything, to ensure they will get yellow cards in the future if they play like this,” he said.
