Out-of-contract Melbourne Victory attacker Marco Rojas said he will decide his future at the end of the A-League season.
Out-of-contract Melbourne Victory attacker Marco Rojas said he will decide his future at the end of the A-League season.
The New Zealand international has lit up the Victory in the 2012-13 campaign, scoring 15 goals to help fire Ange Postecoglou’s men into the semi-finals – and a date with the Central Coast Mariners at Bluetongue Stadium on Sunday.
But when pushed on whether he would be a Victory man beyond this season, Rojas dismissed any hint of putting an end date on the speculation surrounding his contract.
“Nothing’s happening at the moment,” Rojas said at AAMI Park on Wednesday, in regards to his contract negotiations.
“You can come ask me after the grand final.”
Rojas has topped the charts for the most goals from open play this season, with all of his goals coming in such fashion.
The 21-year-old said he didn’t feel the heat to further perform, despite the doubt surrounding his future.
“It’s not that hard, it’s gone quiet for a while so that’s been good,” he said.
“And it’s not that big a deal, it’s not an individual sport so I’ve got to put that behind me and focus on the team. If I think about it too much, it’ll affect my performance and I don’t want that to happen.”
After battling past Perth Glory 2-1 after extra-time in their first final at Etihad Stadium on Friday night, Rojas said he and his team-mates had felt the brunt of the increased work load over the weekend.
But following Wednesday’s session in the pool at AAMI Park, Rojas said he was feeling fresh again to tackle the Mariners.
“We’ve had a pretty light start to the week, I think it’s definitely helping everyone recover. I definitely feel better for it,” he said.
“Because we’ve lightened the load, we feel a lot better. After the game it was pretty tough, and after the past few days, I’ve still been pulling up pretty sore, but today I feel a lot better.”
On their last-gasp win over the Glory, Rojas denied he thought his side were lucky to advance to the final four – despite replays showing Andrew Nabbout committing a handball foul in the lead-up to Victory’s equaliser.
“I don’t think we were lucky at all,” he said.
“We did get the decision at the end of the game, but we had to work hard throughout the whole game to create chances and to get it into the box to get those sort of decisions.
“And then we scored the second goal through something that we’ve practiced all year.”
Graham Arnold’s Mariners are laden with talent, and Rojas said simply focussing on international team-mate Michael McGlinchey could have fatal consequences.
“If you just try and focus on one player, someone else will hurt you,” he said.
“(Danny) McBreen, (Bernie) Ibini, all the midfielders and even their full-backs as well when they go forward, so if we’re just going to focus on McGlinchey, we’ll be in for a lot of trouble.”
