A lot has been said about Melbourne’s 1-1 (4-3) victory against mighty Juventus’ mostly youth contingent and there’s a lot of contrasting opinions floating around about the significance of the win.
Well maybe it’s just better to put Saturday nights match-up against Juventus in perspective by reflecting on the last time Melbourne Victory played Juventus.
So let’s take a stroll back to May 2008!
Juventus sends it’s youth team down under to play… Melbourne’s youth team.
Way back in ’08 when Victory was just two seasons old and the side littered with NSL refugees, VPL youth upstarts and the odd veteran or Costa Rican, copped an absolute thrashing at the hands of the Juventus youth team by 4-1.
Melbourne was made to look naive on a number of occasions during a night where a bit of class out wide and some solid defence showed a massive class divide between the young Victory and the well established European giants.
Juventus where able to flick in cross after cross from wide position which the attack managed to latch onto on four occasions, twice getting in behind and twice from headers.
Victory’s sole goal was an absolute rocket from club legend Carlos Hernandez.
Now fast forward to Saturday night where Victory is collecting a narrow win (albeit by penalties) to upset La Vecchia Signora.
So what’s the major difference?
Well closing down for one thing, not just charging up the pitch but keeping shape while interrupting the ball carrier. This prevents balls from wide and over the top buy forcing the opposition to take shorter options which breaks down the play. Melbourne was only caught out once in the match and that was for the goal.
No Juventus player was able to get a clear look at goal, sure they scored a speculator from way out at halfway but they never got a good look in the penalty box. There was always a defender between their players and Lawrence Thomas they never got goal side of our defence.
These aspects together frustrated Juventus and they resorted to taking pot shots from outside the penalty box.
But the major difference and the reason why Melbourne was good for the win was class. Victory maintained their composure throughout the contest and it paid off, all the way to the shootout.
It’s these aspects of improvement that have taken place for all A-League teams, with competitions like AFC Champions League, International Champions Cup and the odd match up here and there against European opposition that have forced the league to adapt to compete.
Massimiliano Allegri was right to state that Melbourne had come of age and Gerald Asamoah was right to be surprised. They probably thought they would get a repeat of the result in 2008.
Instead they faced a seasoned club that was more than willing to play football.
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