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Bentleigh Greens vs Melbourne Victory: FFA Cup quarter-final live scores, blog

27th September, 2016
Kickoff: 7:30pm (AEST)
Venue: Kingston Heath Soccer Complex, Cheltenham
Referee: Alan Milliner
TV: Live on Fox Sports 4
Betting: Bentleigh $8, Victory $1.29

Bentleigh Greens squad
1.Ryan Scott (gk), 2.Nick Apostolopulos, 5.Jack Webster,6.Liam McCormick, 8.Wayne Wallace, 10.Tyson Holmes, 11.Dion Kirk, 12.Joshua Brindell-South, 14.Kamal Ibrahim, 15.Ross Archibald, 16.Troy Ruthven, 17.John Maclean, 18.Matthew Thurtell, 19.Kieran Dover, 20.Marinos Panayi, 21.Zackery Demetri (gk), 22.Ryan Paczkowski, 23.Naim Delibajric, 24.Luke Pilkington

Melbourne Victory squad
2.Jason Geria, 3.Scott Galloway, 4.Nicholas Ansell,5.Daniel Georgievski, 6.Leigh Broxham, 7.Marco Rojas, 8.Besart Berisha, 10.James Troisi, 11.Mitch Austin, 13.Oliver Bozanic, 14.Fahid Ben Khalfallah, 15.Alan Baro,16.Rashid Mahazi, 17.James Donachie, 19.George Howard, 20.Lawrence Thomas (gk), 21.Carl Valeri, 22.Stefan Nigro, 23.Jai Ingham, 25.Sebastian Pasquali,27.Alastair Bray (gk), 30.Lucas Spinella (gk)
Besart Berisha celebrates a goal for Melbourne. (AAP Image/Joe Castro)
Editor
27th September, 2016
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The Bentleigh Greens will be searching for another FFA Cup semi-final appearance in the competitions short history, as they take on the Melbourne Victory at home. Follow all the thrilling live scores and highlights on The Roar from 7:30pm (AEST).

Bentleigh had an incredibly dominant run through the preliminary rounds, scoring 17 goals to one across their four games before they began to struggle and just stumble onto the back foot.

A highly entertaining affair against MetroStars in the Round of 32 saw the Greens sneak through in a penalty shoot-out, before just passing Devonport in the last round with an extra-time thriller.

They’re coming up against their first A-League team of the tournament tonight, though, and will need to break out one of the biggest upsets in FFA Cup history to unseat the reigning champions.

Despite the strong start to their campaign, the Greens have been toughing it out in the last few weeks.

Along with the two aforementioned extra time wins, they’ll also be coming into this one off the back of a disappointing 3-1 quarter-final exit from the NPL ten days ago.

On the other side of the park, the Victory have had a very comfortable, albeit short, run in this year’s cup.

A confidence building 3-1 win against the Newcastle Jets in the Round of 32 was followed up by a slightly more anxious one goal victory over last year’s underdog runaways, Hume City.

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Melbourne haven’t played nearly as much football as Bentleigh in since the end of the 2015/16 A-League season, but they’ve come into the tournament with a very strong chance of going back-to-back.

Victory coach Kevin Muscat is certainly not taking the matchup lightly despite coming into the fixture as heavy favourites.

“We’re going to have to perform well to reward ourselves with a win,” Muscat said.

“We go up against a team that’s well organised and well coached, and from our perspective, our attitude’s got to be right.”

Prediction
It’s always going to be hard to go past an A-League side against an NPL team, especially when that side is the defending champion, and they have the competition’s all-time leading goal scorer Besart Berisha leading the charge.

The Greens have proven themselves as serious contenders in the past, having made the semi-final back in the inaugural 2014 competition, and dominated like few other teams could in the prelims.

Victory won’t get a walk in the park here, but they should be able to use their experience and durability to stave off a valiant Bentleigh outfit.

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Victory to win 2-0

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