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Mehmet Durakovic entered managerial limbo-land in late November 2011. He exited this barren, friendless place yesterday when the Melbourne Victory chairman, Anthony Di Pietro, announced his sacking as Melbourne Victory manager.
Back in late November, the Victory directors held a crisis meeting where the board voted on the whether to retain or sack Durakovic. The vote went 5-4 in his favour. A single vote had saved him from instant dismissal. But, in effect, the vote was a sacking wrapped up as a rigged game of Russian Roulette.
With the gun firmly pointed at Durakovic’s head, the Victory players lifted and put in their best 45 minutes of the season against bottom placed Gold Coast United.
After losing Roddy Vargas to a red card and squandering a two goal lead, Carlos Hernandez jumped higher than he ever had before to nod the ball in for a late winner.
Durakovic was spared, but had to keep firing the loaded pistol.
In that time his team recorded one more win, their third of the season, against a tired Wellington side that had run themselves into the ground in their midweek defeat of the Brisbane Roar.
Three successive losses against this A-League’s benchmark teams over the festive season was the final straw for a Victory board.
But they were prepared Durakovic’s demise.
There will not be another exhaustive search to find the new Victory manager. Di Pietro announced he had a new manager hidden up his pin-striped sleeve who will be revealed to the football world this weekend.
According to reports he will be an overseas appointment. No doubt some who was spurned the first time around and, one would think, prepared to take on the quixotic nature of the Victory board.
“With 13 rounds remaining we believe that we can still achieve success this season.”
Di Pietro declared and after taking a pause for air he followed up with,
“This board and club are not about quick fix solutions”
I don’t envy the new manager. Unlike John Kosmina, at Adelaide United, he will walk into a foreign football environment.
He will also inherit a squad in desperate need of renewal.
Anyone with a semblance of football knowledge could have told you this at the start of the season.
Unfortunately, the Melbourne Victory board sozzled on hubris and unrealistic expectations did not bother to listen.
And it looks like the hangover will be nasty unless attitudes change.
“We’ve had more media coverage this year than at any other time in the club’s history and record broadcast ratings” Di Pietro boasted.
Do Melbourne Victory supporters really need to be told this on a day that their manager got sacked? They don’t care about the “brand” or what Harry Kewell has delivered to Victory in terms of media coverage.
What they care is about the team delivering on the pitch, not a soap opera off it.
The Central Coast Mariners, a team with a much smaller budget than Victory, rested its best players last Wednesday and still played them off the park.
For the “biggest club in Australia” it was an embarrassment.
For Mehmet Durakovic it was the ultimate humiliation.
Being the manager at Victory had sucked, at least he does not have to suck anymore.
Athas Zafiris is on Twitter @ArtSapphire
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