“We’re in for a long, long season,” I bleakly remarked to the mate I was staying with as he shut the lid of his laptop in Utrecht, Holland, on a Saturday morning last October.
The two of us had dutifully set alarms and tuned into a dodgy, pop-up infested stream to watch Melbourne Victory take on Brisbane Roar.
What had transpired was a footballing lesson, with the back-to-back champions dishing out a record 5-0 defeat which consigned Victory to bottom place on the table – a position most supporters couldn’t see the team moving far from.
Fast forward 28 days, and after a taxing 24-hour flight from London I arrived in the Harbour City on the morning of November 10 – just in time for Sydney away. Happily, the team had found a semblance of form after the Brisbane debacle and even managed to notch a couple of wins.
I dragged my weary, jet-lagged body to the SFS that night with a sense of hope, but little expectation. I’d not seen a full match since that scarring experience in Utrecht and had never witnessed, in the flesh, the likes of Finkler, Traore, Flores and Coe wearing the navy blue.
I had no idea what they were capable of. I had no idea how many of Ange Postecoglou’s ideas were properly bedded down so early in the campaign.
The rest of that day – coming back from 2-0 with 15 minutes left to win – is Melbourne Victory folklore, and for those who enjoy their football as a thrilling roller-coaster ride, the season hasn’t been a letdown since.
On so many levels, the contrast to last season is stark. That was when, under the leadership of first Mehmet Durakovic and then Jim Magilton, Victory was early-season title favourites but crumbled under the weight of media and supporter expectations.
With Kewell, Thompson, Hernandez, Allsopp, Solorzano and Rojas on the pitch, surely all they had to do was stay fit and perform to somewhere near their best. Instead, every week the team was supposed to turn a corner but got stuck halfway down the block.
Going into this season, expectations were more moderate. With Ange Postecoglou’s arrival, almost half the squad was turned over and a host of unproven youngsters were set to be relied upon. A mere finals place was the accepted aim to begin with. After the dismal 2011-12 season, I just wanted to enjoy going to the football again and hopefully see some young players develop.
Instead, we’ve had that and more. Last minute winners, goals at both ends, red cards, 32 players used, enthralling ups and sobering downs.
Melbourne Victory matches have yielded a staggering average of 3.44 goals per game (compared to the league average of just over 2.7). No side has scored more goals than Victory, yet only Sydney and Wellington have shipped more.
Melbourne have gone from being a side that struggled to string three passes together to the most fluent and cohesive passing side in the competition. Since the turn of the year, Melbourne has averaged just 24 long balls per game. In opposition to us, Perth, Adelaide and Heart – a club initially founded on an along-the-ground football philosophy – played over 60. Pointedly, it is Postecoglou’s former side Brisbane, with 37, who have registered the fewest after us.
The team is young, naïve and play without the obvious burden which was carried by Melbourne players between the 2010 Grand Final and Postecoglou’s arrival. On four separate occasions Melbourne has won matches 3-2; the inferred aim being to score one more than the opposition, rather than concede one less.
On the flipside, there’s also been the recent 3-2 loss to Perth and a 4-2 reverse in Adelaide. Twice, Melbourne has been hammered away (5-0 in Brisbane and 6-2 in Gosford) only to come out and post stirring wins the following week.
Some days it all clicks, like in the 5-0 win over Newcastle in early March, and you really, genuinely feel that the sky is the limit for this side.
At various stages, I’ve tried really hard to not allow myself to believe in Melbourne as a title threat – we’re too young, I think to myself, we concede too many goals – but just when you give in to belief, they take an unexpected tumble. Our young team has this childlike tendency to tease before letting us down, making a fool of us all. But they’ve always managed jump back off the canvas.
So many players have been thrown in the deep end. During the most recent home match, Melbourne shirts had numbers 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 and 39 on the back – a set of digits more likely to be seen on a Keno screen than a football pitch.
If you’re good enough you’re old enough has been the message. Pain, Galloway, Nabbout, Murnane, Geria, Ansell, Cristaldo, O’Dea and more. Ange has spoken of how, when these boys run out with the white V on the chest, it’s like they don a Superman cape.
Individual stories have added to the excitement. Leigh Broxham has gone from whipping boy number one to an integral part of the 11. Mark Milligan, who infamously enjoyed a successful spell with Sydney, has played so well that we’ve unexpectedly warmed to him – as has Holger Osieck, manager of the national team.
Then there’s Marco Rojas, who has notched 15 goals and six assists. Most days, he alone has been worth the admission fee. Other times, you wonder why a European club would go anywhere near him. Like the team as a whole, he is thrilling and fun to watch, though frustratingly incomplete.
Victory have responded well to injuries and managed to break droughts and hoodoos. Finally, one was put one over Heart. The win in Sydney was the first there for half a decade. A similar streak was ended away to Perth.
“You wanna be hitting that finish tape with your chest out rather than crawling on your knees,” manager Postecoglou said a few weeks back. With Sunday’s jittery 3-2 win across the ditch against the Phoenix, Melbourne have arrested a winless run and will enter the finals series full of buoyancy.
After all the twists and turns so far this campaign – and a finals format which helps the third-placed side – I wouldn’t be writing Victory off just yet. A Grand Final between Melbourne – who finished 8th in 2012 – and the Western Sydney Wanderers – a team not even in existence then – remains a mouth-watering possibility.
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