Melbourne Victory manager Kevin Muscat was ecstatic after his side sealed both the three points against the Central Coast Mariners and the 2014-15 Premiers Plate, the first piece of silverware for the club in over five years.
Muscat was in a jovial mood post-match, “over the moon” with the result and and labelling the achievement as a “massive night for the football club.”
“To have achieved this with that group, it’s certainly special. A massive night for the football club, it’s been far too long. It’s been a long wait for a trophy,” he said.
“Winning championships are the biggest nights for a football club.”
“I’ve always maintained that what we’ve done over these 27 games is put ourselves in a good position. We won the most games, scored the most goals, conceded the least goals. It’s a massive achievement.”
Despite the success of the club, Muscat was adamant that the job remained far from over with a tough A-League finals campaign to come, but was very strong in savouring the moment as a football club.
” [We’re] Not naive of the task ahead of us in a couple of weeks,” he said.
“The definition of celebration is far different from when I won them as a player here. The players are so professional in that sense. It’s important they go away with their families and enjoy the night but we’ll be in tomorrow morning and preparing, as usual.
“We’ve got things to do. I won’t give them days off. We’ll give them enough days off in a professional sense to ensure they’ve recovered.
“The fact we haven’t got a game next week, I dare say we’ll probably train a little bit harder this week.”
Muscat said the experience of winning silverware as a manager rather than a player was a very different one, and was adamant that his side does not fear anyone in the lead in to finals.
“[The] Easiest way to differentiate the two [managing and playing] is when your playing you can physically feel what your output is, but as a coach it isn’t measured if you like because no one can see it. I’ve certainly asked a lot more from my staff and myself.”
“We’ve all seen in finals football that you’ve got to respect everyone.”
Muscat also confirmed Jason Geria would be in available to play in a fortnight after recovering well from injury, while Fahid Ben Khalfallah would be primed for the first final despite being named as a substitute, due to the risk of suspension, despite all his efforts to convince the coach to let him on. Khalfallah was only one yellow card away from an automatic suspension.
The fan favourite was in a cheeky mood trying to force Muscat’s hand in bringing him on at the death, undressing out of his tracksuit much to the crowd’s delight, handing his own substitute card to the fourth official and even approaching Muscat with goalkeeping gloves.
It was fair to say that Muscat was not having a bar of it but admitted it was difficult in keeping Khalfallah out.
“It was a tough one. He’s made a massive contribution and to tell him he wouldn’t be involved was difficult,” he said.
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