Wow, what a game last night!

It was one of the best games I've ever seen an Aussie club team play in. Credit to Victory for winning such a high quality game against such tough, high quality opposition as Kawasaki Frontale.

Every MV player on the pitch played well apart from Berisha. ATM he is hopelessly out of form and Muscat needs to drop him in the HAL. Berisha has totally lost his spatial awareness in terms of timing runs which are not offside. This has adversely effected his confidence.

I didn't really look at Nigro closely either.

I'm not sure Valeri was missed? Brox did a sterling job in midfield. Tasmanian tyro, Josh Hope, was a decent replacement when Brox went to LB.

Antonis is also really starting to hit his straps and play a Milligan type role for Victory. He needs to stay at Victory for a few seasons to play regular football and to hopefully undertake another ACL campaign next year.

All japanese teams are great at possession  and high energy  pressing . But like their  national team  their lack of towards kills them. Most of their golden boot winners are brasillians. 

Muscat made a comment about watching a lot of J league games and found a very common style. Namely, when winning back possession teams then step up slowly, because there is little pressure by the opposition. So he ensured that MV were aggresssive in  winning back possession and thereby pressuring the Japanese players in a way they arent used to. This exposes at least some of the excellent background work done by MV in preparing for the game.