Melbourne Victory head coach Marco Kurz hailed his side’s fight after a 1-0 win over Brisbane Roar in the Hyundai A-League on Friday.
Andrew Nabbout’s first-half goal at Suncorp Stadium was enough for Victory to secure its first win of the season.
However, the attacker came off with a suspected hamstring injury in the first half as Victory held on for Kurz’s first win at the helm.
Speaking at a post-match news conference, Kurz discussed his side’s performance and Nabbout’s injury setback.
on the result…
“I said before the game it will be a strong and a tough game because it’s a good side Brisbane, they changed completely their playing style from last season, a lot of good new signings … for us it was very important to play successful, to get a result and I am happy with the way we played. I think in the first half it started really well and created a couple of chances and problems for them. We can score more goals. Towards the end of the first half we gave them a chance after a big mistake and in the second half we had luck, they had the biggest chance but then we had two big chances from Ola (Toivonen) and Elvis (Kamsoba) and at the end, it was team spirit and mentality to grab the three points and that’s a big compliment for the boys.”
on the defending…
“You must be well-organised. We know that they play a lot of crosses, they play a lot of diagonal balls that means you must be strong in the duels, in headers and also in second balls. We know that we can create problems for them from the back three with our fast runs, also with the diagonal switches when we find our wingers. We can score more goals, but at the moment I’m very happy because we score one more goal and we concede no goal and that was a good reaction from the team. That’s what I want to see from my team, always this kind of fight and team spirit. It was a step forward for us.”
on Nabbout…
“He’s a high-speed player, that means when he finishes the game after a sprint, it must be some serious injury. I can’t say. I expect that we will miss him maybe a couple of games.”
on depth being tested…
“It’s a chance for the other players. We have a big squad. Every player wants to play and now they have a chance to perform. It’s true we are missing not only Andrew and Robbie (Kruse), also (Tim) Hoogland, who are for us very important players. That can be always during the season, now we have to fight for the team-mates to get points in the next games.”
