Melbourne Victory coach Mehmet Durakovic was proud of his team’s character after they recorded a brave 3-2 win over Gold Coast United with 10 men on Sunday.
Melbourne Victory coach Mehmet Durakovic was proud of his team’s character after they recorded a brave 3-2 win over Gold Coast United with 10 men on Sunday.
In an entertaining contest at AAMI Park, Carlos Hernandez headed in the winner – his second goal of the game – to help Victory into third in the Hyundai A-League.
Victory recorded the important win despite playing the best part of an hour with a man less after defender Rodrigo Vargas was given his marching orders.
Durakovic was delighted with his side, and said the first-half performance was their best of the season so far.
“I thought our first-half performance was the best we’ve ever played. Second half, we dug deep, (with) 10 men and could have scored a couple of more goals,” he said post-game.
“It goes to show to everybody, our supporters, what kind of characters we’ve got in this club.”
“I could not ask for anything better. We’ve got a wonderful bunch of footballers and everybody did their job.”
In a dramatic encounter, Harry Kewell netted his first goal for the club and Hernandez converted from the penalty spot to put Victory 2-0 up before Vargas was shown a red card.
Gold Coast fought back to level through Dylan Macallister’s spot-kick and Peter Jungschlager’s side-footed goal, only for Hernandez to head in a winner.
While he failed to get on the scoresheet, forward Archie Thompson won the first penalty and provided Hernandez with an assist for the winner.
The 34-time Socceroo has scored three times this campaign, while he has also had a hand in four of the other six goals Victory have scored.
Durakovic was full of praise for the 33-year-old after another lively display against Gold Coast.
“Archie was fantastic, he’s been fantastic the last three to four weeks,” Durakovic said.
“His goals have really kept us up there and he had another fantastic game and so did everybody else.”
“Archie plays a big role at this club. He’s been here since day one and he’s one of the leaders. For me, Archie’s been fantastic at this club and he will be fantastic well into the future.”
