Melbourne Victory attacker Marco Rojas spoke of his pride at securing progression to the AFC Champions League Round of 16 on Friday morning.
Victory defeated FC Seoul 2-1 in a must-win clash at Doha’s Education City Stadium to secure second place in Group E.
Rojas opened the scoring for Victory in the 5th minute before Jake Brimmer added a second goal, which turned out to be the winner, in the 22nd from the penalty spot.
The challenging fixture in Qatar made the achievement even better, according to Rojas.
“We had a lot of games in a small amount of time and we were coming off pre-season training,” he said immediately following the match.
“For us, we knew it was going to be difficult so we’re very happy and very proud to be going through to the next round.”
WATCH: Marco Rojas opens the scoring for Victory
GOAL! A lovely finish by Marco Rojas to give us the lead in Doha #MELvFCS 1-0 #ACL2020 @FOXFOOTBALL pic.twitter.com/BJP0YxPTN7
— Melbourne Victory (@gomvfc) December 3, 2020
Victory’s fast start proved to be the difference against a strong opponent from the K League 1.
Rojas admitted it certainly wasn’t easy to edge FC Seoul out over the 90 minutes.
“FC Seoul was very good, it was a tough challenge and we knew that it would be coming here.
“Because of our fantastic start, we had the two goal advantage and that let us hold on until the end.
“We had to fight really hard, that was a very difficult game.”
Up next
Melbourne Victory will now face Ulsan Hyundai in a one-off Round of 16 clash on Monday, December 7. Kick-off at the Education City Stadium will be 1:00am AEDT.
