Ahead of ALW finals, Jeff Hopkins wants Victory to remember who they are
Melbourne Victory boss Jeff Hopkins wants his side to remember how good they can be as they prepare for the ALW elimination final against Central Coast, a game Emily Gielnik is racing to be fit for.
After thumping Sydney FC 4-0 on the final day of the A-League Women season to secure their place in the playoffs and deny the Premiers’ Plate to their bitter rivals, one would be forgiven for thinking that the last thing that Melbourne Victory would have wanted to see was a potentially momentum-sapping international break. For their coach Jeff Hopkins, however, this extended time on the training track after their shellacking of the Harboursiders gave him the chance to drum an important message into his team: this is how good you can be.
Making the trek to Leichhardt Oval on the last day of the regular season, Victory put on something of a lesson in clinality against their longtime Big Blue rivals, using goals from Alana Murphy, Rachel Lowe, Emily Gielnik, and Alex Chidiac to take the three points. Though Sydney would win the shot count eleven to ten, Victory put nine of their attempts on target compared to their opponent’s five across the 90 and finished with an expected goals (xG) figure of 2.3 to 0.7.
Arguably, while Sunday’s elimination final against the Central Coast Mariners at the Home of the Matildas represents their first official game of the 2023-24 A-League Women playoffs, that win over Sydney was a finals win in and of itself, given that Hopkins’ side entered the contest knowing that a defeat would result in them watching on this weekend’s activities from their couches.
Instead, they finished third and Melbourne City took advantage of the Sky Blue slip-up to seize the premiership with a 2-1 win over Perth Glory; the Victory coach receiving texts of thanks from Dario and Rado Vidošić in the weeks since – even if, all things being equal, he’s maybe have preferred someone other than City be the one to benefit, bar maybe Western United.
But that was a fortnight ago now, the A-League Women pausing to observe the latest FIFA international window in which the Matildas secured a 2-0 win over Mexico. Inevitably, a break like that can also sever any nascent sense of momentum but Hopkins instead used it as a time of contemplation and visualisation.
“I think we've used the international breaks well this year,” he said. “It's given us a little bit of time to reflect on that performance. We talked about it going in, that we really needed to get some belief into the group. Because we've got an experienced group, we've got a high-quality group, but still, sometimes I feel that we don't actually realize how good we actually are.
“The performance we put in against Sydney was one of those performances you get sometimes where that should fill the whole group with a massive amount of confidence. Sydney is a top-quality side and for us, that was on a different level from how we played this year. The way we played with the ball, the way we closed down, the way we defended in all areas of the field.
“These last couple of weeks have given us a little bit of time to reflect but also, for us as a coaching staff, to get into the heads of the players and say 'Hey, this is how good you can be and this let's let's move forward from here'"
Clearly, there’s something in that, remembering who they are. Victory won back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022 and last season upset City in one of the greatest A-League Women, heck A-League in general, games of all time. They’re a team that has tended to step up in finals. But, at the same time, the Mariners are a team that’s also playing with a lot of belief and unity, too.
In their first year back in the A-League Women after an extended, finance-driven hiatus, the Mariners have become one of the feel-good stories of the league this season (a feel-good story in Gosford, whodathunkit?) on the way to a fifth-placed finish. Under the tutelage of Emily Husband, finished the season with just a single loss in their last seven games -- albeit that loss was a rather comprehensive 3-0 defeat down in Melbourne against City.
Possessing the second-stoutest backline in the competition – only Sydney FC conceded fewer in 2023-24 – and possessing a series of difference makers up front, the side from the Coast does not tend to blow sides out of the water but can and will make an opponent pay for their errors. And importantly for them, they've proven stout foes for their opponents already during the regular season.
A 91st-minute winner from the since-departed McKenzie Weinert saw Victory beat the Mariners 2-1 in Bundoora in late November but they were forced to battle back to escape with a point in the return fixture in Gosford in February, with Emily Gielnik grabbing a 66th goal to cancel out Peta Trimis' sixth-minute opener in a contest in which the Mariners produced 1.7 xG to Victory's 1.1.
“I've been really impressed with them,” said Hopkins. “They're a team that looks united, look together as a group. They're very well-coached. You can tell they are well coached, they're quite a fluid side, and they can jump from one kind of formation to another within games, within moments in the game.
“At times this season, they've caused us a few problems. But also, in the first game of the season, I thought we had quite dominant periods over them for an hour of the game. And I thought as well, after a poor start when we played away, I thought we finished the game very, very well and caused quite a few problems.
“We're definitely not taking anything for granted. They've got a good front four that can score goals, they've got pace and can cause any team in the league a few problems. So we'll be very, very aware of that. Probably their strength is their front four players and we've got a very, very strong back four plus goalkeeper. It'll be an in-form frontline against a really in-form backline.”
Victory will be dealing with an almost complete deck on Sunday, with two notable exceptions.
Though it was long odds she would start given the form Courtney Newbon (a former Mariners) is in, goalkeeper Lydia Williams remains sidelined as she continues her convalescence with an ankle injury. Gielnik, meanwhile, has been waylaid by a calf injury suffered whilst on Matildas duty.
Victory was initially resigned to losing their difference-maker up front for at least this fixture but after performing further assessments in Melbourne are now hopeful she can play some role.
“We've had her re-scanned and the scan was much, much better than we thought,” Hopkins said. “And we're not ruling out for the weekend. With it being a one-off final, we'd probably take a little bit more risk than we would normally. So we're gonna leave it as late as we possibly can. And we'll see how she pulls up.”
“There's always the chance [the injury] is going to happen. She played as much as she could play in the Sydney game but had to come off starting to cramp a little bit. And then you've got the big the big travel after that. And probably a little bit of an increase in intensity with the national team. These things happen and we've got to deal with them.
“I got to say, I was pretty upset when I heard, more for her, and then obviously thinking about us. But now we've had her re-scanned and things are much more positive. So I'm probably in a much better headspace today than I was maybe a week or so ago.
“So we're keeping nice and positive and hopefully she's going to be able to play some part on the weekend.”