Hopkins: Victory steeling themselves for finals football crunch
Melbourne Victory find themselves in a position where they could still win the plate or miss finals in the A-League Women but coach Jeff Hopkins believes his side is ready for these crunch moments.
Melbourne Victory finds themselves in a peculiar position heading into the final two rounds of the A-League Women season. But their coach Jeff Hopkins believes that his group, both the old heads and the new, possess the fortitude to rise to the challenges awaiting them.
Despite losing the equal second-fewest games in the competition this season and possessing its longest unbeaten run, Victory’s place in the playoffs remains as yet unconfirmed, with a trip to face the only side that could overhaul them, seventh-placed Newcastle, looming this weekend.
Conversely, if they do their bit and other results go their way it’s also possible for them to end their season with a second-ever Premiers’ Plate. They’d need Sydney, currently at the top of the mountain with a game-in-hand, to lose one of their coming fixtures against Canberra or Adelaide before then downing them in the final game of the season. That would draw the two teams level on points and wins, meaning that it would come down to goal difference – a criteria the Sky Blues currently possess a one-goal advantage in.
Those two scenarios, of course, represent two extremes. The most likely scenario is that Victory heads into the final day of the season locked in a battle for a home final with the likes of Melbourne City, Western United, and the Central Coast Mariners. Be that after a week off because they’ve finished second or because they’ve grabbed third or fourth place heading into a new, expanded finals series.
But Hopkins’ side has traditionally thrived when the pressure is on at the end of the season. For three straight seasons, their place in finals football was no sure thing heading into the last weeks of the season but somehow, they found themselves still standing when the regular season concluded. Twice, they subsequently went on to be crowned champions, hitting the road and downing Premiers Sydney in back-to-back years. The following year they weren’t able to get past the Harbourisders in the semifinal, but they were nonetheless able to upset Melbourne City in one of the best games in A-League history.
On Sunday, Victory and City played out a 0-0 draw at the Home of the Matildas in Bundoora, a game which made both side's hopes of overhauling Sydney for the plate the domain of those increasingly specific hypotheticals explored above. Dario Vidošić’s side had the best of the game and would have considered themselves the more unlucky of the two belligerents to not come away with something but despite this, or perhaps because of it, Hopkins saw some positives to take heading into a cutthroat final fortnight.
“You can kind of see that [resoluteness], even today in the game,” said Hopkins. “Kayla [Morrison, Victory’s skipper] has been consistent at that all season.
“Being in those situations, we spoke about it earlier, that we have several young players that will gain a lot out of today's experience, even though they may not have been world beaters today. I think they can take a lot out of just the experience of that being out here.
“The build-up to the game, the pressure of the game. Some of the subs that came on young girls like Rosie [Curtis] and Ava Briedis – they take a massive amount out of this. These games are worth five, ten games worth of experience for them. So I think looking forward to next week, looking forward to the week after, and into finals, it will be interesting to see who we have and who we get.”
Of course, Hopkins also recognised that there were plenty of areas of improvement to take from the derby, even if it did extend his side's unbeaten run to a club-record nine.
City outshot Victory 14 to ten over the 90 minutes, with six of those efforts on target compared to just the two of Victory. Both sides hit the woodwork throughout the contest – Jamilla Rankin doing so in the 43rd minute for Victory and Emina Ekic responding for City in the 50th – but City finished strongly, with seven of their shots coming in the last ten minutes of the game.
“Below par from us,” reflected Hopkins. “I thought with the ball we were lacking something. Whether it was whether it was confidence... a couple of girls said afterwards that we got to be more confident on the ball.
“A lack of support for the player on the ball. We tried to play too directly and really when we didn't have a direct option, we struggled to keep possession. So something for us to think about, something for us to work on.
“A combination of a couple of things. Proud of the way that the back four and the goalkeeper worked today and kept us in the game. And also just in general, when the players seemed like they had empty tanks, they dug deep and found something to finish the game quite well as well.
“So a number of positives to take out. But in general, I think we're all as a group pretty disappointed with the performance.”
Off the field, Sunday marked the final guaranteed home game that Victory defender Emma Checker will play in her A-League Women career, with the 28-year-old, eight-time Matilda announcing during that week that she would step away from the professional game at the end of the season.
A title winner with both her current side and City – part of the Invincibles side that lifted the trophy in 2019-20 – the Derby represented a somewhat fitting farewell for the 13-year veteran, with both Victory and City keeper Melissa Barbieri presenting her with keepsakes marking the important moments of her career following the contest – tearily, in the case of the latter.
“She's a player that I've tried to try to bring into clubs that I've been at here and at Brisbane when she was young as well,” Hopkins said on Checker.
“There's something about Emma, that everybody knows about Emma. Number one, the type of person she is and the type of footballer that she is. Whatever you get from her or don't get, you'll always get 100% buy-in from her on everything that she does.
“She's a super professional person. She's here at six o'clock in the morning, the first one here does all her work to prepare for training. Everything that she needs to do. She rings me about looking at her clips for the games. Everything that she can do, she will do. It's the type of person she is, she's all in and if she can't give 100% then she'd maybe walk away. I think that's one of the main reasons she has walked away from the game because she feels now she's got to put 100% of their time into something else.”