Melbourne Victory vs Adelaide United: Semi Final 2nd Leg Preview

Are you looking for the preview of the A-League Grand Final, to be played between the Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United on February 28, 2009?

If statistics are anything to go by, things aren’t looking good for Adelaide United. They haven’t beaten Melbourne since the Pre-Season Cup. Melbourne has won all of its last 6 games at home. And Adelaide has a 2 goal deficit to make up for; meaning, in short, that it must score at least three times at the Telstra Dome to book a home Grand Final.

Stranger things have happened. Tom Pondeljak this week talked about the Mariners’ come-back last year against the Newcastle Jets, who had won the first game 2-0. Tommy P and the rest of the Mariners dug in and pulled off a 3-0 win to book themselves a spot in the Grand Final (not a home Grand Final of course, because the FFA determined that neither Gosford nor Newcastle were worthy of hosting such an auspicious occasion).

But the Mariners pulled off that feat at home. Adelaide need to do it in front of forty thousand expectant Victory fans.

For Merrick, the task is simple. Keep doing what we’re doing. Take the game to Adelaide. If we produce the kind of football we produced last week, we’ll be right.

Carlos Hernández played for the Costa Rican national team yesterday and is expected to arrive back in Melbourne sometime today. If I were Merrick, I’d keep him on the bench. Wait till Adelaide start getting desperate and committing more men forward, then bring Carlos on to kill them off. That’s how it plays out in my head in any case.

Meanwhile, the Mariners are in the same predicament as Adelaide (though Adelaide gets a second chance if they stuff up). Queensland need only to hold the Central Coast at bay and protect their 2-0 lead, and they’ll have themselves a semifinal berth against the loser of Melbourne vs Adelaide.