The Melbourne Victory curse struck Adelaide United yet again in an A-Leagues final.
It is safe to say that the Reds are cursed when it comes to taking on Victory in a finals matc.
The men are 0-7 against Victory in finals, and now the women have kick started their finals record with a painful 2-1 loss to the Melbourne club.
It was a disappointing display from the home side, who came into the elimination final full of confidence, whilst the visitors came into the clash with their heads down in a slump.
Jeff Hopkins’ side had been struggling after going winless in all five of their final regular season games.
And life didn’t look to be getting any easier as the task ahead was an away game at Coopers Stadium – the same place they lost to the Reds 3-0 just three weeks ago.
“We were disappointed with a few things in our last performance against Adelaide,” Hopkins said.
“And one of them was our ability to really compete.”
And after the first 45 minutes of the elimination final, Victory were lacking the ability to compete again.
“They (Adelaide) were generally on top in the first half,” Hopkins said.
“We played a lot of short, precise football but we didn’t really get in behind Adelaide.
“We didn’t penetrate.”
But the second half had a different feel to it, as this Victory side flipped the switch on their last five weeks and finally took control of a game.
“In the second half we penetrated right from the word go and that put a completely different complexion on the game,” Hopkins said.
“We looked really dangerous and because of the threat we had them under all the time they were less confident and likely to go forward.”
Victory now look towards the preliminary final against Melbourne City with renewed confidence.
“We looked at the way that we’ve been trying to play in the last few weeks,” Hopkins said.
“We looked at how we’ve been playing from the back and through the thirds and we were a little bit more cautious in the way that we did that tonight.”
Feature image credit: Melbourne City
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