Melbourne Victory defender Rodrigo Vargas has confessed to feeling embarrassed and humiliated by the club’s loss to the Heart in the first Melbourne derby, and he’s pledged to atone in Saturday night’s grand final rematch against SydneyFC.
Melbourne Victory defender Rodrigo Vargas has confessed to feeling embarrassed and humiliated by the club’s loss to the Heart in the first Melbourne derby, and he’s pledged to atone in Saturday night’s grand final rematch against SydneyFC.
Vargas said the Victory owe it to their fans to bounce back strongly.
“If you looked at the Heart players, it almost was like they had won a grand final, celebrating,” Vargas said of the 2-1 result at AAMI Park last Friday.
“The game did mean a lot to both camps, it meant a lot to us as well – the first ever Melbourne derby, and we were on the losing side.”
“The boys took it pretty hard, as they should.”
“We feel for the supporters and the fans that came out and we feel like we let them down, not only with the result, but the performance.”
“The players are still pretty disappointed about it but we have to move on pretty quickly, we’ve got a big game this week against Sydney.”
“We’ll be looking to rectify that and hopefully pay back our fans with a win this week.”
Vargas agreed the Victory, who’ve managed to score just once in their past four outings, need to sharpen their cutting edge.
“Obviously the name of the game is scoring goals and that’s been highlighted,” he said.
“We had three games that were nil-nil, we hadn’t scored, and we scored on Friday night but it was from a set piece.”
“We’ve got a lot of confidence in our strikers and our forward attacking players, but it’s just a matter of putting it together and hopefully getting the job done on the park and scoring a few goals.”
Vargas believes the titleholders – who are still searching for their first win from nine outings – have been performing better than their recent results might indicate and would love nothing more than to break through at the Victory’s expense.
“Results aren’t going their way, they’ve been a bit unlucky in a few games,” Vargas said.
“Against Adelaide the week before, they had plenty of chances.”
“I still think Sydney have got a lot of quality in their side and you wouldn’t write them off.”
“There’s 20 games to go so we know they’ll be up for it.”
