Melbourne Victory defender Matthew Kemp knows better than most not to fall for the trap of writing off Adelaide’s chances in Saturday night’s second leg of the Hyundai A-League Major Semi-Final at Telstra Dome.
Melbourne Victory defender Matthew Kemp knows better than most not to fall for the trap of writing off Adelaide’s chances in Saturday night’s second leg of the Hyundai A-League Major Semi-Final at Telstra Dome.
The Victory might be taking a 2-0 lead into the second leg, after the team’s great win in last week’s first leg in Adelaide, but Kemp knows the tie is far from over.
The former Adelaide defender, who was part of the Reds’ team that lost the 2006/07 Grand Final to Melbourne, knows his former team will hit back hard this weekend.
“I think they have to have that belief and confidence that they can go out there and win,” he said when asked about Adelaide’s chances of overturning a 2-0 first-leg deficit.
“We went over there and played away and won 2-0 so there is no reason they can’t come over here and get a 2-0 win.”
“So we will be wary of that but being at home we have the confidence that we will score more goals.”
Adelaide now has the dismal record of no wins from eight finals matches (it reached the grand final two years ago after beating Newcastle in a penalty shoot-out in the preliminary final) but Kemp denies either that unflattering record or the Reds’ long campaign is beginning to take a toll on Melbourne’s arch rivals.
“It didn’t feel like that at all,” he said when asked if it appeared as if the Adelaide players were running on empty last week after a long season in which they reached the final of the Asian Champions League and also participated in the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan.
“In fact all the games they have played has probably helped them with their fitness because the more games you play the more fitness you have.”
Kemp vowed the Victory would continue to attack on Saturday night and not be prepared to merely hang onto its two-goal lead from the first leg.
“Obviously it’s a good position to be in but we are only halfway there so we are not getting ahead of ourselves,” he said.
“We are looking forward to this weekend and we are going to go out there to win the game.”
“We will go out there as if it’s 0-0 and we have to go out there and win the game.”
“We can’t go out there thinking we can cop a goal (against us) and we will be all right so we are not aiming for a draw or a 1-0 loss, we are going out there to win.”
