Bring on Melbourne Victory!

Yes! Queensland Roar won - they beat Wellington Phoenix 3-0 at the Suncorp Stadium earlier this evening. The result means Qld Roar are in second place on the A-League ladder, 4 points behind Central Coast Mariners. All Roar goals were scored by the club's Brazilian players, forward Reinaldo & midfielder Marcinho.

The scoreline may suggest victory was comfortable. But the first half was tight, & it took a penalty from Reinaldo for Qld Roar midway through the second half to break the deadlock. And a retaken penalty at that - retake was needed because some Roar players encroached the penalty area when the penalty was initially kicked. Up until that first goal, Wellington had done reasonably well to contain Qld, though Wellington were down to 10-men before half-time as one of their players got automatically red-carded for elbowing Qld Roar's Korean player Seo. And up until that first goal, I was dreading a repeat of past home games where Qld appear to have the better of play but failed to convert whatever chances they create or failed to keep the opposition keeper busy. Reinaldo's (& Qld's) second goal was a back-heel off a well-delivered low cross. Marcinho's third goal was a result of a counter-attack.

So there u are - Qld Roar won handsomely. Finally, they won a home game that I attended! Previously, they never won the games that I watched, & their only other home win (2-1 win also against Wellington, the first time they played Wellington earlier in the season) was the game that I missed. So I had joked with a few people that my presence in the stadium was a jinx on Qld Roar, & the joke I received from a few in return was that I shouldn't attend the home games because they can't win while I'm in the stadium! Well, I did go to this evening's match, & looks like with the 3-0 win, Qld Roar managed to overcome the "DT hoodoo". LOL.

Jokes aside, I'm currently not carried away by Qld Roar's run of good form. It's fine & good for Qld to be second on the A-League table, but they must improve if they want to win the next home game, which is against Melbourne Victory. It's this coming Friday evening, & I am really really looking forward to the match - partly because Qld are on a good run of form, & partly because Melbourne Victory are my least favourite team (to put it mildly) in the A-League. Nevertheless, there's no need for Qld to fear them. If they play as well as they can, then they can beat Melbourne. There's no real need to be intimidated by them, & their results so far this season don't indicate that Melbourne are invincible by any stretch of the imagination. Qld Roar v Melbourne Victory this Friday should be a cracker. Bring on Melbourne!