Melbourne Victory overcame the handicap of a player deficit for more than an hour of its game at Docklands on Friday evening to win 1-0 against an Adelaide performance described as 'flat' by coach Aurelio Vidmar.
As Adelaide must now travel to Japan for the first leg of its AFC Champions' League quarter-final against Kashima Antlers to be played on Wednesday, Vidmar has only a few days to effect the cure his diagnosis surely warrants.
Melbourne's Brazilian import, Ney Fabiano, was dismissed after 29 minutes following an off-the-ball incident involving Adelaide's Robert Cornthwaite, seen by referee Matthew Breeze.
"I thought it was a tremendous defensive performance to keep a clean sheet and to stop them," said Victory coach Ernie Merrick after the game. "Their only attacks came from set plays - corner kicks and free-kicks - and from long balls down the middle".
'Over all we've got good depth. We're playing really good football, and it's important we keep up that consistency,' he said.
'We looked jaded,' said Vidmar. '(We had) far too many errors. We missed target after target. That's something we really need to rectify.'
'It was one of those games,' he said. 'We could have played for another hour and probably (still) not scored tonight.'
The game's solitary goal came just after the hour when Kevin Muscat followed up his own blocked penalty to crash it home second time. It was Muscat's first failure from the spot in his four years as Victory's taker, but as he netted from the rebound, he was sanguine about the end of the run.
'Does that count as a miss'' he asked after the game. 'Well, I got (the end of the run) out of the way, then. I didn't hit it well (but) I got a bit lucky,' he said.
The penalty came after United's giant central defender Sasa Ognenovski man-handled Victory striker Archie Thompson in the area ' a foolish foul to commit given Thompson had his back to goal and Ognenovski as well as Cornthwaite defending goal-side.
Vidmar assessed the penalty award as 'soft' in his after-match comments, a judgement he will no doubt reconsider once he watches the replay and sees Ognenovski's arms firmly wrapped around Thompson in an embrace more appropriate for a ballroom dancing competition than a football game.
There was probably a game of bluff and double-bluff at the penalty, given the number of times these two would have performed their roles at training during the years they were team-mates at Victory. Muscat sent the ball to Galekovic's left on this occasion. Galekovic was able to stop, but not hold the ball, and Muscat's path towards the rebound was unimpeded, and almost at slow-motion speed.
A Victory goal being the opener seemed unlikely as it had laboured a man down after Fabiano was dismissed before the half-hour following a clash with Cornthwaite. The red card was shown not because of the incident itself, but in its aftermath, as the send-off was recorded in the official referee's report as spitting. Given the precedence of the long suspension handed out to Perth Glory defender Deano Djulbic for a similar incident the previous round, the big Brazilian can expect a number of weeks off.
Fabiano may claim, with some justification, that he did not intentionally spit. However, his defence will have to rest that in the alternative, he was uttering a common abusive phrase in Portuguese to Cornthwaite, easily lip-read at the time, where he was casting unsavoury allegations about Cornthwaite's origins, specifically the manner of his conception, and that the spit was an unfortunate by-product of his emphasis of the word 'puta' in that phase. Sadly for Fabiano, foul, abusive, or insulting language is also a red-card offence.
Surprisingly, being a player light didn't put an end to Victory's edge ' and perhaps the greater space accorded Thompson in particular worked to Melbourne's eventual advantage, not that Merrick was willing to concede to that.
'You need eleven players on the field,' he said, laughing.
Adelaide captain Travis Dodd looked the player most likely to score for the visitors. On a number of occasions he'd reached effectively for headers no player his size is expected to win, only to see them go narrowly off-target. Dodd is both speedy along the ground, as well as owning a leap taller players would be delighted to have, rather in the style of Socceroo Tim Cahill.
Twice from crosses from Scott Jamieson, and once from Lucas Pantelis, Dodd headed, but over, or requiring a save from the otherwise untroubled Victory goalkeeper Michael Theoklitos.
But Dodd had insufficient support in this match, grievously so given Adelaide's player advantage, and much to Vidmar's obvious displeasure.
An odd series of events just before the half-hour resulted in the temperature of the game ramping up, culminating in Fabiano's dismissal.
Muscat and Cristiano had tangled during an Adelaide attack, with Muscat remaining on he ground for several seconds, complaining once he'd regained his feet to Breeze that he'd been struck by Cristiano. As the Adelaide players had possession, contemplating whether to play the ball out while Muscat lay on the ground, the game was not halted. Indecisive Adelaide passing saw Allsopp steal the ball and race goalwards, facing only Galekovic. Allsopp's finish was poor and easily gathered.
Seconds later, Cornthwaite and Fabiano clashed when contesting a high ball, Fabiano complaining to Breeze that he had been struck. As Breeze intervened, Fabiano was seen to spit at Cornthwaite causing the nearby Breeze instantly to show the Fabiano the red card. Lip readers however will have noticed that the spit arose as part of an abusive phrase in the Brazilian's native language Fabiano directed at Cornthwaite.
Although the scales had been tipped Victory's way, Adelaide could not take advantage, an outcome it must not repeat were it to face similarly depleted opposition in Asian competition.
For Victory, Evan Berger had a nervous start, but overcame that to be one of Victory's better participants. Early, he'd had an air shot following alert play involving Fabiano and Thompson which led to Thompson sending a low cross to Berger, but the youngster's swing failed to connect.
Berger's responsibilities were clearly at both ends of the park such was the formation Merrick set out, and often he linked up along the left, his young engine having plenty of displacement.
It was Rudy Vargas however who stole the show. Like Dodd he is not the tallest, and playing in the heart of the Victory defence he often faces players who are higher by centimetres. Vargas was scarcely outjumped in a challenge however, and capably snuffed out any danger on the ground alongside Muscat.
He, along with midfielder Billy Celeski, was the foundation of Melbourne's win. There's a scent of a run in the air at Docklands, and it will take something special to knock the confidence of this team.