Soccer-Vidmar urges players to remain calm as Melbourne City eye Grand Final spot

May 17 – Melbourne City head coach Aurelio Vidmar called on his players to maintain their composure ahead of next week’s second leg of the A-League semi-finals despite securing a 3-0 victory over Western United in the opening leg.

The 2021 grand final winners closed in on a fifth appearance in the end-of-season finale through goals from German Ferreyra, Yonatan Cohen and Mathew Leckie at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium on Friday to leave Vidmar delighted with the performance.

“The result’s excellent, three goals puts us in a good position for next week,” said Vidmar after the match.

“We took our chances at the right time. That has been our Achilles heel throughout the course of the year, where we’ve created chances and haven’t put them away.

“This time lesser chances but we put them away at the right time.”

The teams will meet again next Saturday with the winners facing off in the Grand Final against either Melbourne Victory or Auckland FC, who meet in the first leg of their semi-final on Saturday.

“It’s just halftime, we’ve got another tough hundred minutes coming up next week,” said Vidmar.

“Finals football is completely different. Everyone’s more on edge. It’s a different vibe, a different feel.

“You can invite your own pressure because you know it is a semi-final. You can overthink it sometimes.

“Especially when you’re young you can invite that pressure by overthinking it too much. They’ve just got to stay calm.”

Vidmar’s side qualified for the semi-finals by finishing second in the A-League’s regular season standings and he was quick to stress that his team’s comfortable win was not down to good fortune.

“It’s not a fluke,” he said. “We’ve put ourselves in that position and now it’s up to us to deal with next week and make sure we get the job done.”

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