Muscat plays mind games with Reds

Melbourne Victory skipper Kevin Muscat says his team can take advantage of a
"scarred" Adelaide United to secure a home A-League grand final.
Adelaide host the Victory in the major semi-final first leg at Hindmarsh Stadium on
Saturday night, with the winners of the two-legged tie resolved in Melbourne next
week earning the right to host the grand final.
The combative Muscat, who seems to go up a gear in intensity when confronted by the
Reds, has pointed to his side's mental strength as a key factor in who will emerge
victorious.
Adelaide have lost all three encounters with Melbourne this season, have never won a
finals game in general play, and there is also the spectre of their 2006-07 grand
final 6-0 whipping by the Victory.
But Muscat believes Melbourne's 3-2 win at Hindmarsh Stadium in October, in which
Adelaide led 2-1 with 10 minutes remaining and still lost, offers a fresh wound for
the Victory to pick at.
"Hopefully a few of them are still scarred from that game," Muscat said.
"We've done quite well in the past and we've identified how we're going to go about
things and how we can get some joy.
"You can draw confidence from past results but this is finals football.
"You can't just say it's another game, because it's not. It's a lot bigger than that."
Victory coach Ernie Merrick is mindful his team have not only won in Adelaide this
season, but consistently win the games they need to win.
"Someone says you play badly away from home but in eight games we played six away
from home (during their only bad run this season late last year)," Merrick said.
"You remember the tough games away from home, that game in Adelaide when we had to
win and we had to come back from a goal down.
"Other teams may have sat back and said 'we'll take the draw'.
"We didn't. We went out to win it."
The Victory have added young wing-back Evan Berger to their bench, with Merrick
likely to stick with the same starting 11 which accounted for Wellington in their
final fixture a fortnight ago.