Wellington Phoenix have outclassed Melbourne Victory 2-0 on Wednesday night with Marco Roja stealing the show at Westpac Stadium.
The livewire midfielder tormented the Victory defence from the beginning until he was substituted with just a couple of minutes to go. He set up the first goal and scored the second as his pace and skill on the ball had even his team-mates guessing at times.
The match was scoreless until the 67th minute but it wasn’t for the lack of chances for both sides.
Dylan Macallister bundled the ball home to break the deadlock then Rojas rifled home a second in the 72nd minute to provide a fitting result for Ricki Herbert’s 100th A-League game as coach.
More importantly the Phoenix closed the gap on sixth-placed Melbourne Heart to one point in the race for the play-offs.
Wellington made their attacking intentions clear from the start and sparked by Rojas, they had the better of the early chances.
Rojas was everywhere, turning the Victory defence – missing Kevin Muscat - inside out with some mazy runs and some deft crossing into the box.
In the 10th minute he crossed the ball into the feet of Tim Brown but his shot was deflected over by a despairing Rodi Vargas.
While that was the Phoenix’s best chance of the opening 15 minutes, at the other end Carlos Hernandez wasted a golden opportunity for the visitors after Ricardinho, starting in place of Robbie Kruse (international duty), had broken down the right flank and dragged the ball back from the byline.
But last year’s A-League player of the year squirted his shot straight at Danny Vukovic in the Phoenix goal.
A Rojas corner then saw Andrew Durante fire an overhead kick just wide before the Wellington skipper got on the end of a Lia long ball only to head straight at Michael Petkovic, who was by far the busier of the two keepers.
Victory coach Ernie Merrick’s patience finally ran out with his side and he dragged Marvin Angulo off in the 35th minute and replaced him with Danny Allsopp, back in Melbourne after his recent transfer from the United States Major Soccer League.
It did little to slow the Phoenix though and they rounded off an entertaining first half with Nick Ward and Rojas combining and Brown’s diving header going just wide – although the appeared to be offside.
The second half began with more of the same from both teams. Rojas continued to torment Tomislav Pondeljak, playing in the unfamiliar right-back slot, and couldn’t make their chances count.
Ben Sigmund had a great opportunity in the 52nd minute when Tony Lochhead, back after a three-month injury lay-off, floated a long ball crossfield to Durante on the edge of the box. He headed the ball into Sigmund but Petkovic smothered the shot.
The Victory keeper pulled off another smart save to deny Lia a minute later and was called into action again when Rojas ran hard into the box and unleashed a fierce shot which was tipped over.
The breakthrough for the home side finally came in the 67 minute when Rojas’ cross found Macallister by the far post and although his header was parried away by Petkovic, the big striker got his left foot to it to bundle the ball home by the post.
Having set-up the first, Rojas got the goal his performance deserved to double