The Etihad Stadium pitch is not up to state league standard let alone good enough to host the Hyundai A-League grand final in ten days time, Melbourne Victory striker Archie Thompson says.
Thompson said the Docklands' surface was "the worst I've ever seen it" during the club's 2-0 loss in the AFC Champions' League against Korean side Seongham Ilhwa on Tuesday night.
So bad is the condition of the ground - which is also being used for NAB Cup AFL matches and recently hosted major concerts in AC/DC and George Michael - that Thompson said the only way teams could score was from set pieces as the Koreans did twice during their 2-0 win.
"It was basically a cow paddock," Thompson said.
The stadium will host Saturday night's NAB Cup grand final before hosting the A-League decider just seven days later.
"We could harp on about it, [saying] the pitch was shit but they had to play on it also and they managed to get two goals, and we didn't."
"I didn't think anyone was going to score in open play because there was just nowhere you could get a good bounce out there."
Thompson said for the sake of the spectacle of the A-League's showpiece match of the season, he hoped the surface would improve for the grand final.
"For a grand final you can't have a pitch like that," he said.
"I'd rather play it at Green Gully's pitch (in the Victorian State League) than play on something like that - it was terrible."
"I don't know what they're going to do. I'll even go out and cut [squares of] people's lawn out of their yards if I see some patches that are better than that."
Thompson says he's sore and stiff from playing two matches in three days.
His memorable comeback from a fractured foot that had sidelined him since Australia Day included scoring the winning goal for Melbourne in its thrilling 4-3 aggregate win over Sydney in the major semi-final on Sunday.
But the Victory's number one player - who scored five goals in Melbourne's 6-0 win in the 2007 grand final against Adelaide - has vowed he will be a certain starter in the grand final on March 20.
"I hadn't done much for five weeks and then I only had two training sessions with the lads and then to come straight from that game on Sunday (in Sydney) and try to back it up two days later was difficult," he said.
"It was quite painful out there but that is to be expected when you haven’t done much the last few weeks."
But Thompson, who came off the bench in each of the past two games, says he will now rest for the remainder of this week before returning to full training on Monday ahead of the grand final.
"The body is good, it's just now about managing the foot," he said.
"It's up to (coach) Ernie (Merrick) but I really want to play and run out there (from the start) on grand final day."
"I would have loved to have started the game on Sunday and started the game on Tuesday but Ernie is trying to manage me and bring me back without overloading."
"But I have done well to play 60 minutes on Sunday and then half a game on Tuesday so it (the foot injury) is definitely on the way (to being 100 percent)."