Springvale White Eagles coach Zed Mihajlovic has praised his side’s strength in adversity following their backs-to-the-wall 3-1 victory over ladder leaders Box Hill at Wembley Park on Saturday.
With Box Hill winning every game so far this season, and Springvale losing each one, this match was touted to be an easy victory for the home side, and the pressure was on Mihajlovic and his troops.
However, the White Eagles soared high, pulling off an unlikely win, which was made all the more impressive considering they came back from behind to pull off the shock victory.
Mihajlovic revealed his coaching staff and players had studied their opponents and refined their own game to nullify Box Hill’s free flowing style, giving the players the belief they could pull off a miracle result if they followed instructions accordingly.
“We let ourselves down in a couple of games, and it’s easy for young teams to drop our heads but this week we changed it,” Mihajlovic said.
“We put a lot of belief and structure into our sessions for this game especially, changed the formation a little bit, linked a few players and told them I watched a couple of [Box Hill’s] games, they’re a fantastic side, but on the pitch it’s 11 v 11.
“Someone’s got to be first and someone’s got to be last. Unfortunately, it’s us [that are last] but we’ve got to turn it around and believe in ourselves and we did. All credit, for 90 minutes everyone gave their heart.”
With the team’s facing an even higher mountain to climb after conceding the first goal, Mihajlovic admitted he was unsure whether his side could turn it around after half time, but urged his team to stick to its plan and it paid dividends.
“It was our mistake that gave them a goal which put us under the pump at half time,” he said.
“I thought it was going to be hard for us to score because of mentally, the mistake to go down one nil. But going down only one goal at the break gave us hope that if we just stick it out and just put them under pressure and frustrate them, not giving them many gaps, it would work.
“We changed it up, put some more belief into the players that we’ve got to eliminate some things in our game and focus on the next 45 minutes and just run them down and we did that.
“We made sure to put pressure on players getting booked for them, so we were quick on the break, they fouled us a couple of times and deservedly got a red card. To catch them on the counter that many times, a win against the top team is a boost for our players.”
With two more matches remaining in their run of four away games, Mihajlovic said his players will take the confidence garnered from this result and try build on it in their following fixtures.
“We’ll play the way we played today because the boys are confident in the way we’ve got it. You’ve got to play to your resources and we’ve got a team now that can play the formation, especially away from home, that can get results,” he said.
“We’ll stick it out that way throughout the season and just build. We’re not expecting miracles but we just want get that level of performance every week.
“If we perform every week and the boys come off the ground 100% then the result will tell itself. And it did today.
“Next week we play a team in the same area as us, and that’s where we have to lift our game and focus on that.”
It will be 12th versus 13th on Saturday as Springvale travel to Brunswick for an intriguing Round 6 encounter.
Both teams won their first game of the season last week, which helped propel themselves off the bottom of the ladder.