Head coach Richard Garcia believes Perth Glory showed the resilience that they had previously been missing during their crucial comeback win against Adelaide United on Wednesday.
With Perth's A-League Finals Series hopes hanging by a thread, late goals from Bruno Fornaroli and Chris Ikonomidis completed the fightback as Glory claimed a 2-1 triumph at HBF Park to pull level on points with the top six.
The dramatic turnaround made it four straight wins as the Western Australians reignited their post-season ambitions over the past fortnight, having sat in 10th place with only five wins from 18 games at the start of the month.
Now, Perth are in eighth place on 31 points, level with sixth-placed Brisbane Roar and seventh-placed Western Sydney Wanderers and Garcia insist Glory have proven they have turned a corner.
"In games gone past we probably would have conceded another one in that time and it’s fantastic to see them work hard even when things aren’t going to plan," Garcia said.
"That for me shows great courage, great resilience and great togetherness that they fought hard to keep it at 1-0 and come in to the half break just one goal behind.
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"[The half-time message was] just to keep believing and maybe be a little bit calmer. We stuck at it. That’s probably the biggest thing, we regathered our thoughts and made sure we went back to being us and that was very pleasing."
"I’m very pleased for the group that they dug in and showed fantastic resilience to come back and to win in the end is testament to them and their togetherness."
Adelaide coach Carl Veart questioned the application of his players as the Reds failed to build on their advantage before the game slipped away.
Veart’s side were 1-0 ahead through Kusini Yengi’s goal with 12 minutes remaining but could not extend their advantage despite dominating long spells of the game.
"It’s sort of the story of our season so far," Veart said.
"[We] Play some nice pretty stuff but don’t reward ourselves and finish games off where we should.
He added: "Perth are a good side and when we had that control in the first half we should have scored three or four goals.
"When you don’t do that you allow opportunities for good teams to come back and that’s what it happened."
"For 60-65 minutes, we were comfortable and maybe that was the problem – it was too comfortable for us. We had players that maybe coasted a little bit in that last 20 minutes."
Next fixtures – Matchweek 22
Melbourne Victory v Adelaide United
Sunday, 23 May 2021
Venue: AAMI Park
Kick-off: 6.10pm AEST
Match Centre
Perth Glory v Macarthur FC
Sunday, 23 Mat 2021
Venue: HBF Park
Kick-off: 8.15pm AEST
Match Centre
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