{"id":54294,"date":"2026-07-20T07:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T07:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/54294\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T07:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T07:17:08","slug":"vpl-coaches-notes-away-win-for-victory-over-north-geelong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/54294\/","title":{"rendered":"VPL Coaches Notes: Away win for Victory over North Geelong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two first-half goals secured Melbourne Victory three points from their Round 21 outing in the 2026 VPL Men 1 season.<\/p>\n

The Boys in Blue got themselves ahead going into the break at Elcho Park on Saturday evening before a strong defensive effort kept North Geelong Warriors at bay to couple the win with a first clean sheet in five matches.<\/p>\n

Alex Lee, fresh from minutes in the A-League Men\u2019s team\u2019s pre-season success at Caroline Springs George Cross,<\/a> broke the deadlock after only four minutes.<\/p>\n

This lead was doubled inside half an hour through Malik Olukhale, on his first appearance since representing Australia at the CFA U17 Invitational 2026 tournament in China. <\/a><\/p>\n

Match details are available by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking to MelbourneVictory.com.au, Senior Academy Head Coach, Besart Berisha,\u00a0was delighted with the character shown to claim an away maximum.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a big away win against North Geelong and three very important points at a crucial stage of the season because we also did not have six key players. The boys who stepped up did a fantastic job.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew it would be a tough game, but the mentality from the first minute was outstanding. Disciplined defensively, organised as a team, and clinical when our chances came.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, it was a strong performance, a clean sheet, and a team that continues to fight together.\u201d<\/p>\n

VPL results<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

VPL fixtures<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two first-half goals secured Melbourne Victory three points from their Round 21 outing in the 2026 VPL Men…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[329,330,331,25280,260,332,152,333,334],"class_list":["post-54294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-academy","tag-academy-news","tag-besart-berisha","tag-coaches-notes","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-victory","tag-news","tag-vpl","tag-vpl1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}