There are games when coaches really earn their money, and for John van 't Schip Friday night's clash between his Melbourne City team and high-flying Adelaide United was certainly one.
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As van 't Schip is prone to say, every game brings its own pressure. But some circumstances bring a little more than others.
City, who had won only once in their last five outings and hadn't scored a goal in four and a half hours of football, desperately needed the points to stay in touch with the race for the top six.
They are effectively engaged in a two-team war with Brisbane Roar, the defending champions, for the final spot in the A-League play offs as the top five clubs look to have too big a break on Brisbane and Melbourne for the latter two to close before season's end.
In addition Brian Marwood, a senior executive of Melbourne City's owners, the City Football Group, was sitting in the AAMI Park stands looking on. He had come to Melbourne for the official opening of the club's new training centre on Friday and would also be keeping a close eye on the progress, or not, that the UAE-based group's Australian acquisition was making.
Given the money that has been spent on preparation (including a mid-season break in the Middle East for training and playing friendlies) and the fact that players such as David Villa (however ill-fated that turned out to be ) have been brought to Melbourne, it's fair to say that the CFG might have hoped for something a little more successful than this season has so far turned out to be.
So the heat was on the Dutch coach, and he would have been feeling it at half-time. Having changed his side's set up to a back three, City went in at the interval a goal down.
To his credit van 't Schip fixed the problem, made some critical substitutions, went back to the more usual flat back four in a 4-3-3 and was rewarded for his enterprise when his side slammed home three second-half goals to take three points and put themselves two ahead of Roar, who do, however, have two games in hand.
"We started well, but after they scored we lost control and they started dominating, We could see the confidence was dropping. The idea of the change [at half time] was the players up front, we had to do something different.
"After we got level we began to dominate, and we deserved to win.To continue the way we started wouldn't be right. When you come behind you have to do something different," the coach explained after the game.
"It's critical because we want to be in the playoffs, a win is important, we could have maybe got more against Wellington and Perth [with whom City have drawn 0-0 in their past two starts]. Playing against Wellington, Perth and Adelaide we showed we are there and can compete with the best and even win. That should give the team a lot of morale for the coming games."
