Victory failed to defend their title, with the semi-final where their season ended. High-profile signings of international stars Honda and Toivonen created buzz early in the season and driven by this Royal Blues won 6 of their opening 8 games.
Both Honda and Toivonen played well and were very effective when available, just both of them missed lots of games during the regular season and their poor health was issue that disrupted the campaign.
Still up until round 17 in early February Victory looked like the only team that could challenge Glory for the first place at the end of the regular season, mainly because Barbarouses had excellent campaign and with 15 goals and 8 assists he was constant contributor.
However, around that time started the Asian Champions League group stage with Victory’s small squad really stretched to deal with the demands of 2 competitions at the same time. This brought poor end to the regular season (4 wins, 2 draws and 4 defeats), which eventually saw Victory finishing outside top 2.
Display in Elimination Final vs. Phoenix was solid and worthy of the 3:1 win, but then came the strange and inexplicable collapse in the semi-final vs. Sydney FC that saw Victory beaten 1:6.
Veteran Honda unlikely to be offered another contract for next season, but Victory are likely to look to bring another high-profile player instead.
