Melbourne Victory beat K League 1 leaders FC Seoul 3-0 at AAMI Park on Wednesday night in the AFC Champions League Two, a second-half blitz lifting the club out of the disappointment of a cup final defeat four days earlier.
Guillermo May, Clerismario Santos and Jordi Valadon scored as Victory pulled away after the break against a Seoul side sitting top of the Korean top flight. The result puts Victory second in Group F on four points from two games.
Head coach Giovanni Savarese said the win arrived at exactly the right moment for his players.
"This game came at the right time because coming out from the game this weekend, we needed a game like this in order to be able to move forward," Savarese said.
Victory had lost the Australia Cup final to South Melbourne on penalties at the same ground on October 10, with South Melbourne becoming the first club from outside the A-League Men to win the trophy. Denis Genreau's overhead kick in the sixth minute of extra time had put Victory in front before Max Mikkola equalised for South Melbourne in the 117th minute, sending the final to a shootout.
Savarese said Wednesday's opponents gave his side little margin for error regardless of the side FC Seoul fielded.
"I thought we had a very strong performance today against a team that is complicated no matter who they had on the field," he said. "They're a very good team. That's why they're on the top of the table in the Korean League."
The coach said he saw the intensity he wanted from kick-off.
"We knew it was going to be tough, and we needed to make sure that we had the right group that played with the right intensity," Savarese said. "And I saw that from the beginning."
Savarese pointed to the win as a platform heading into a congested run of fixtures across two competitions.
"It gives us a chance to be able to play in this competition, which we wanted to do well, and then we have now the start of the A-League," he said.
Victory travel to New Zealand to face Wellington Phoenix on Sunday in their A-League Men season opener, the first of three matches in eight days. Savarese said squad depth would be key to managing that schedule.
"The good thing is that we have a good roster right now to be able to make some rotations, as you saw today, that can keep us competitive in every game," he said.
He added there would be little time to dwell on the Seoul result before attention turns to the Phoenix.
"Now we enjoy peace tonight, but we're ready tomorrow to make sure that we have another competitive match on this weekend," Savarese said.