Melbourne Victory wunderkind Marco Rojas was at his breathtaking best in leading his side to a 3-2 win over Newcastle Jets in a Hyundai A-League cracker at AAMI Park tonight.
Rojas, 21, produced a jaw dropping double that had people on social media asking if it was the most exciting pair of goals scored by a player in a single match in Australia’s top flight competition.
To top off a man of the match performance, Rojas turned provider on the second of the Victory’s three goals on the night.
The go-ahead goal, scored in the 34th minute, would not have looked out of place on the playing fields in Europe.
Rojas gathered the ball on the sideline 25 yards out, wheeled on to his right side to evade a would-be tackler, danced around a second defender only to find the referee obscure his sight of the goal, sidestepped further infield to locate the net and unleashed a stunning swerving shot that slammed into the top right corner.
The Victory doubled their lead just before the break when Rojas beat the off side trap and managed to locate advancing striker Archie Thompson with a squared ball and he powered it into the net to make it 2-0.
The Jets turned the pulsating affair into one of the season classics when Ruben Zadkovich fired in a worm burning goal from 30 yards out on the run in the 63rd minute to slice the deficit in half.
Emile Heskey, the Jets big name recruit from Aston Villa in the English Premier League, found an equaliser in the 73rd minute, after a set piece was poorly cleared by the Victory defence and it returned to the penalty area in an instant for Heskey to poke home.
Then came the second from Mercurial Marco.
Rojas put the exclamation mark on a sweeping Victory breakaway when the ball fortuitously bobbled in his vicinity, but he had the presence of mind to swivel on to his favored right foot and dip a volley over the goalkeeper for a stunning winner.
The win, in front of over 21,000 fans, moves the Victory to within four points of the summit, while their cross town rivals, the Melbourne Heart, slumped to the foot of the table after a 3-2 loss to the Wellington Phoenix a day earlier.
The two Melbourne clubs will be in action on new year’s day with the Heart hosting the Newcastle Jets in a crucial game at AAMI Park from 4pm, while the Victory face Western Sydney Wanderers at Parramatta Stadium from 6.15pm.
