Melbourne Victory coach Kevin Muscat is eyeing A-League history in successive season as the defending champions head into the finals.
Victory ended their regular season campaign with a 1-0 away win over Western Sydney on Saturday.
Swede Ola Toivonen's 13th league goal of the season was enough to secure Victory's eighth away win after they lost their last two on the road.
Muscat was happy to get the relatively meaningless match out of the way without suffering any significant injuries and looked forward to a home finals game next Friday against either cross-town rivals Melbourne City or Wellington Phoenix.
Third-placed Victory face a similar finals equation to last season when they finished a place lower - win at home in the first week and on the road for the next two.
"We won the competition from fourth last year, I don't think anybody has won it from third so that's what we have to, that's what's ahead of us." Muscat said.
City coach Warren Joyce missed his club's awards night in Melbourne on Saturday, as he was in Sydney watching Victory play.
Muscat said there weren't many secrets in the A-League with teams playing each other three times in the regular season and he doubted Joyce would have learnt much from his interstate scouting mission.
"About as much as I learnt last night when I stayed in Melbourne to watch their game," Muscat quipped.
Socceroo James Troisi remains in doubt for Friday's game after suffering a hamstring injury in the previous round.
"It's a shorter week it's unlikely," Muscat said.
"But given the energy he's putting into his rehabilitation I wouldn't be surprised if he's available."
He fielded close to his strongest available side and wasn't tempted to rest any of his stars given many of them didn't play in an Asian Champions League game in midweek.
"If you want to be playing next week, I think the best thing to do is play this week," Muscat said.
Muscat didn't give anything away about whether Matt Acton, who played on despite copping a knock, or Lawrence Thomas would be his preferred goalkeeper for the finals campaign.
"We've now established that we've got two keepers vying for one place, that's great, a very good position to be in," Muscat said.
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