Football: Roar boast escapes are pluck, not luck

Brisbane coach John Aloisi has warned A-League semifinal foes Western Sydney there was no luck involved in his side's Houdini-like escape last weekend.

The Roar demonstrated their uncanny knack for turning a desperate situation into a late win when Matt McKay and Thomas Broich scored at the death against Melbourne Victory to overhaul Besart Berisha's 85th-minute opener.

This season's surprise packets were by no means at their best in the Suncorp Stadium thriller, but Aloisi cautioned that the repeated last-gasp victories were no accident - rather proof he had a squad of big-game players.

"This team doesn't know when it's done," Aloisi said. "People say we were lucky to get out of last week. Luck is when it happens once, but when it happens four or five times during a season, that's a skill.

"The players never give up, they always believe in themselves, in the way we play.

"Their belief in that means we go right to the end and a lot of the time end up scoring late goals."

After a week with his heart rate through the roof, Aloisi hopes Brisbane can get the job done a little more comfortably against the Wanderers at Pirtek Stadium tonight. But he'll take a spot in next weekend's grand final against Adelaide any way it comes.

Adelaide beat Melbourne City 4-1 in Friday night's first semifinal.

On paper, little separates Aloisi's and Tony Popovic's Western Sydney outfit, perhaps except the latter will enjoy home advantage.

In Aloisi's mind, the Roar have been perennially tagged underdogs and he expects this sudden-death clash to be no different.

He recalled this season's opener when a Roar squad, fresh from a turbulent off-season and written off by most, travelled to Pirtek and defeated the Wanderers 3-1.

"The majority of people are picking the Wanderers to go through," he said. "No one really gave us much of a chance to beat the Wanderers in the first game of the season, and no one other than us believe we can go there and win.

"But we've got a belief in what we can do, and we know Brisbane Roar are great in finals series. We showed last week that we know how to win finals games - even when we're not playing so well - so we go in with a lot of confidence."

- AAP