Brebner was named as Victory’s third Head Coach of the 2019/20 season last week, replacing interim boss Carlos Salvachúa when the Spaniard resigned his position with the four-time A-League champions to return to Europe.

Salvachúa himself had only stepped into the breach in January when Victory decided to part ways with Marco Kurz, whose term as the replacement for club legend Kevin Muscat only lasted 13 games.

Victory formally commenced their search for a Head Coach in early May, with CEO Trent Jacobs saying that both international and domestic candidates would be considered for the role. Tony Popovic and John Aloisi are two domestic figures that have been linked to the position.

Brebner, though, will definitely not be Victory’s main figure in the dugout come the 2020/21 season, with the Scotsman confirming after taking his first training session in charge today that at this stage of his career he wasn’t interested in the role full-time and, instead, saw the coming weeks as a learning opportunity. 

“It’s something that’s not lost on me, to be given the opportunity to take over even if it is only for five games,” he said.

“It’s an honour, it’s a huge privilege and it’s something that I hope would come, but I didn’t think it would come this quickly. I’ll be giving it my best shot, but I think, more importantly, it’s not about me.

“There’s certainly a process at this club where this year, maybe, we’ve got away from things that maybe were inherent at this football club and that’s what I want to try and bring back; a little bit of stability about what this club’s been for a number of years.

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Pic Special: Victory return to training

With a return date now confirmed, Melbourne Victory were first back on the paddock to get ready for the season restart next month, under the watchful eye of new interim boss Grant Brebner.

“The club’s stated that hopefully, they’re looking to bring someone else in and I’m fully supportive of that. This will be a good learning opportunity for me but there’s still a lot of education I want to go through before I step into a position like this.

“We’ve got a huge job in front of us at the moment in terms of getting this club back on track from a foundation level back through and just putting on performances and a package together that gets our fans engaged again. If we do that then we’re slowly getting back on track.”