But he admitted: “I think it makes things very difficult.

"We've now got to go over to Osaka and win in two weeks' time. And we've got to rely on them dropping points so it's not in our hands any more but it's very important we win the next one.

“We've always got hope. And the way we played today, we created a lot of chances. The bottom line is, they [Gamba] were really match fit, battle hardened and they had tremendous quality off the bench."

Indeed it was a substitute – Gamba's Lucas Severino – who ripped the heart out of Victory with his powerful header with just minutes left on the clock to win it for the impressive J-League side.

“When you've got seven internationals and a couple of very good Brazilians, you're going to pay for it.”

The Victory coach also noted the difference in quality from the A-League to the ACL: “Let's face it, you may get away with it in the A-League but you make an error [in the ACL] and you pay the price.”

Merrick conceded that his side “died' in the last ten minutes, highlighting once again the difficulty A-League sides have when competing in what is effectively an out of season tournament for Australian sides.

As if to reinforce that, Osaka flew out at midnight ahead of their round six J-League clash with Niigata on Sunday at home.

Meanwhile, Victory now has two weeks to ponder this loss and work out how to get the better of this quality side on match day four of the ACL.

“I presume we have to win every game now,” added two goal hero Danny Allsopp. “There's no reason why we can't do it. It's only three games. It'll be hard, but stranger things have happened.”