Terry Antonis' pitch-related injury in last night's Big Blue has proven a flashpoint, with the PFA, Melbourne Victory and several ex-Socceroos criticising the decision to hold the match at Sydney Cricket Ground.

Muscat went a step further, calling the decision to hold a match on an unsafe pitch representative of the code's organisational weakness compared to other sports.

"I'll turn it to us as a code because Steve (Corica) won't be able to say much as a coach because it's their home game. I understand that but what that does is allows us a code...

"...If nothing gets said, we're just accepting it, to ask players to come and work in those conditions is unacceptable. For players to go out onto that, whatever its called, is a disgrace," Muscat said.

"It's part of the reason, all the other codes and everybody else treats us with contempt. Let's look at ourselves, that surface was not conducive to a ball rolling on it.

"As a code we'll just sweep it under the carpet and accept it and move on. It's a real indication of where we're at."

Muscat said Antonis' discomfort was so severe they'd been unable to assess him, with the midfielder to remain in Melbourne while the side travels to China for the Champions League.

"He's in discomfort at the moment and it's too difficult to assess him," Muscat said. "We'll let him settle down he's pretty emotional - unfortunately, I can't give you any news.

"I'm remaining positive but I can't give you more than he's in a great deal of discomfort and can't be assessed.

"To have two teams go out and perform at a level of entertainment, as they did, both teams and sets of players should be commended. 

"We concede a goal in the second half, after I think Sydney pinned us in in the first half, we turned the game on its head. We might have taken the lead and it wasn't to be.

"It took us a bit of time to get used to playing on whatever that is, Sydney had the luxury of training on it, we were very hesitant in pressing and it was too easy for them to get inside us and past our fullbacks.

"Second half we were more adventurous and I thought it was a very good performance, to create two very, very good chances."