WHEN the opposition coach says your team has shown dramatic improvement since the last time the two teams met, you are entitled to feel you are heading in the right direction.

Not that Melbourne Victory's caretaker coach Mehmet Durakovic will get a big head after receiving such praise from Akira Nishino, Gamba Osaka's coach, following their 1-1 draw at Etihad Stadium in an Asian Champions League match on Wednesday night.

But he and his coaching staff - player assistant Kevin Muscat and goalkeeping coach Steve Mautone - can surely feel that in six short weeks they have been building a strong case for them to be real contenders for the Victory full-time coaching position.

In fact, if the Victory board opts to go for a local management team rather than a high-profile import then it is hard to see any other candidate being in the race. Being a caretaker boss is a wonderful opportunity, but is also fraught with difficulty. Get it right, and it is the best audition possible: get it wrong, and you can cruel your chances forever in a competition such as the A-League, where there are so few jobs.

The difference between the team Ernie Merrick sent out to lose 5-1 in Osaka in his last match in charge and the team that had the better of Gamba on Wednesday was marked, and not just because of the key personnel changes, some of them due to suspension.

In Osaka, Victory was ripped apart down the flanks and was 3-0 down after 11 minutes, its ACL campaign almost over before it had begun.

The side now travels to South Korea to play Jeju United with a mathematical hope of qualifying for the knockout phase from group E, something no one would have thought possible following the debacle in Japan. Tianjin Teda's 3-0 win over Jeju on Wednesday night means the Chinese team is through, but Gamba and Jeju, both on seven points, and Victory, on five, can still clinch a place in the next stage.

Victory needs to win and hope Tianjin is good enough to win in Osaka. It's a long shot, but the mental strength and tenacity of Durakovic's team may carry it through.