“It's certainly important that we scored because if went there 1-0 down there would probably be a little bit of a lack of belief, but I thought we thoroughly deserved what we got tonight,” said Vidmar.

“I thought we were the team that wanted to be more on the front foot, as much as we could. Yeah, we could’ve been a little bit more clinical in the front third but we know going to Buriram is a very difficult task.

“We still have to go where there with the right mindset, a positive mindset, a lot of belief to get a result next week.”

Mazzeo’s goal was Melbourne City’s fifth in stoppage time in the competition this year and was the second time in the two meetings between the clubs in Australia during this season’s competition that Vidmar’s side had netted late in the game.

Max Caputo scored the winner in the seventh minute of added time when the teams met in October in the league phase but Vidmar stressed there was no magic formula behind his side’s ability to find a way through opposing defences in time added on.

“There's no secrets in football, everyone knows everything,” said Vidmar. “We took a bit of a punt throwing young Benny Mazzeo up front with Max Caputo at the end, in the last few minutes, and Marcus made a fantastic cross and it was one of those things.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ve been fortunate that in this competition we’ve been able to score some really late goals and important goals.”

Maezzo’s late header left Buriram United head coach Mark Jackson frustrated that his side had been unable to leave Melbourne with a first leg advantage.

“The boys will be hurting at the minute, I can feel that, I can sense it,” said the former Central Coast Mariners tactician. “I'm hurting, the staff are hurting of course. But it's still 1-1 going into the next game.

“They have to come to our stadium, the stadium will be packed, our fans will get behind us and we'll go and attack the game.

“The disappointment is a natural reaction and I want the players to be disappointed. We have to be disappointed with that. I thought we were the better team in the second half, we weren’t great in the first half but we deserved to create the chances we did.”

Jackson believes his players’ confidence will not be affected by the late equaliser going into the return leg.

“I want clean sheets, we want clean sheets. We want to score goals,” he said. “But there’s not going to be a hangover for us. We have ups and downs in football.

“Of course, you give yourself a little bit of time to be jubilant if you get a win, but also a little bit of disappointment if you get a defeat. and then you have to come round, snap out it and we’ve done that before this season and we’ll do it again, no problem.”