Melbourne City v Melbourne Victory: A-League Men grand final

The Guardian

2 days ago

Update:
Date: 2025-05-31T09:13:09.000Z
Title: Martin Pegan
Content: sets the scene:
Australian football has been here many times before, with visions of a grand spectacle that might reignite the passion of casual observers. The Mariners' back-to-back championship triumphs will live long in the memory but so too does the last time Victory and City met under the glare of the spotlight in the wake of the Socceroos' stirring 2022 World Cup campaign. With fans railing against the APL's decision to break with tradition and hold three grand finals in Sydney – a deal that would have concluded with this year's decider – the Melbourne derby descended into humiliating chaos when spectators invaded the pitch and forced the match to be abandoned for player safety reasons.
This time, with no new clouds hanging over the competition and the grand final being given clear air in Melbourne, the focus can turn to matters on the pitch and a tussle between two evenly matched teams playing for more than just championship glory.
Update:
Date: 2025-05-31T09:09:36.000Z
Title:
Content: Plenty of pyro and police on the streets of Melbourne this evening.
Update:
Date: 2025-05-31T09:01:54.000Z
Title: Preamble
Content: Hello everybody and welcome to live coverage of the A-League Men grand final between Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory. Kick-off at AAMI Park is 7.40pm.
It's the biggest night on the domestic football calendar and the biggest night for club football in Melbourne in the A-League era. There's still an awful lot wrong with the game in Australia and the cut-through of the local competition but it's events like this that have the potential to show how the A-League can thrive.
City have been building for this moment all season. A fifth grand final in six years comes as no surprise to a squad that has only spent one week outside the top six on the ladder, and finished their premiership campaign with seven wins from 11 matches. Their semi-final was a two-legged affair, but was over after one when they put three unanswered goals past Western United.
Victory, by contrast, have come from the clouds to make it this far. They didn't win a match between rounds eight and 15 as they came to terms with the departure of manager Patrick Kisnorbo, but his former assistant Arthur Diles picked up the baton and turned Victory into one of the form teams of the second half of the season. Even so, they still had to win away at the higher ranked Western Sydney Wanderers in the first week of the finals, and then overturn a 1-0 first-leg deficit in their semi-final away at premiership winners Auckland FC.
Victory will fancy their chances of their underdog run continuing. A nominal away fixture, they will have the majority of the crowd at the sold out AAMI Park behind them. And they have not lost any of the past eight derbies – a record stretching back to the shameful night in December 2022 when Victory fans invaded the pitch and attacked City goalkeeper Tom Glover. A-League bosses will be praying to all the Gods such scenes are not repeated tonight.