Soccer-Melbourne duo gear up for derby clash in A-League championship decider

The Star

3 days ago

(Reuters) - Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory do battle in an historic A-League Grand Final on Saturday in the first local derby to determine Australia's champions in 20 years.
The meeting at a sold-out Melbourne Rectangular Stadium pits Victory, one of the competition's best-supported clubs, against a club who lost significant sections of their support base after an unpopular takeover in 2014.
"I still can't believe, after 20 years, it's the first derby in a Grand Final," said City coach Aurelio Vidmar.
"And you know what the derby is like, they're always intense, so we just have to try to prepare for anything and everything.
"We prepared so well this year, we're ready. So whatever happens on the night, we'll be ready."
Owned by the City Football Group since the Abu Dhabi-based operation purchased Melbourne Heart in 2014 and gave the club a controversial identity overhaul, City have won a solitary championship despite appearing in four of the last five finals.
Victory, by contrast, will be attempting to tie Sydney FC's record haul of five titles and secure their first since 2018, having lost to Central Coast Mariners in last year's decider.
Victory will go into the game with the majority of the 30,000 crowd behind them and in possession of the better head-to-head record between the teams in recent meetings.
They have not lost to City since April 2023 and the teams shared a 2-2 draw in December, although Vidmar's side finished five points clear of their neighbours in the regular season.
Victory have doubts hanging over the availability of Nishan Velupillay after the Australia winger, who has scored seven times for his club this season, sustained an ankle injury in the 2-0 semi-final second leg win over Auckland FC last weekend.
The involvement of Mitch Langerak is also uncertain after a foot injury kept the former Nagoya Grampus goalkeeper out of both legs of the semi-final but both Adama Traore and Kasey Bos are expected to be available.
"For Australian football it's huge, for our club it's massive," Victory coach Arthur Diles said of the all-Melbourne final. "Irrespective that we've been here many times before, you never take that for granted.
"Every Grand Final you can play is massive and this week will be no different. I expect on Saturday night that this place will be shaking and we're looking forward to that."
(Reporting by Michael Church, Editing by Peter Rutherford)