City Views – The FFA Cup draw
We will meet out sky blue nemeses, Sydney FC in our first ever FFA cup tie. On a positive note, we will be the home team on a yet to be determined date.
Officially we aren’t Sky blue, but let’s see over time how thick our thinly veiled sky blue strip becomes over the next few seasons.
We will meet Sydney FC a minimum of five fives during the season, having already lost our initial battle with one of the founding fathers of the league. This battle was over our proposed playing strip, played on ‘neutral’ territory, FFA HQ. You may have won that battle Sydney but we are coming for you.
The FFA cup presents an opportunity for silverware for the club, something the new owners will be immediately looking for. Sydney presents a very tough challenge, and along with us will enter the cup as favourites to hoist the first ever cup. Any team boasting attacking options the likes of Brosque, Ibini, and Smeltz will be a very tough opponent in the cup environment. Publically the club will be very welcoming of the draw, being the initial marquee fixture for the ‘Round of 32’ but privately I’m sure they were hoping for a kinder draw.
Melbourne and Sydney have always maintained a very healthy rivalry, and we have seen this in the past with Victory and Sydney. The cup fixture and starting the season against Graham Arnold’s men allows Melbourne City to establish a rivalry with the glamour club of the league, something Heart could never aspire to. No longer in the shadow of Victory, City now has the opportunity to create something that can be maintained over the seasons to come, and today’s draw will play a large part in this.
The midweek friendly fixtures against Ballarat Red Devils and the like are great preseason hit outs for the squad, and present an opportunity for fans to see some potential trialists at the club; but at the end of the day these results don’t count for anything. City ‘won’ 6-0 against the NPL club midweek, but like all preseason games the result won’t be at the forefront of John Van’t Ship’s mindset.
Sydney won’t be a walkover by any stretch of the imagination, but with the home crowd and whoever the new active support group will be, the match presents itself to be an important part of the Melbourne City historic opening chapter. If we manage to get past Sydney who knows who we will draw next? That is the magic of cup football.
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