City Views – Derby XV
After experiencing the highs and highs of the 2015 Asian Cup the Melbourne Derby XV has arrived. Once again the good people at the FFA have decided to stack the three derbies into the first 16 games of the season to make their audience figures appear greater than what they actually are, and avoid sharing print space with the other football code in Melbourne. This will also help stop blokes like Eddie McGuire making outlandish statements about the ‘round ball’ code.
As I have stated before, the Melbourne Derby is one of the great sporting events on the calendar but I suspect this one will be a little flatter than usual. Some football fans out there are experiencing football fatigue after the huge success of the Asian Cup (What a lemon), and others just don’t like playing football at Etihad. For me it’s like figure skating to heavy metal music, or drinking warm beer on a hot day; it just isn’t right.
This will be the 13th derby I will be attending (Yes, I missed the Muscat/Zahra derby) so hopefully it won’t be unlucky. I’m expecting a very tough game from our cross town rival, but quietly confident of a win.
WHAT ABOUT LAST WEEK?
Last week we managed to grab the three points over bottom of the table Western Sydney. For most of the season I’ve defended the current ACL champions saying they will turn the corner sooner, rather than later. From the evidence on hand last Sunday afternoon this appears to be untrue. WSW was extremely poor, slightly taking the gloss off our FIRST EVER WIN against them.
Jacob Melling was the standout for me, he wasn’t afraid to mix his passing up to get through the disciplined WSW defence and showed many (well not that many only 7,561 turned up) City fans just what he is capable of. On the surface Melling doesn’t look like your midfield superstar, but if he keeps improving he will be a solid contributor at A-League level for many years to come. The winning goal from Aaron Mooy was an absolute cracker and showed players can celebrate goals scored against former clubs just like Richard Garcia did before the Asian Cup break. Hang on we didn’t like that did we?
HOW DO WE MATCH UP AGAINST THESE BLOKES?
We have managed to get 5 wins and four draws against Victory, but have suffered five painful defeats. It’s been remarkably even over the last five seasons against Victory and Saturday night will be no different. No matter what happens just remember, WE WON THE FIRST ONE (but not when we were called City).
FROM THE VAULT
Before the inception of the A-League there was another Melbourne Derby played between South Melbourne and Melbourne Croatia (now Melbourne Knights).
Whilst I’m in no position of wanting to compare the two competitions or derbies, I wanted to bring the 1991 NSL Grand Final to everyone’s attention. We are very quick to forget out football history in Australia and need to become better at embracing our past.
South Melbourne were coached by the great Ferenc Puskas (Kids check out his Wikipedia page if you don’t know who he is) took out the absorbing grand final 5-4 on penalties in front of 21,338 people at Olympic Park. Check out YouTube for the match highlights as any description I give won’t do it justice.
Players for both teams included Mehmet Durakovic, Paul Wade, Paul Trimboli, Joe Palasides, Alan Davidson, Andrew Marth, Francis Awaritefe and current Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglu. I’m sure I’ve left a few great names out too.
FINAL THOUGHT
Let’s take a moment to remember how far our game has come over the journey. If the Asian Cup has shown us anything over the past few weeks it’s to embrace the football cultures not repress them. Let’s make the Melbourne Derby a celebration of football for all watching Saturday night.
Melbourne City 2-1
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