Things seem to be sliding back into place, at least from the perspectives of the two traditional south-east coast powers.
Last season, with Western Sydney making the grand final, and the Melbourne City project revving up into a new, threatening gear, the original Sydney and Melbourne franchises were, evidently, simply biding their time.
The Victory were bundled out of the finals in 2016, and the Sky Blues didn’t even make the post-season.
This season, though, has embarrassed those who announced a premature paradigm shift. The power balance, it seems, has not changed in the way the new neighbours might have hoped.
The way the Melbourne Victory have reasserted their quality over the last six games has been especially impressive.
Melbourne City, falling to the bottom-placed club on Thursday, have been punished for their laxity. They are now nine points behind their city rivals – having played a game more – and 13 points behind Sydney.
They are yet to appoint a new manager, and the fear for them is that the incoming gaffer, when he arrives, may have too wide a gap to make up. The Tim Cahill homecoming season is in danger of petering out, and certainly no one expects City to enjoy any finals success if they continue to meander in the way they have.
Meanwhile, Kevin Muscat and his troops are tightening their focus, with players all over the pitch growing in stature with every passing week. Their 3-2 win over the Roar was not easily ground out – Matt McKay and Brandon Borrello both had clear chances to equalise. But it did reek of the stout musk of a team – hard done by, and frustrated with themselves – refusing to submit to fate.
The match was punctuated by some sudden surges of energy, both good and bad. Shoddy refereeing and sublime set-piece execution both get the blood pumping with equal vigour.
James Troisi’s free kick was the exemplar instep strike, curling with venom into the corner, leaving Michael Theo rooted to the spot. Then, following Melbourne’s second goal, there was a puzzling decision to award the Victory a penalty, when Besart Berisha went down in the box.
No one, barely even Berisha himself, appealed with any great enthusiasm. Still, the Victory were raucous in the opening half an hour. Troisi and Rojas are probably the best creative combination in the league, and with Berisha, have made the Victory the most productive attacking team this season.
Dimi Petratos, however, was to steal the show with a thunderbolt from his own dead-ball opportunity, reviving the prone Roar fans who had all but conceded defeat. Standing alone over the free kick, from an audacious distance, Petratos trotted up and unleashed a howitzer, that began its flight down the middle of the goal, then swerved violently to the right, ending up just inside the corner.
Lawrence Thomas merely watched, and probably felt the sonic-boom as the ball rocketed into his goal, still going upwards. Two free kicks, and two stationary goalkeepers.
Brisbane forced their way back into the game, electrified by Petratos’s effort like Mia Wallace was in Pulp Fiction, after the adrenaline dart is plunged through her breastplate. John Aloisi said the word ‘character’ about a dozen times post-match.
The linesman might have summoned some of his own, in the second half, because his advice to referee Chris Beath to show Berisha a straight red card for a totally innocuous physical encounter with Luke de Vere was rash and giddy.
The new rule concerning off-the-ball contact with the head or face, that advises violent conduct be the charge, mitigates for contact deemed “negligible”. This was a perfect example of that clause being ignored, and as the red flashed into the night, it fanned the crowd into a smouldering heap. They booed throughout the remainder of the match.
Clearly, we haven’t all forgotten how potent the Victory were in their double-winning campaign two seasons ago. But the momentum – not to mention the money – behind the Melbourne City project has made it feel like a new hierarchy was being constructed. The feeling was only compounded by City’s derby win in October.
It has been reversed, however, on the back of six straight Victory wins – including one over City – and Kevin Muscat is now proving that he is not simply riding on the wake of the stellar work Ange Postecoglou did at the Victory.
Western Sydney have been prone to heavy fluctuation season to season, and this term seems to be one of their down years.
Their success since their formation has outshone their city rivals; an Asian Champions League, a Premiers Plate, and three grand final appearances, all coming in the last five years.
In belated response, Sydney FC are mow putting together perhaps the most impressive season in A-League history, certainly the best since the Brisbane Roar’s dominance. Their local superiority was underlined by a resounding derby win early in the season, with the second to come on Saturday night.
Their defensive paucity has been unprecedented; even the 2010/11 Roar team, that lost just one game all season, had conceded more goals (9) after 14 games than this season’s Sydney FC (7) have. Having finished last season so poorly, wallowing and self-flagellating, their unbeaten start – which has now extended past the halfway point of the campaign – has wiped away all those sour memories.
Right now, the Big Blue coming up at the end of January is looking like the grand final dress rehearsal.
The finals are always volatile, and are obviously far less predictable than the minor premiership, but few would disagree these two teams are currently the best in the competition. Sydney were the inaugural champions. Melbourne Victory have won more grand finals than any other club.
The hallowed colossi of the A-League are creaking, rumbling, throwing off the dust and shaking off the rust, preparing to exchange titanic blows again.
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