VAR debacle cuts through a meaty Melbourne Derby

A VAR blunder, highlighting not just the systemic issues present in the review process and the on-field referee’s part in it, but the fact that new solutions create new problems, dominated the Melbourne Derby.

Otherwise, it was a meaty game, not entirely free from the strictures of the early season, but bristling with the promise of further encounters to come. 

A ripple of excitement rushed around the Marvel Stadium when Keisuke Honda, sporting the captain’s armband, took his first touch. A collective intake of breath was shared when Corey Brown flew in late on Luke Brattan, a rather unfriendly skirmish between two former Brisbane teammates.

This was it, then, the real marquee match-up of the 2018/19 A-League season’s opening weekend. 

It was Warren Joyce who made the grander tactical gesture to start, starting with a very striking 3-4-3, with Richie de Laet, marquee wing-back here, catching the eye immediately, making a number of dashing runs down the right. Mirroring Honda, de Laet was also wearing the captain’s armband, a very fresh anointment. 

Victory’s 4-4-1-1 was rather more familiar, with Honda stationed on the right, often seen in the opening stanza lingering by the sideline, perhaps a little too wide for liking. 

City’s wingers, Anthony Caceres and Florin Berenguer, had switched flanks within 15 minutes. The City scheme was the more fluent to start, and Luke Brattan and Kearyn Baccus were controlling the midfield with more authority than their solitary counterpart, Raul Baena, who was finding himself a little stretched.

Honda eventually made his way away from the touchline, combining with Storm Roux on the right, then making a beeline for the penalty spot, a very wise manoeuvre indeed. When the ball was crossed in, onto Honda’s head it dropped, and his header flew with almost predetermined force into the goal.

Honda had hung in the air before making contact and rose from between two City defenders. It was a wonderful goal, and although the manner in which it was scored was fairly unexpected, it was no less majestic for it.

City looked a little peeved, having made the slightly better start; Bruno Fornaroli had had a great chance saved by Lawrence Thomas a few minutes before Honda scored. In stark contrast to Friday’s draw in Adelaide, both teams were enjoying wide open space, especially when play was switched from one flank to the other.

There was a sense of more goals to come.

And indeed another would arrive, under highly suspect circumstances. James Troisi had dived egregiously in the centre of the pitch, so a few minutes later Fornaroli returned the favour, going down altogether too easily while dancing around the edge of the Victory box. It wasn’t a foul, really, but the whistle went and a free kick was given; oh well, one thought, these things happen.

(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

And then the VAR entered the fray, and advised that the referee Kurt Ams review exactly where the foul had taken place – had the phantom infringement occurred inside the box? Insofar as a fraudulently won foul can occur anywhere, yes, it apparently had.

What Ams probably saw, in truth, was his own error, one he could not use the benefit of slow-motion hindsight to rectify. So, because he had given the foul, he had to revise the punishment, and the free kick was upgraded to a penalty.

New man Berenguer took it, and Thomas pushed it onto the post – a bit of ball-don’t-lie frontier karmic justice, perhaps? No, as de Laet smashed the rebound in. 1-1, then, and a quite odd atmosphere descended.

The fouls began to fly in with a little more venom now. Kenny Athiu barrelled through the back of Fornaroli, a bit of revenge taken in the clash of flesh and bone. Bart Schenkeveld and Baena smashed heads, and both players’ brows were blessed with a spurting trickle of warm red blood.

This whiff of cruor entered the nostrils; this was, indeed, a derby. Halftime called a pause to the battle.

One wonders exactly why Kevin Muscat decided to play Honda out wide and Troisi in the centre of the attacking midfield. Troisi is not a traditional No.10, in spite of what the back of his shirt argues, and really, Honda is no winger.

Similarly, Terry Antonis, for all his attacking versatility and refined reading of the game, is not really a wide player either but spent most of his time out on the left. While Athiu was hovering around in a largely ineffective fashion, the Victory’s attack took on a strange demeanour; a number of potentially potent players slightly blunted by their positions in the scheme.

Indeed, the best early moment for Victory in the second half was when Honda took up a central position, drove forward with the ball, and then played in Barbarouses, the only natural wide man in the team. The midfield diamond the Victory were using is, in theory, meant to allow a fairly free interchanging of position, or at least a kind of No.10-by-committee scheme, but it took until late in the game for the fruits of that to bear.

Troisi then struck a shot against the post, perhaps justifying his place in the centre, although the opportunity was crafted by Honda veering inwards, a natural motion for the Japanese star. Honda then clipped a superb pass into Athiu, who then turned into trouble and bailed out City with a foul.

Honda, with these moments of quality, was driving Victory to the fore. Riley McGree came on for City.

And with his first touch, McGree scored. A counter-attack, against the run of play, rolled down the pitch like a surge of water. Brattan navigated his way inward from the right flank, hesitated a little, and surveyed his options.

There were a number of Victory defenders in his way, but McGree was motoring right through the heart of them, and a gorgeous reverse-through-ball found him. A first time shot left Thomas rooted to the ground, and quite suddenly City had the lead.

(AAP Image/Joe Castro)

Athiu had a great chance to hit back immediately but blazed over after chesting down neatly. This was Athiu’s first league start for Victory, and although that implies he’s relatively untested, it would be too generous to say the lack of poise shown in missing this chance came as a huge shock.

This felt like an opportunity for Athiu, with Ola Toivonen injured, but he didn’t make the most of it.

Baena thrilled us with a twirling Zidane-esque turn and pass and was then crunched by an elevator-door combo-slide-tackle by Mcgree and Lachlan Wales. Baena was replaced by Broxham not long after.

The match was slipping away from Kevin Muscat’s team, a skirmish they had contested well, but had conceded two goals, only one of which they could feel rightfully aggrieved about. 

You could see the Victory players fading, and Muscat’s substitutions didn’t offer any new urgency or invention, in fact, two of said substitutions – Broxham and, later, Thomas Deng replacing Georg Niedermeier – were defensive, made while chasing the game. In the end, they couldn’t catch it.

It was an engrossing derby, and the 40,000 fans who went along would have left sated by it, especially the minority on the winning side. Victory will look back on that VAR decision and grind their teeth to dust in anger, and who could blame them.

For anyone who had assumed the first-season VAR kinks would be ironed out, the A-League took two games to offer evidence to the contrary. In the early season, without their big-name striker, there was plenty to build on for the Victory.

For City, the defensive steel they showed, as well as the ability to snatch the win cleanly and with a sneer on the counter, will be hugely encouraging.