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Opinion
Last Friday I wrote that anyone tipping Melbourne Victory to beat Melbourne City on Saturday night was a goose, or a potential genius should the upset actually unfold.
Well Bruno Fornaroli had something of the last laugh, as Victory stunned the ladder leaders with their best performance of the season.
Tony Popovic had earlier stated his view that the team was not playing as poorly as the table might suggest. Based on the spark, energy and creativity that his men performed with in the derby, he may well have been correct.
Mathew Leckie did everything he possibly could to steal away a couple of points from the previously out-of-form Victory, yet the pressure of falling behind twice eventually weighed too heavily. Despite cutting through the defence with ease at different times and enjoying the lion’s share of possession, City’s second loss of the season presents a worrying concern for coach Rado Vidosic.
Put simply, he is in control of the best team in the league, yet also knows that on any given day they are more than beatable. Across City’s last 17 A-League matches, there have been three such days.
The first of those was the 2021-22 grand final, where Western United stunned the obvious favourites with two goals.
Western United lift the A-League Men trophy. (Photo by Dave Hewison/Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
On four other occasions across that period, the points have been shared and despite the fact that the bookies throw up some prohibitively short odds on City in the days leading up to their matches, the value actually appears to be elsewhere.
Perhaps the reputation that results from the well-documented attachment to a powerful parent club, a quality squad and the sustained period of success where City has sat high on the ladder season after season, have all brain-washed opposition fans into believing the hype.
What if those prohibitive odds are a complete misrepresentation of the actual competitiveness in all Melbourne City matches and a product of some almost mythical perception that translates into automatic assumptions about the team and their dominance?
City will continue to win plenty of games and look likely owners of the Premiers Plate in a few months’ time, yet their fans are already entering ’squeaky bum time’, in full knowledge that Sydney FC and Victory have dusted them up this season, and a host of others have been mighty close to doing so as well.
It’s a ripping scenario for the league as a whole.
As was the return of the Melbourne Derby, despite a heavy police presence and the odd clown who let themselves and the event down with poor behaviour.
Pleasingly, more than 18,000 people made their way to AAMI Park and reignited a rivalry that always delivers, with Fornaroli becoming the first player to score for both clubs in this derby one of the most compelling talking points.
It felt nice to watch the teams back at it with a generous attendance there to savour the action. Something had not felt right, with uncertainty around the long-term impacts of the pitch invasion still lingering and difficult to quantity.
(Chris Putnam/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
If there are a few thousand fans who have stayed away and continued to do so on Saturday night as some sort of protest, they should maintain their stance. The derby looked great without them and across the long term, they are insignificant.
What isn’t, is Melbourne City’s propensity to lose matches that many believe they are certain to win. The Victory exposed what could be a mental hurdle the team battles with, apathy and over-confidence from reading their own press or perhaps a technical failing that often sees them dominating possession and control yet unable to put teams away.
Whatever it is, the last couple of seasons have seen it re-emerge from time to time and Western United used it to their advantage in the biggest of all games.
Are the City boys as good as most people think they are? Probably. Yet does the salary-capped nature of the A-League make them far less dominant within their own league than the big brother in Manchester? Almost certainly.
The five clubs that join City in the finals will all believe themselves capable of knocking them off and that is perhaps the best feature of the A-League right now.
While it is always fun to nominate a favourite, perhaps there simply isn’t one this time around.