It was far from pretty. A red card for Adelaide United’s Cristiano in the 10th minute drew my cheers – until I got home and saw how bad a decision that was. Matthew Breeze, in one foul swoop, not only gave Adelaide cause to blame their loss on a refereeing failure, but also robbed Victory fans of the satisfaction of having won fair and square. Granted, I’m not sure the scoreline would have been much different if Adelaide had had 11 men all night; but that’s mere conjecture.

Adelaide started strongly, but the red card saw them retreat into their own half. The rest of the second half played out like this: Melbourne gets the ball, attacks, fumbles it/is intercepted, Adelaide boots the ball up the field, straight back to a Melbourne player. To their credit, Adelaide sowed up the holes that gaped so profoundly against Melbourne two weeks ago; Jonas Salley played a critical role in marking Carlos Hernández, who was rarely allowed room to move more than a few steps.

Adelaide came out attacking in the second half. And they would have had a goal if it hadn’t been for a brilliant save by Michael Theoklitos. Minutes later, a freshly substituted Evan Berger backheeled the ball to Tom Pondeljak, who unleashed a brilliant strike from outside the penalty area, catching Eugene Galekovic off-guard and bringing the crowd to life.

At this point, with Melbourne a goal up and Adelaide a man down, it looked like an impossible task for the visitors. But a few minutes later, Melbourne with a free kick, a cafuffle broke out in the penalty area. Players shoved each other, and Eugene Galekovic ran all the way to the half way line to give Carlos Hernández a shove. Surely a red card offence. But no. Breeze gives a red to Danny Allsopp. From the replay I’ve seen, this appears to have been in another poor decision. All in all, Breeze gave two red cards that probably shouldn’t have been given, and failed to give the one that should have been (for Galekovic). Not a great night for Australia’s alleged number 1 referee…

With Melbourne reduced to 10 men, Adelaide were given a fresh breath of hope. But the side that hadn’t scored against Melbourne in their previous three games was again unable to do so. In front of 53,273 , Matthew Breeze blew the full time whistle, announcing the new A-League Champions: Melbourne Victory.

Melbourne faltered at times during season 4 of the A-League – especially against teams propping up the ladder. For the latter half of the season, this became the pattern: solid wins against top of the table sides, disappointing losses against struggling sides.

Other factors may have played a part, but I think part of the reason why Melbourne lost the ‘easy’ games and won the ‘hard’ ones comes down to complacency.

All year, Melbourne has had the edge over Adelaide United. But Adelaide has always been considered a tough opponent, a side to be wary of. After the demolition two weeks ago, you’d be forgiven for thinking of Adelaide as an easy beat.

But underdogs can spring big surprises. Confidence won’t hurt Melbourne tomorrow night, but it cannot afford to be complacent.

I didn’t get a chance to watch the Adelaide vs Queensland game last week, but from what I’ve heard it was a stubbornly defensive Adelaide United that managed to bury the Roar. The reintroduction of Jonas Salley to the side seems to have had the desired effect, shoring up the midfield. But will it be enough?

Once again, Ernie Merrick has a full squad to pick from. The Victory have had two weeks to rest and prepare. They’re fit. They’re ready. And as long as they don’t grow complacent, I believe they’re going to be lifting the trophy tomorrow night.

I thought I’d take the occasion to compile a bunch of interesting/meaningless statistics.

• Only one team has ever reached the Grand Final after finishing outside the top 2. That was Central Coast Mariners in season one of the A-League.
• No team finishing outside the top 2 has ever won the Grand Final.
• Adelaide United has qualified for the Asian Champions League three times in four years.
• Two out of three times, the team with the home ground advantage in the Grand Final has won. The one time this wasn’t the case was last year, when the Mariners “hosted” Newcastle in Sydney.
• No team has ever won the Pre-season Cup, topped the ladder and won the Grand Final in the same season.
• Melbourne Victory is the only team to ever win the Pre-season Cup and then top the ladder.
• Only one current Melbourne Victory player has scored in a Grand Final (Archie Thompson x 5)
• Only one current Adelaide United player has scored in a Grand Final (Kristian Sarkies x 1, when he played for Melbourne against Adelaide)
• Since the start of season 4, Adelaide and Melbourne have played each other 5 times. The score is 11-2 in Melbourne’s favour.
• Of the eight goals ever scored in a Grand Final, Melbourne scored six. Archie Thompson scored five.

After Vidmar’s hissy-fit, it’s hard to see how Adelaide are going to regroup for their semi-final against the Queensland Roar, who put the Central Coast Mariners away 4-1 on aggregate.

But, to think back to Saturday night. The biggest question mark before the game was what part Carlos Hernández would play. I’d anticipated a second-half appearance from the Costa Rican, but Ernie Merrick had different plans. Within ten minutes it paid dividends, Hernández threading a ball through to Archie Thompson to set up the first goal. Fifteen minutes later, Carlos got his own chance and fired it into the roof of the Adelaide goal. 2-0, 30 minutes gone, game over.

Hernández then set up two more, first for Danny Allsopp, then for Tom Pondeljak in the second half (what a fine volley from Tommy P that was). After years of being compared to his predecessor, Fred, Hernández pulled off a display on Saturday night that was on par with Fred’s Grand Final performance. Ernie Merrick, Gary Cole, et al.: Please do everything within your power to retain Carlos.

This was no one-man show, of course. Archie, Allsopp and Pondeljak all had great games going forward, while Roddy Vargas in his new hair-cut kept the backline solid. Kevin Muscat has given two outstanding performances in the finals this year. Michael Theoklitos had little to do for most of the 90 minutes but pulled off two phenomenal saves to keep a clean sheet.

In case you missed the game, or to relive the glory, you can watch it on YouTube here.

If statistics are anything to go by, things aren’t looking good for Adelaide United. They haven’t beaten Melbourne since the Pre-Season Cup. Melbourne has won all of its last 6 games at home. And Adelaide has a 2 goal deficit to make up for; meaning, in short, that it must score at least three times at the Telstra Dome to book a home Grand Final.

Stranger things have happened. Tom Pondeljak this week talked about the Mariners’ come-back last year against the Newcastle Jets, who had won the first game 2-0. Tommy P and the rest of the Mariners dug in and pulled off a 3-0 win to book themselves a spot in the Grand Final (not a home Grand Final of course, because the FFA determined that neither Gosford nor Newcastle were worthy of hosting such an auspicious occasion).

But the Mariners pulled off that feat at home. Adelaide need to do it in front of forty thousand expectant Victory fans.

For Merrick, the task is simple. Keep doing what we’re doing. Take the game to Adelaide. If we produce the kind of football we produced last week, we’ll be right.

Carlos Hernández played for the Costa Rican national team yesterday and is expected to arrive back in Melbourne sometime today. If I were Merrick, I’d keep him on the bench. Wait till Adelaide start getting desperate and committing more men forward, then bring Carlos on to kill them off. That’s how it plays out in my head in any case.

Meanwhile, the Mariners are in the same predicament as Adelaide (though Adelaide gets a second chance if they stuff up). Queensland need only to hold the Central Coast at bay and protect their 2-0 lead, and they’ll have themselves a semifinal berth against the loser of Melbourne vs Adelaide.

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Melbourne all but booked its second home Grand Final with a 2-0 win over Adelaide United on Saturday night. After Queensland pulled off a similar upset the night before, beating the Mariners 2-0 in Gosford, this coming weekend’s round is simply a matter of Melbourne and Queensland holding off what will undoubtedly be the desperate efforts of their respective opponents.

Melbourne came out with the right attitude, attacking vivaciously and getting a deserved opener after 13 minutes. The goal, from the boot of Carlos Hernández, was an indication of the kind of form Melbourne was in. For one, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Carlos run that fast; and 9 times out of 10, shots like that are fired well over the bar. Not this time. This was Melbourne’s night.

I was surprised to see Aurelio Vidmar wait so long before bringing on Cristiano. Certainly, to start with Paul Agostino, a striker who hasn’t scored in his last seven appearances, was a brave/odd/foolish move – and it didn’t pay off. From what I’ve seen of Adelaide this year, they look far more dangerous with Cristiano on – if only because the Brazilian is such a superb cheater and able to conjure penalties like an evil David Copperfield.

Both keepers had excellent games. Galekovic may have been beaten twice, but he pulled off one of the most impressive saves I’ve seen all year, stopping a sure-fire goal from Hernández with a lunge and one-handed save. Theo also made an important save in the first half, blocking a sneaky shot from Kristian Sarkies with his legs.

I was supremely impressed with Melbourne’s performance. We defended well, attacked even better, and looked far more dangerous than Adelaide. Carlos Hernández, Danny Allsopp, Sebastian Ryall, Rodrigo Vargas, Archie Thompson – all had excellent games, while there were very few weak links among the rest of the eleven.

YouTube videos don’t appear to be working on MVFC Blog at the moment, so for your viewing pleasure I will direct you here.

And so it begins. The Queensland Roar got the ball rolling last night with an all-important 2-0 away-from-home win against the Central Coast Mariners (report). Attention now turns to tonight’s affair in Adelaide.

Melbourne have had the edge over Adelaide all year, with three wins from three. That may, as Kevin Muscat suggests, give us a mental edge as we go into the finals. Certainly, Adelaide have to get the monkey off their back. Memories of the 2006 finals series will undoubtedly add to their psychological disadvantage.

Two years ago, when Adelaide hosted Melbourne in the semi-finals, Merrick opted for a defensive approach and got a 0-0 draw. There’s some sense in that, of course, but I think, given our dominance over Adelaide this year, we need to go for the win. We’ve beaten them every time and there’s nothing to suggest we can’t do it again.

Melbourne have a full squad to pick from, with Evan Berger expected to be the only change to the squad that faced Wellington two weeks ago. Adelaide will miss Robert Cornthwaite but took advantage of the short-term injury replacement rule to bring in Rostyn Griffiths, a 20-year old midfielder who just signed a one-year deal with Blackburn.

My tip: Melbourne to grab a 1-0 lead, then park in defence.

It was a top-of-the-table clash, with first place up for grabs, but I was still surprised at crowd attendance. Over 27,000 on a Tuesday night is a great turn-out by any stretch of the imagination, and a reminder that good performances (such as the one against Sydney) put bums of seats. Melburnians like their football, but they’d rather pay to see a team in form than a team out of form.

Adelaide looked flat for most of the 90 minutes. They had a handful of shots, Theo was forced to make one excellent save, but the former ladder leaders deserved to lose. Aurelio Vidmar admitted as much after the match:

“We had no aggression, desperation, not much at all. There was probably only a handful of players who could have came off that pitch tonight and said they gave everything they possibly could. We just weren’t at the races tonight. We were very lucky it was only 1-0.”

Melbourne certainly played with desperation, but was dogged by poor passing for much of the first 60 minutes. The ideas were right, but the execution fell short too often. Carlos Hernández, after putting in a great game on the weekend, struggled to find his rhythm. Perhaps the state of the ground had something to do with it all?

It was good, of course, to see Nick Ward get his second goal in three appearances. What’s even more encouraging is the fact that Melbourne has scored from set pieces in the last four games. In the past, Melbourne has rarely looked dangerous from set pieces – now, it’s one of our most powerful weapons. Even Carlos Hernández almost popped in a free kick, stopped only by outstretched Eugene Galekovic.

Number 1 meets number 2 at the Telstra Dome tonight, as Adelaide United and the Melbourne Victory go head to head to determine who takes the top of the ladder.

A win for Adelaide, giving them a 4-point lead at the top of the table with a game in hand, would all but guarantee them the Minor Premiership. On the other hand, Melbourne are fighting to stay in the race for number one. Three points going their way would put them a point above Adelaide, but the South Australian side still has a game in hand – we would need other results to swing our way.

In short, tonight is critical.

The fitness and depth of both sides will be tested, with neither side having had more than a four day break. Melbourne’s had an extra day to recover since its last match, but if there’s one thing Adelaide have proved this season, it’s that they have can dig deep and produce the goods even while running on tired legs.

Depth is certainly something which Merrick has at his disposal. Grant Brebner and Jose Luis Lopez, neither of whom were even in the squad over the past two weeks, could come into his line-up. After last week, I get the feeling that Evan Berger may be the one to be dropped tonight. Pulled off early against Queensland, I think Berger is the main one in the 16-man squad whose removal would make sense – and who could be easily replaced. Michael Thwaite may be due for a break – like Philip said, Kemp has looked better than him the last two weeks – but in such a critical game I can’t see Merrick pulling out one of his key defensive options.

My tip for tonight: Melbourne by two goals.

After a series of bad results and without Archie Thompson, Ney Fabiano and Carlos Hernández, the Victory were undoubtedly the underdogs last night. But they produced a great performance and certainly deserved the win.

It looked like it was going to be another bad night when Cristiano dived in the box and won a penalty from Matthew Breeze. Travis Dodd tucked the goal away, putting Adelaide up, against the run of play.

Melbourne had looked the more likely side to break through up until then, and continued to dominate the game after going down a goal. Matthew Kemp was particularly good in the first half, pushing forward with strong runs against his former club.

The Victory came out of the break and were again the dominant side. It paid off after 5 minutes, when Cristiano needlessly (some might stay stupidly) knocked Rodrigo Vargas down in the Adelaide box. Kevin Muscat made no mistake from the spot.

Cassio scored with a brilliant free kick in the 68th minute (brilliant kick, but why didn’t Theo try to save it?). Again, Melbourne down against the run of play. But credit to them, they kept going. Evan Berger in particular played a magnificent game. He doesn’t have silky technique, but I admire his speed and commitment. That paid off last night, when he was brought down by Robert Cornthwaite in the box, giving Melbourne its second penalty. Again, Kevin Muscat made no mistake.

(Why didn’t Cornthwaite get another yellow? A foul like that in the box certainly deserves it. Adelaide should have been down to ten men.)

Back to 2-2, Melbourne still kept going. Then, in the 84th minute: a mad scramble in the Adelaide box; a shot stopped by an Adelaide defender’s hand (another thing missed by Breeze); a bicycle kick by Tommy Pondeljak, missing the target but landing nicely for Billy Celeski, who nudged it in to get his first goal for the Victory and put Melbourne ahead at long last.

Excellent stuff. Even after going up, Melbourne did not resort to ultra-defensive tactics, as they have been prone to do in the past. If Danny Allsopp had made more of it, he could even have made it 4-2 in the final minute. But alas, 3-2 suffices. A win for Melbourne, back to the top of the league – and they’ll remain so if Sydney FC doesn’t win tonight.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwAEhA7tmIk[/youtube]

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MVFCBlog will be a bit quieter in November, as I’m heading to New Zealand for a four week holiday. You know how it goes. I will be at the Wellington vs Melbourne game on the 28th though. If you’re there, send me an email.

Meanwhile, check out some of the blogs in the sidebar if you’re looking for a blogger’s perspective on the A-League.