A frustrating affair unfolded under Saturday night lights at AAMI park as a scoreless draw played out between Melbourne City and Adelaide United in the penultimate round of the 2024/25 A-League Men’s season.
The game summed up our season so far as we see-sawed between slick team moves and a total disjointedness, between inspiring youth players and disappointing imports, all underscored by a lack of firepower.
Here’s what we learned:
Uninspiring to Unconvincing
Like the first half of our match against Brisbane in our previous home game, you’d be forgiven for memory-holing the first 45 minutes of last night’s game against Adelaide – the reward for our patience was never to come. A largely uninspiring start saw us barely able to get out of our own half as Adelaide turned our high-pressing game style back on us, while the second half saw the dynamic flipped in what was one of our more dominant halves of the season. What wasn’t new however, was our inability to finish.
Marco Tilio was our only bright spark up front as Max Caputo struggled to fashion opportunities, and our attacking visa players continued to disappoint. Vidmar’s backing of Schreiber in the starting eleven led to a dynamic midfield that had the second half flowing, but his delayed dragging of Cohen and Kuen for Rahmani and Wong must be scrutinised, especially in Kuen’s case as the Austrian consistently took the air out of our moves and fluffed our best chance. The kids have outshone their elders at every opportunity this season, and Aurelio has been too late to recognise that in both the match – which truly came alive with said substitutions in the last five minutes of the game – and in the broader scope of the season.
Photo: Melbourne City FC
Waved Away
If you only managed to watch the post-match highlights of the match you’d be forgiven for not realising we actually did manage to find the back of the net during our second half assault on United’s goal. Adelaide’s keeper threw himself at a long ball over the top, clashed with a City attacker, and we manage to pounce on the loose ball and fire through a wall of defenders into the empty net, only for a foul to be called for the City player that happened to be standing under the keeper as he leapt into the air. We all know goalkeepers are a protected species, but the expectation that an opposition player is simply meant to disappear into thin air seems a tad farfetched.
Add to this what seemed to be a decent penalty shout in the first half as TIlio was bowled over in the box, and it’s easy to imagine us walking away from AAMI park with a very handy two-nil win.
2nd Place Equation
While the result handed Auckland the Premiers Plate, few were holding onto hope that our boys in blue could clinch it this late in the season. What most City fans have had their hearts set on is Asian Champions League Elite qualification which is tied to second place. One of the A-League’s greatest strengths is the high level of competition between the teams, leaving everyone guessing as to how the ladder might shape up season to season.
With first place locked down, the chasing pack is salivating over second place, with three hungry wolves in the Wanderers, Victory and Western United all snapping at our heels. Depending on Western United’s match against Sydney and next week’s results, we could even drop as low as 5th. While it makes for an exciting last round of football, our grip on the consolation prize is far from convincing.
