Melbourne Derby (A-League)

The Melbourne Derby is an intra-city local derby in Australia's premier football competition, the A-League. It is contested between the two Melbourne teams in the competition, Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory, and was the A-League's first intra-city derby. Until 2014, Melbourne City competed under the name Melbourne Heart FC.

History

With the introduction of Melbourne Heart (who would later be known as Melbourne City) to the A-League at the start of the 2010–11 season (the Victory having joined the league at inception), the first derby was held on 8 October 2010 at AAMI Park. The match was originally scheduled for 2 October 2010 however due to the 2010 AFL Grand Final Replay occurring on the same day, the match was postponed.^[1]

Melbourne Heart won the inaugural derby 2–1, with goals from Alex Terra and John Aloisi. Robbie Kruse scored for Victory. Aziz Behich was sent off late in the second half, but Heart were able to hold on and secure the win. Although the game was an official sell out, only 25,897 fans turned up, well short of AAMI Park's official capacity of 30,050. The Victory hosted their first home derby on 22 January at Docklands Stadium, with the match ending in a 2–2 draw.^[2] The match was marred by an unacceptable tackle by Kevin Muscat on Adrian Zahra, which earned the Victory captain his second straight red card and a subsequent eight-match ban, ending not only his season, but his A-League career.^[3]

The first scoreless draw in the derby occurred in the third round of 2011/12 season, whilst a record crowd at AAMI Park was in attendance for the second derby of the season. This derby was arguably one of the best in the rivalry's brief existence, with Heart midfieldier Matt Thompson scoring twice in a matter of minutes late in the first half to put Heart in the lead 2–1, before Heart substitute Alex Terra scored controversially after appearing to handball preceding his goal in the second half. Heart would win the match 3–2.^[4] The intense rivalry and passion between both sets of supporters occasionally boiled over, as occurred in February 2011 when four Melbourne Heart supporters were charged with "conspiracy to falsely imprison a [Victory supporter] ".^[5]

In the 2014/15 season, Heart underwent a takeover by the City Football Group. Melbourne City had their first derby win under the new management that season, winning the pre-Christmas derby 1-0 with Erik Paartalu scoring one of the latest winners in a derby.^[6] Victory and City later met in the Finals Series for the first time, in front of a derby record attendance of 50,873 at Etihad Stadium. Melbourne Victory won the Semi Final convincingly with a score of 3-0, with goals from Besart Berisha, Kosta Barbarouses and Archie Thompson.^[7] The third derby of the 2015/16 season was marred by a series of flares let off both outside AAMI Park before the match and inside the arena during the match by some Melbourne Victory supporters. The poor behaviour from Victory fans also extended to "an alleged assault on TV news personnel outside the stadium, throwing missiles at Melbourne City player Thomas Sørensen and a Victoria Police officer, and altercations with police after the match".^[8] Football Federation Australia subsequently issued Melbourne Victory a $50,000 club fine and a suspended three competition points deduction.^[8] On the field, the match was lauded as one of the most "captivating" derbies of the rivalry and featured an incredible passage of play for a goal from City striker Bruno Fornaroli.^[9] In Round 2 of the 2016/17 season, City recorded just their second ever derby win at Etihad Stadium, comfortably defeating Victory 4-1. The match featured the A-League debut of Socceroos all-time leading goal scorer Tim Cahill for City, who scored an incredible long-range goal to open City's account.^[10]

The two rivals were drawn for their first FFA Cup derby in 2016, at the semi-final stage of the tournament. Melbourne City advanced to the Final, knocking out Victory 2-0 in what was one of the most spiteful clashes between the two rivals.

Matches

Heart/Victory era

• The following table details Melbourne Derby results from 2010–14, during which time Melbourne City were known as Melbourne Heart

City/Victory era

• The following table details Melbourne Derby results from 2014–present, since Melbourne City were taken over by the City Football Group

_{* RS: A-League Regular Season, FS: A-League Finals Series, GF: A-League Grand Final, CUP: FFA Cup}

Statistics

As of 25 October 2016, there have been 21 competitive meetings between the teams. Thus far, both Victory and City have won on eight separate occasions, with five games drawn. The first finals series derby match occurred on May 8, 2015, a game which Victory won 3-0. The first FFA Cup derby came in the 2016 Semi-finals, which City won 0-2.

The biggest victory went to City,^{[lower-alpha 1]} who won 4–0 in on 1 March 2014. The most frequent result in the derby is 2–1, which has occurred in five encounters, City having won three of those games.

Top goalscorers

Player	Club	Goals
Besart Berisha	Melbourne Victory	7
Archie Thompson	Melbourne Victory	6
Bruno Fornaroli	Melbourne City	4
John Aloisi	Melbourne City	3
Kosta Barbarouses	Melbourne Victory
Fahid Ben Khalfallah	Melbourne Victory
Robbie Kruse	Melbourne Victory
David Williams	Melbourne City
Alex Terra	Melbourne City

• Players in Bold are still active for their club.

Players who have played for both clubs

Correct as of 6 November 2015

Player	Melbourne Heart/City career			Melbourne Victory career
	Span	League apps	League goals	Span	League apps	League goals
Aziz Behich	2010–2014	89	2	2009–2010	5	0
Mate Dugandžić	2011–2015	56	11	2009–2011	36	7
Fred	2011–2013	38	3	2006–2007	20	4
Harry Kewell	2013–2014	16	2	2011–2012	25	8
Paulo Retre	2013–	26	1	2011–2012	0	0
Kristian Sarkies	2010–2012	12	2	2005–2007	35	3
Tando Velaphi	2013–2015	20	0	2011–2013	3	0

See also

• Sydney Derby

Notes

References