After riding ups and downs, City back 'their way' for grand final success
For Melbourne City A-Legue Women boss Dario Vidošić, the presence of his side and Sydney in this Saturday's grand final is an accurate reflection of the two program's strength.
Competing to become the first side in A-League Women's history to win five titles in this Saturday’s grand final, Melbourne City and Sydney have long established themselves as benchmark programs in Australian women’s football. In the eyes of City boss Dario Vidošić, it’s a strength reflected in the two being the last one’s standing following the longest season in league history.
Thanks to the return of the Central Coast Mariners to the competition, the A-League Women staged a full, 22-round home and away season for the first time in 2023-24, a key foundational piece in its journey to full, year-round professionalism.
Inevitably, this came with challenges. Both City and Sydney, who would end the season in first and second place respectively, would be buffeted by injuries and adversity.
Just five weeks into the season, City lost the league’s best player Holly McNamara to an ACL, the same malady that cruelled Sky Blue stalwarts Nat Tobin and Kirsty Fenton. The likes of Hannah Wilkinson and Fiona Worts have missed extended time for both sides, while junior international call-ups stripped both of contributors at key points.
Though boosted by the midseason return of Mackenzie Hawkesby from Brighton, Sydney also had to contend with Asian commitments while City lost Kaitlyn Torpey and Lysianne Proulx after in-season transfers to NWSL sides San Diego and Bay FC.
It meant that both sides had to manage ebbs and flows throughout the season but whereas in previous years of limited rounds – the competition was only 12 weeks long as recently as 2020-21 – this could have served to derail their campaigns, both Vidošić and Sydney boss Ante Juric were able to find a way to adapt and overcome.
“Going off previous seasons, you could argue some would get a bit more of a favourable draw than others because you wouldn't play everyone home and away,” said Vidošić. “Sometimes the previous years, the top four you wouldn't play someone at the bottom. So now is the first time where it was the same.
“Injuries are just a part of it. I think people forget we lost Holly in round five. Probably for me, the best player in the competition. Or one of arguably. Losing her, Wilkinson, other injuries [was tough] then to have two of our players get sold in the middle [of the season] – which was fantastic for the women's game that we could break the record twice and see girls achieve their dreams as well to play overseas.
“Overall [a longer season] gives you that chance to you know where it's not just a short season where three or four games could make a difference. So here you can tweak things, find solutions to problems that arise and end at the end. I think now we're in we're in a good place and we're confident for Saturday.”
In guiding City to the premiership and its first piece of silverware since the 2019-20 championship – breaking a three-year stranglehold Sydney had had on the plate – Vidošić has proven himself adept at finding solutions in his first full season in charge in Casey.
This, however, has come within the framework of a possession-based game plan that he remains firmly committed to, building upon the foundations left in place by his father Rado when he left early in the 2022-23 season and infusing them with a new level of intensity.
The 23-time Socceroo has matched the level of facilities available to the club at their training base in Melbourne’s southeast with an increased focus on preparation and planning since ascending to the main chair, demanding more of his young group and getting the best out of veteran figures such as Wilkinson and Rebekah Stott.
“We still continue to play our way,” said Vidošić. “We just had to adapt a few little things [over the season], with maybe a few players changing their roles slightly. We still carried on normally as we would.
“It took us maybe a little bit of time because we had to change so many things and then [players] would take off with their national teams in the [international] window. So that didn't make it make it easier.
“But even in that tough patch we went through, the ball wouldn't go in, it seemed; we would create lots of big chances but just couldn't put them away and then we'd concede one or two and be and be punished.
“Throughout the season, every team sort of ebbed and flowed but I think overall we and Sydney have been the two that have managed it the best and now we meet on the final day.”
Of course, it’s a bit easier to manage the ebbs and flows of the season when you’ve got a player like Stott in your backline. If McNamara is the league’s best player, then the New Zealand international is probably the most important – it is highly doubtful that City reach this point without the 30-year-old’s steady guidance at the back.
When City finds themselves in distress during games, it is invariably Stott who is standing up to bail them out, be it through goal line clearances, last-ditch tackles, acting as a pressure valve in possessions, driving her side forward on the ball, or one of the enumerate other ways she serves as a difference maker.
Not only would a win on Saturday give her a sixth A-League Women's medal – she presently has four with City and a 2010–11 crown with Brisbane – but this one could, or should, press her bonafides as one of the greatest to ever play in the competition; a first since she returned to the field after overcoming a diagnosis of Lymphoma in 2021.
"To come back home to Melbourne City and to be able to win the championship along with the premiership would be so special for me and this group of girls deserve it,” she said. “We've worked hard all season so it’d be incredible.
“I was here for the first year of City and I've been here for so long. It's just an amazing club. The facilities we get the care we get from the club. It's just second to none. It's home for me.”