City eyes Sky Blue test, surge up ALW table
After navigating a stop-start beginning to the 2025-26 season, Melbourne City will enter 2026 well placed to surge up the table. But they'll need to deal with frequent rivals Sydney FC first.
Michael Matricciani often reiterates that he doesn’t pay much heed to what Melbourne City’s rivals are doing in the A-League Women. But he admits that even his inward focus was breached by concerns during his side’s stop-start to the campaign about the mental impact that a significant points gap opening between his side and the top of the table could hold. But heading into 2026, with City just four points back of first-placed Canberra and possessing three games in hand, those concerns have been assuaged, giving his players an “extra boost” and ensuring that he can remain locked in on controlling the controllables.
The A-League Women’s fixture forced into a late reshuffle by the ‘hibernation’ of Western United and the sudden imposition of bye weeks and their own slate further altered by Asian Champions League commitments, City will enter the new year with just six games under their belt. This sits in sharp contrast with league-leading Canberra and third-placed Central Coast’s nine games, to say nothing of the ten matches that Melbourne Victory have already logged and also contrasts, albeit not as sharply, with a trailing pack that have mostly logged seven or eight games.
“We’re getting into the groove of it now,” midfielder Leah Davidson said. “We had Vietnam and then Adelaide, the cancelled game. Getting in the groove and playing games week in week out is a lot nicer, and the girls are really enjoying it.”
Needless to say, this vast divergence of games played means that the table, while maybe not lying outright, speaks with a forked tongue. Look at the points per game stat, though, and City suddenly jumps from fourth to first, taking 2.17 points per game compared to next-best Canberra’s 1.89 despite falling to Antoni Jagarinec’s unit last month. And with that defeat at McKellar Park indicative of a competition in which almost every side would appear capable of beating each other on the right day, it means that the mountain that City might have feared they’d need to climb when they spent an extended period hasn’t materialised.
“The one thing that maybe I was a little bit concerned [about] earlier in the season was that if a team or two were able to capitalise and have big runs, then we would be eight, nine, or ten points, potentially, behind some side,” said Matricciani. “And then that would have been a big challenge in itself, psychologically. But the way it’s sort of panned out is that we’re relatively close, and we have those games in hand, so I think that’s given us an extra boost.
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“But all I talk about is focusing on the next day, the next action, the next game, and that’s all we can control -- especially in a season as we have at the moment, where some teams are on 10 games, we’re on six, and it’s a bit all over the place. So the ladder is not really a clear indicator of maybe form, but we can only worry about ourselves, and definitely focusing on Sydney for this week.”
“We learned a lot from [the Canberra defeat],” added Davidson. “We were never going to be undefeated [forever]. We’re so proud of what we’ve done, but obviously you have to lose. And I think it’s not even just the loss. I think we took so much from that game.”
Of course, while City did run out 3-1 winners against Perth Glory last weekend, mercilessly overhauling them off the back of a Holly McNamara hat-trick, they found themselves placed well and truly on the back foot for the opening exchanges. This led to a review the next day during which it took Matricciani almost an hour to get through the first 15 minutes of the game, and produced over 30 clips, with less of a focus on negating what Perth did and moreso improving their own behaviours, to be shown on either a team-wide or individual level.
“I’ll say that, in the review of that first 15-20 minutes, it [presented] really good learning opportunities,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about. You don’t win the championship now; you win the championship at the end. We want to keep improving every single week, and every team throws different challenges, and we want to keep improving our football IQ. And whatever picture is thrown at us, we’ll be able to adapt. We want to keep adding layers to our football style.”
But Glory is now in the rear-view mirror, at least until January 24. And City’s thoughts have now turned to Sydney FC, whom they face down in Casey this Sunday. Taking a clean bill of health from their win on Sunday, the defending premiers will be given an added boost for the game by the return of Matildas’ attacker Bryleeh Henry after a longstanding back injury, with the 22-year-old likely to see up to 30 minutes of second-half action.
It’s been an up-and-down season for the Sky Blues, who commenced a five-game unbeaten run at the start of the season with a 2-2 draw with City, but have now lost their last two games, including a 7-0 thrashing at the hands of a previously goal-shy Wellington last time out. With seven games under their belts, Ante Juric’s side will enter the weekend sitting eighth on both the actual and points per game tables, able to move into the top six if they get a win and other results go their way, but potentially falling to second-bottom if Perth and Adelaide pick up points at home.
“But it’s always competitive against Sydney FC. It’s like an untold derby. So I think it’s going to be a massive game. Aggressive. I think it’ll be huge.”
“They’re normally very compact and very aggressive, pressing on restarts, but then very compact, more mid to deep block and looking to transition,” Matricciani assessed. “So, a team like us, that likes to dominate the ball and pin teams in, we have done that to them in the past, but really struggled to break them down.
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“So we’ve been doing a fair bit of work on that, and we’ll be training to try and think about some patterns, how we can open them up, but then always be wary of their transition moments, which they’re very, very dangerous on.
“It’ll be a different game, but we showed the girls a few clips from round one, which we’ve definitely learned from, and hopefully we can do things a little bit better and break them down.”
Of course, there’s also a level of the form guide going out the window when City and Sydney clash – the two having established themselves as fierce rivals since the former’s introduction to the league as they clashed with premierships and championships frequently on the line.
“I think it’s like that untold derby,” Davidson said. “It’s going to be a massive game. Aggressive. I think it’ll be huge.”