City starring down Auckland hoodoo in do-or-die ALM elimination final
Mount Smart Stadium has more closely resembled Mount Doom whenever Melbourne City has played there, but Andreas Kuen is backing his side to overturn that against Auckland this Saturday.
Mount Smart Stadium has more closely resembled Mount Doom whenever Melbourne City has been tasked with playing Auckland at the venue, but ahead of the two sides’ A-League Men elimination final on Saturday, City attacker Andreas Kuen feels his side is ready to break that trend.
Able to claim a home final and a place in Asia next season with a win, City was instead left stunned on Sunday evening when Adelaide United’s Luka Jovanovic netted in the 79th and 98th minutes to steal a win for the Reds – a result that sent them down to six and condemned them to hit the road in the first week of the finals to face Auckland, who themselves fell to third with the result after drawing with Sydney FC earlier in the day.
Denied a penalty shout against Callan Elliot and then hit with a sucker-punch by Logan Rogerson just before halftime, the defending champions fell to a 3-0 defeat the last time they visited Aeoteroa back in February, with Jesse Randall and Guillermo May both netting in the second stanza to complete the result. That scoreline mirrored the margin of their first trip to the venue back in the 2024-25 season, when May, Nando Pijnaker, and Max Mata all fired in first-half goals for the eventual premiers.
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Aurelio Vidmar’s side did get their first win over their Kiwi rivals earlier this season when Max Caputo and Medin Memeti sparked a second-half fightback after Lachy Brook’s first-half strike, but their scoreless form across the Tasman nonetheless makes for grim reading for a side seeking back-to-back titles.
Kuen, though, feels that City are capable of bouncing back from their loss to the Reds and overturning their bitter history in the City of Sails.
“All over [against Adelaide], we didn’t perform like how we performed the previous weeks,” he said. “We were not happy with our performance at all, but overall, I think we still could have won this game with our bad performance. [We were] quite unlucky at the end of the game, how it ended. It’s important to look forward to what happens this weekend.
“[Auckland are] similar to the first season, [a] very compact team, very good structure against the ball, good players offensively, very good at counter-attacks, and very good at set pieces. Similar to last year, [they] didn’t change a lot. I think we know what we are facing on the weekend.
“It’s not an easy trip to go there. It’s a long travel and everything. They play well at their home ground. We need to bring our game as we did in the last game, the first half. I think we played really well in the first half. We were unlucky not to score the first goal, and also not to get a penalty there; then maybe the game would have gone a completely different way. But overall, I think we need to look at ourselves and to bring our A game this weekend.”
After crisscrossing Asia over the past season as they juggled Asian Champions League Elite and domestic commitments, however, Kuen was certain the prospect of needing to get their passports out ahead of a crunch elimination final shouldn’t be a factor.
“We’re used to long travel after this season; it’s nothing new for us,” he said. “We’re a good group together, and we have a lot of fun when we travel. That’s the most important part, that we have a good group. I’m looking forward to the travel and also to the game.”
Kuen has quietly become one of the league’s best creative players since landing Down Under, nabbing 16 goal involvements as well as creating the third-most chances in the Australian top-flight in 2025-26 after providing the eighth-most in a debut season hit by injury.
Initially landing in Australia on a two-year deal with an option for a third, the Austrian said that the triggers in his contract had yet to be hit. And while the veteran did take some initial time to adjust to life on the other side of the world away from friends and family, he wouldn’t close the door on extending his stay in Casey – even if his thoughts were centred on the task at hand.
“There’s nothing triggered yet,” Kuen said. “I’m not like saying no [to staying], but everything’s not in my hands; it’s also in the club’s hands. But I think it isn’t important to speak about the future now, because for me, what matters is what the next week brings.”
No matter what happens with his contract, though, he does plan to return home to Austria during the offseason, where he’ll eagerly watch his homeland compete in their first World Cup since 1998 when they run out against Jordan, defending world champions Argentina, and Algeria in Group J.
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City skipper Aziz Behich, who was named the club’s player of the season and the player’s player of the season at City’s end-of-season awards on Tuesday, is widely expected to be at that tournament in a playing capacity, representing the Socceroos. Goalkeeper Patrick Beach, likewise, is considered to be the frontrunner in a race for the third-choice role.
On loan attacker Marcus Younis, meanwhile, is doing all that he can to force his way into contention: scoring his seventh-goal since January in the loss to the Reds and, with Tony Popovic present in the stands, performing a ‘call-me’ sign in celebration.
“He’s a good character, a good boy,” Kuen said of Younis. “I like him on the pitch and off the pitch. He’s a good guy, very explosive on the pitch. Always goes one against one. I like these players who are direct in their playing style.
“He’s done really well since he came to us, helped us a lot with goals and assists. He performed really amazingly in ACLE and also in the A-League. I hope that he can go to the World Cup and wish him good luck for the future.”
Header Image: Melbourne City