City, Victory eye test of ALW bonadifes in Christmas Derby
A Melbourne Derby is always a momentous occasion on the A-Leagues calendar, let alone when it’s an A-League Men's and Women's Christmas Derby doubleheader.
A Melbourne Derby is always a momentous occasion on the A-Leagues calendar, let alone when it’s a Christmas Derby doubleheader. But for Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory’s A-League Women squads, second against third and third on the table, this Saturday’s clash will represent an early-season opportunity to test their title credentials.
Widely hailed as championship contenders coming into the campaign, both Melbournian sides have experienced strong starts to their 2023-24 tilts – City kept off top spot only by Perth Glory’s superior goal difference at the one-third mark of the season and Victory lurking just three points adrift.
The first meeting between the two on Saturday afternoon, therefore, could be said to represent a potential finals preview – albeit that comes with the disclaimer that there’s a lot of the season to go.
“We’re going into the game with full respect for the quality of City,” said Victory defender Emma Checker.
“We know the kind of individuals they have, the way they play is unique and it works.
“So that’s been a big part of our preparation this week, respecting that but also going in with the confidence that we have a team that can get the job done.”
Victory got one over on City in the last meeting between the two, a dramatic semi final meeting at Casey Fields in which Casey Dumont produced a mammoth individual effort to lift her side to a penalty shootout win.
“I know emotions are gonna run high so that might kind of switch up how we play our football,” said City attacker Emina Ekic.
“But we’re just gonna go in and do what we do. We’re not really going to change much, we’re going to play football: try to keep the ball, try to keep possession and get some good chances.”
Of course, while both City and Victory have been two of the competition’s best sides across the season’s opening month, they’ve been far from imperious.
City will head to AAMI Park on Saturday afternoon having fallen to a 3-1 home defeat against Glory a fortnight ago (albeit while under strength) and then grinding out a 1-1 draw with tenth-placed Central Coast Mariners last week.
A long-range 78th-minute bomb from central defender Rebekah Stott was required to level proceedings in that clash in Gosford, with City still seeking to plug the gap left by the season-ending injury suffered by Holly McNamara.
“I would say it’s part of the journey,” said Ekic, who signed a two-year deal to return to City from NWSL side Racing Louisville in early November.
“I think we haven’t peaked and I think we’ve been doing well up to this point. We did get a loss and a tie. But I think we needed that. I think that was the adversity that we needed to be like okay, we need to fix some things like we know it’s not perfect.
“And I think it’s just going to add to our game when we do peak when it’s time towards the end of the season.”
Victory, meanwhile, are unbeaten in their last six games and had a commanding 2-0 win over Canberra United last week but started the season with back-to-back defeats against Brisbane Roar and Western United.
“Preseason is so short and there was a high turnover of players,” Checker said. “Coming together in four to five weeks is a big task and for Victory, they’ve not had such a big turnover rate for a number of years – they had a pretty steady group for a long time, which was really successful.
“And I think we needed to find our feet and groove as a group and within the preseason we also had a FIFA window where we lost a lot of players.
“So I think those first few weeks, as much as the results didn’t go our way, we still felt like we were positioned well and we knew that we were working on what we needed to for a longer season.
“It is now 22 games, so those first two games as much as they were disappointing, we know that they were, you know, still a big part of the journey.”