Seventh Heaven as City turn back the clock
As Melbourne City has already discovered once in 2023-24, one game does not a season make. But against the Wanderers, there were echoes of their devastating historical best.
42 minutes had passed at AAMI Park and it was 3-0 to hosts Melbourne City, who were on the ball once again. From his position on the left side of the centreback pairing, Samuel Souprayen looked up and not appreciating the scene laid before him, played the ball across for his defensive partner, Nuno Reis. Immediately, Steven Ugarkovic peeled away from his man and began an overlapping run down the right flank.
Ten minutes prior, Tolgay Arslan had netted his second goal in as many minutes to put his side in the ascendency over a suddenly reeling Western Sydney Wanderers. His first had been a simple volleyed effort, Ugarkovic putting it on a plate for him at point-blank range after being sprung into all kinds of space down the right. His second had come straight from the resulting kickoff, Jimmy Jeggo forcing a turnover into the path of the German, who drove to the top of the box before depositing the ball into the bottom corner of the net.
In the 38th, Nuno Reis had speared a ball into the feet of Marin Jakoliš, who turned his marker Dylan Sciluna in a sudden, almost disdainful manner before playing the ball into the path of Max Caputo. The 18-year-old striker, showing poise, didn't try to force a move towards the net and instead took a touch that took him to the byline, where he cut the ball pack into a position that Leo Natel couldn’t miss from.
The Wanderers' defence, nay the entire team, was collapsing. With captain Marcelo suspended for yellow card accumulation, Alex Bonetig and Thomas Beadling had been tasked with keeping the City attack and thus far, it wasn’t going well. The visitors, in fact, were fortunate that it was only three to this point; Natel somehow failed to score when Jakoliš teed him up in just the second minute of play and Arslan had shot straight at Lawrence Thomas when Jorrit Hendrix coughed the ball up deep in his own half.
But things were about to get worse. A lot, lot, lot worse. Record-setting worse.
Back in the 42nd minute, Ugarkovic continued to move down the flank, already knowing where the play was going to end up, Jakoliš, too, was diving forward on the underlap, with both figures in blue leaving their markers in their wake. Reis, meanwhile, played the ball to right-back Callum Talbot, who then did his bit by lofting the ball into the path of Ugarkovic. Letting it bounce once, the midfielder swung his leg out to knock the ball back into the path of Jakoliš and while the Croatian couldn’t collect it, Caputo was there to dive on the ball in front of two defenders and finish, first time, into the net.
Four goals inside 12 minutes. Destruction. A blitz that harkened back to the days of the most lethal City sides, where under Patrick Kisnorbo they would flick a switch switch and just leave a hapless opponent in the dust with no hope of catching them. Perhaps the only thing to take the lustre off it was just how badly the Wanderers were playing, sliced apart with ease and looking more downtrodden and less committed with every passing second. Coach Mark Rudan would spring an A-League Men record five changes at the halftime break to try to stop the rot but it didn’t work. Not at all.
In the 72nd minute, Reis met a corner swung in by newly introduced substitute Terry Antonis to make it 5-0. Five minutes later, Jamie Maclaren was producing a superb touch and finish to make it 6-0 – the out-of-form City skipper, coming off the bench in back-to-back A-League games for the first time since he was a Perth Glory player, ensuring he wouldn't equal his longest stretch of games without a goal.
Then, the pièce de résistance. Antonis, the former Wanderer, from the halfway line. It was absurd. Arriving at a bouncing ball just before Oscar Priestman, he lofted the ball over his man’s head before running onward to meet the ball on the half-volley, just before he could be challenged. It sailed through the air in almost slow-motion, a mortar strike launched directly at the heart of Wanderers’ season. Thomas could only stick a rueful paw up as he attempted to get back in time, watching it sail over his head to complete the miserable night.
“That's Puskas worthy, I reckon,” his teammate Max Caputo said. “It was pretty crazy Never seen anything like that in real life.”
As he wheeled away, mobbed by teammates as he attempted to gallop towards the touchline, Antonis was searching for Rudan. He’d left Western Sydney after not logging a single minute with them during the 2022-23 season and the celebration said everything about how he felt things had gone.
"You might as well give him goal of the season for sure. It'd be very hard to top I'd say," City boss Aurelio Vidmar said. “And happy for him. He had, as we all know, a pretty tough season last year.
"He probably couldn't have scripted it any better than that.
"He was probably dreaming last night of coming on and scoring and that's exactly what he did."
It’s important to acknowledge here that City can’t get too far ahead of themselves. They’ve scored seven goals in a game once already this season, 8-1 against Brisbane Roar, and not only did that augur a sudden surge up the table, but they lost the return fixture just over a month later 5-1. Yet Vidmar is feeling increasingly confident about this team. They got a deserved 1-0 win over then-top-of-the-table Wellington on Saturday and then backed it up just a few days later with a Red and Black evisceration.
Heading into the international break, City are now back in the playoff places, and only three points back of fourth-placed Macarthur. Heck, they’re within two games of third-placed Melbourne Victory, who they play one final time this regular season on April 6. Four of their other five games are against sides currently outside the top six and they’ll likely get Socceroo winger Mat Leckie back when they return to action following the international break, against Newcastle on March 30.
Importantly, across the past two fixtures, in the wake of what Vidmar described as him ‘opening up’ to his playing group about their and the club’s values, City have begun to look more threatening with the ball, not as aimless and more dangerous in attack. Their third and fourth goals on Tuesday, for instance, probably don’t happen earlier in the season, when they were lurching from one game to the next looking like a shadow of City sides of seasons past.
The Wanderers, meanwhile, are lurching from crisis to crisis, with coach Marko Rudan not even attending his post-match press conference. A trip across the Nullarbor to Perth now awaits.
There are still questions that need to be answered, beyond the basic ones surrounding maintaining the rage. What, exactly, do they do with skipper Jamie Maclaren, given that Caputo has started their last two wins and played very well? How will Leckie and Marco Tilio reintegrate back into the side without affecting their newfound mojo?
Yet, importantly, these queries are being asked about a side that at least looks like it may be on the road to something better.