Teague lands as City faces make or break Auckland visit
As Socceroo Ryan Teague lands, Melbourne City stands on the precipice of doing something in the A-League Men. Coach Aurelio Vidmar is waiting to see if it’s a surge up the table or an implosion.
Melbourne City stands on the precipice of doing something in the A-League Men. Coach Aurelio Vidmar, however, can’t quite be certain yet if it’s a surge up the table or an implosion.
Winners of just one of their last six games, all of which have been played at AAMI Park, City will play one final game at home before heading out on an extended road trip on Friday evening: hosting league-leaders Auckland in a clash that could make or break their season.
Win, and the defending champions could end the weekend as high as third on the table despite their lean run of form. Lose, however, and they could fall all the way to tenth for the season’s halfway point, with alarm bells well and truly ringing.
On a surface level, what ails Vidmar’s side isn’t difficult to figure out, either. They simply can’t score.
Just two teams, Brisbane and Western Sydney, have netted on fewer occasions than City in 2025-26 and while a stout defence that has kept more clean sheets than any other in the league this season – a Socceroo turn from goalkeeper Patrick Beach bolstering a backline that gives up the second-fewest expected goals (xG) against in the league – has kept their season alive, it can’t do so forever.
This was exemplified in their 1-0 loss to Newcastle last week, where it took just one lapse to open the door for Lachlan Rose to grab the lead for the Jets and, once their foes had walked through it, City was unable to follow despite producing more than double the shots of their opponents.
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“We’re probably several points down where we should be, in my view, and we’re certainly four or five goals away from where we should be,” said Vidmar. “[We’re] right on the edge of taking the next step or collapsing, to be honest.
“Defensively, the whole group is really good. That hasn’t changed much from last season. We’re still doing a really good job there. But we can’t keep taking the pressure. We have to release that with the ability to score some goals, and that’s the crux of it.
“We need to just get better at being able to finish our chances going forward. We’ve got plenty of faith in the players to do that. We just need to start doing that quickly.”
While he’s not exactly known as a prodigious goalscorer, the arrival of Socceroo Ryan Teague this week will be envisioned as empowering the midfield to set the table for a greater return – the 23-year-old landing back Down Under on a loan from Belgian side K.V. Mechelen on Wednesday.
One of the standout players in the A-League Men at crosstown foes Melbourne Victory last season, Teague rode that wave of momentum into a Socceroo debut against the land of his maternal heritage, China. But his move to Europe hasn’t borne fruit to date, stuck behind the established midfield duo of skipper Fredrik Hammar (24) and Mathis Servais (21) at Malinois, as well as battling a meniscus injury.
Thus, with a World Cup less than six months away, and concern mounting after another injury sidelined veteran leader Jackson Irvine, Teague has secured a move back to the A-League Men with an eye on regular minutes and, he hopes, a late push to be a part of Tony Popovic’s plans for June.
“We’re really pleased about being able to get Ryan to the end of the season,” said Vidmar. “Obviously, he’s a quality player, a good decision maker, and can play a number of roles in midfield. He was one of Victory’s best players last season.
“Unfortunately, this year, after his move, he hasn’t had a hell of a lot of minutes, so obviously he’s keen to get into the Socceroos squad. So it’s a great opportunity for us. It sort of fell into our lap, in a way. He’s going to bring a lot of quality to us. He’s a little bit rusty. He’s absolutely fit, but rusty in terms of game minutes. So he’ll probably need a couple of weeks to get up to speed.”
Vidmar was also confident that his new addition could play well alongside Kai Trewin, who has been called into the Socceroos as a ball-playing centreback but who plays in the pivot role at City, one in which Teague also excels.
“He’s best suited to double pivot, which he played at Victory quite well, but he’s always a guy who was always one of the ones in midfield who wants to get forward,” said the coach. “So, we can use him a little bit further up front as well. He’s a player who wants to get onto the ball, which is perfect for us. He’s a player who, once he releases a ball, doesn’t stand on the spot and wait; he will jump into the next line. That’s what he does really well.”
Already a former Sydney FC junior, Teague’s move to trade in one shade of blue for another in Victoria will also inevitably add a layer of spice to the season’s third and final Melbourne Derby next month.
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“I think there was a discussion between his representative and our club,” Melbourne Victory boss Arthur Diles said. “In the end, Ryan made a decision with everyone involved with him. The decision’s his. That’s football.
“Obviously, it hasn’t been a great six months for him in Belgium. So he’s got to find his feet and try and recapture the form that he demonstrated here with Melbourne Victory. As a club, I think we’re proud to promote that Ryan was in a difficult position before he came back to Melbourne Victory. He came to Melbourne Victory, he wasn’t a Socceroo, and when he left Melbourne Victory, he was a Socceroo. So for that period, he served us very well [and] we served him very well, giving him that platform to be where he is.
“In the end, shit happens in football. I don’t wish him luck at Melbourne City, that’s for sure. I’m not gonna sit here and lie. But I wish him all the best as a footballer. In the end, that’s football, and we’ll get him in a few weeks’ time, and we’ll see what happens then.”
While Teauge is likely to feature in some capacity against Auckland on Friday, he is expected to come off the bench as he builds his fitness.
Veteran defender Samuel Souprayen, meanwhile, remains touch and go with an achilles complaint, while forward Andreas Kuen has been battling a knee issue for several weeks and may require management. Kosovan attacker Elbasan Rashani remains absent due to a hamstring issue but is expected to return in the next few weeks.
“We have to actually start better,” Vidmar said of Friday’s game. “Last week, we didn’t start well, and we were put on the back foot pretty quickly. Then, you’ve got to try to dig yourself out of that. We managed to do that, but we need to. We need to start the game by controlling and going a little bit better than we did last week.
“We’re capable of doing that. We’ve done that many, many times this year already, and when we’re at our best like that, we’re very hard to stop. So we really need to start well tomorrow, really put the pressure on them and see if we can get an early goal.”