South Melbourne versus Melbourne Victory.
20 years in the making, we’ve finally got it.
And not in a measly Round of 32, Round of 16, quarter-final or semi-final. It is for the big one. It’s for the Australia Cup.
I genuinely think this can be the most significant club game in Australian football history.
I really do.
It’s not manufactured. It hasn’t been confected by a marketing company. It’s real. It’s organic. It’s come by virtue of sporting merit, with two teams advancing through a competition and giving us this game.
Outside of the Socceroos playing against Iran again for the first time since 1997, this has been the game I reckon everyone’s been waiting for in Australian football.
And it could not have come at a better time for the game.
The A-League is struggling at the moment. It needs a kick along.
Visibility coming up to the new season is as low as ever and there is massive momentum growing behind South Melbourne’s push to get into the A-League on the back of Western United going into receivership.
So you’ve got the biggest and the best from the NSL era going up against arguably the biggest and the best of the A-League era.
Apologies, Sydney FC fans.
Put all of those factors together and I just don’t think it could have come at a better time for the game.
I genuinely believe this match — not so much what happens on the pitch, but everything around it, the build-up, the crowd and all of that — can make an impact on the conversations around, first and foremost, South Melbourne’s ability to come into the A-League one day soon.
And then, by extension, what does our future football pyramid look like?
That’s where I think we actually all do, as football fans, have a genuine responsibility to this match.
If you’re a South fan, young or old, existing or lapsed, you need to be there.
If you’re a football fan who wants to see promotion and relegation, or even just wants to see clubs like South Melbourne, Marconi or Adelaide City back at the top table, you need to be there.
If you’re a Victory fan who wants to stick it up Melbourne City and sell out a non-A-League final derby for the first time in God knows how long, you need to be there.
This game has something for everyone.
It’s got the NSL “bitters” on one side and the “McFranchise customers” on the other — and I say both of those in inverted commas deliberately.
Even the Eurosnobs in the middle can get around a cupset.
Mainstream media can talk about the David versus Goliath potential and football media can rightly salivate over the historical significance of the game.
I’m almost certain that the game will be at AAMI Park.
There was some worry as to whether that would be the case because Monster Jam is being held at AAMI Park the weekend before. But I’m reliably informed they’re confident they’ll get the pitch ready in time for the following Saturday night.
And if we’re taking it as AAMI Park, I think we can sell it out.
I really do.
Speaking to some people in the game with various different connections, they weren’t as confident about that yesterday.
But I’m a glass-half-full person.
I’d like to think you can get somewhere between 10,000 and 13,000 South Melbourne fans in there, maybe 14,000 or 15,000 Victory fans and then the rest filled out with neutrals who are interested in watching this game for all the reasons I’ve already outlined.
With a 30,000 capacity, I reckon we can absolutely sell out AAMI Park.
It will be absolutely rocking.
The social media commentary already, in the 12 hours since South reached the final, from fans of South, Victory and expert commentators and media, has just been one of absolute excitement.
I reckon the build-up is going to be huge.
And that matters.
Because if this turns flat — if we’re wrong, if we’re in an echo chamber and we’ve just happened to find 100 people on social media who care about this — and it ends up being a low, sparse crowd, a handbags match on the pitch and passes without much incident, that does hurt South Melbourne’s claims.
That does hurt the claims of people who want to unite the pyramid.
But if, as I suspect, this match does go gangbusters, gets a fantastic crowd, generates media hype and sparks interest among football fans who are feeling a little bit apathetic towards the A-League at the moment, then it absolutely, in my view, turbocharges the conversations with the APLs and FAs of the world.
What the hell are we doing with this game?
And can we have more of this on a more regular basis moving forward?
As for the result itself, I think we’re almost in a no-lose situation on that front.
At the end of the day, there is still a sporting reality here.
You’ve got a professional club playing against a semi-professional club — maybe an almost-professional club, if you want to call South that, given the OFC Pro League, Australian Championship and everything else.
A professional team should beat a semi-professional team in this match.
So long as it’s not an absolute bloodbath, I think a routine Melbourne Victory win won’t do anything to harm the conversation.
Likewise, South Melbourne winning — and I genuinely believe South Melbourne could win — definitely won’t hurt the conversation.
Of the three Australia Cup finals we’ve now had between NPL and A-League teams, I think this is the biggest chance an NPL team has had to beat an A-League club.
If South do win, there’ll be the knee-jerk, clickbait reaction: “We’ve got to get them in the A-League now because they’re already beating A-League teams in the Australia Cup.”
Cooler heads will realise it’s a one-off match. Anything can happen.
It won’t tangibly change the conversation.
It’ll be a nice footnote to it.
What happens around the match — the discussions around it, the crowd, the vibe, all of that stuff — will be far more material than what actually plays out on the pitch, within reason.
But there’s something else here too.
South Melbourne versus Melbourne Victory is already the biggest derby in Melbourne football history and it hasn’t even been played yet.
It’s bigger than the Melbourne City derby.
It’s absolutely bigger than the Westgate Derby, or whatever the hell they called it with Western United.
This has genuine rivalry written all over it.
It’s got the foundations of genuine rivalry because there are real, unmanufactured fault lines already in place.
There will be people genuinely, genuinely hoping and praying their team wins.
And they’ll be genuinely hurt if their team loses.
I don’t think that’s a feeling you can say exists for many A-League fixtures at the moment, given the current state of the league.
So, yes, I believe it has staying power.
And I already believe, without it having even taken place, that it’s the biggest derby in Melbourne.
One day, I hope we’re talking about a world where Melbourne Victory is playing against South Melbourne in the A-League.
South Melbourne is the best example of what is possible right now.
But I also believe this fixture, and South Melbourne’s aspirations, can be a trailblazer for others to experience a similar glow.
I’d be curious to see a Marconi versus Western Sydney Wanderers, for example.
I’d be curious to see an Adelaide City versus Adelaide United.
If we’re talking specifically in the context of a final, would any others have the same sort of oomph right now?
I don’t think so.
But that’s not to say they couldn’t get there with a runway to be able to do so.
And that’s where I keep coming back to it.
Is this the biggest Australian club game of all time?
There have been lots of big games.
In the A-League era, I think of Alessandro Del Piero’s first Sydney FC home game against Newcastle, when they had Emile Heskey as well.
You had the Sydney Derby at the Olympic Stadium, when we all knew it was going to be a record crowd and it ultimately delivered 60-odd thousand.
You had the Melbourne Derby semi-final at Docklands, which sold out in 2015.
You had Tim Cahill’s first game for Melbourne City, which he magnified by scoring that stupid goal from close to halfway.
Then towards the back end of the NSL era, you had a run of huge grand finals.
Brisbane Strikers against Sydney United in 1997, with 40-odd thousand at what was then Lang Park.
South Melbourne and Sydney United at Olympic Park.
Those great grand finals at Subiaco with Perth Glory.
There have been lots of big games.
But for all the significance we’ve been talking about — the historical significance and also the future significance with all the conversations we’re having about what the football landscape looks like moving forward — I think this takes the cake.
The most anticipated and biggest club game in Australian football history.