{"id":674875,"date":"2026-05-16T14:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T14:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/674875\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T14:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T14:40:10","slug":"a-league-grand-final-auckland-v-sydney-fc-when-where-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/674875\/","title":{"rendered":"A-League Grand Final Auckland v Sydney FC, when, where is it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Corica will face the club where he is an icon in the 2026 A-League Grand Final when Sydney FC head across to New Zealand to face Auckland FC after a gripping penalty shootout win over Newcastle Jets on Saturday night. <\/p>\n

Auckland will host their first ever Grand Final on Saturday 23 May, kick-off 6.10pm AEST.<\/p>\n

For the first time in 21 seasons, not one of the top two on the A-League ladder have made it to the final match, with Mark Mililgan\u2019s swashbuckling Australia Cup and Premiership winners stopped at the final hurdle as they aimed to make a first decider since 2018. <\/p>\n

Piero Quispe\u2019s 63rd minute strike at McDonald Jones Stadium looked like being the match winner until Eli Adams\u2019 clutch equaliser six minutes into stoppage time sent it to extra-time and then penalties, <\/a>where Harrison Devenish-Meares was the hero, before Ben Garuccio slotted the key winning penalty home. <\/p>\n

It means Patrick Kisnorbo has orchestrated a seven game unbeaten run to make the final from fifth place, where he will face Corica, whom he defeated in the 2021 decider steering Melbourne City past Sydney FC. <\/p>\n

Sydney captain Rhyan Grant said of the matchup: \u201cIf you look at the way they play, they\u2019re resolute, hard to beat \u2013 knowing Bimbi and Bimbi knowing us, I don\u2019t know if that will have a massive impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot has changed \u2013 I\u2019ve lost a bit more hair and he\u2019s a bit greyer. But we\u2019re still very close and I still chat to him every now and then, we exchange texts and when I see him in person..it is going to be pretty sweet to come up against a good friend and an ex-coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe tough to go over there. Always hard to play especially over there. Just another big challenge for us and one we\u2019re looking forward to.\u201d <\/p>\n

On Friday evening, Auckland breezed past Adelaide United 3-0 at Coopers Stadium, to progress to their first ever grand final 4-1 on aggregate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is the fourth grand final as a head coach for their boss Steve Corica, who came into the week fired up over the perception that this was Adelaide\u2019s to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wrote us off, and we perform like that, 3-0, away from home, everyone performed at a very high level and we\u2019re through to the final in a short two year period,\u201d\u00a0he beamed after the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Corica will face the club where he is an icon in the 2026 A-League Grand Final when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[325426,64,22065,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-674875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-a-league-grand-final","tag-au","tag-auckland","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}