South Melbourne versus Melbourne Victory.<\/p>\n
20 years in the making, we\u2019ve finally got it.<\/p>\n
And not in a measly Round of 32, Round of 16, quarter-final or semi-final. It is for the big one. It\u2019s for the Australia Cup.<\/p>\n
I genuinely think this can be the most significant club game in Australian football history.<\/p>\n
I really do.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not manufactured. It hasn\u2019t been confected by a marketing company. It\u2019s real. It\u2019s organic. It\u2019s come by virtue of sporting merit, with two teams advancing through a competition and giving us this game.<\/p>\n
Outside of the Socceroos playing against Iran again for the first time since 1997, this has been the game I reckon everyone\u2019s been waiting for in Australian football.<\/p>\n
And it could not have come at a better time for the game.<\/p>\n
The A-League is struggling at the moment. It needs a kick along.<\/p>\n
Visibility coming up to the new season is as low as ever and there is massive momentum growing behind South Melbourne\u2019s push to get into the A-League on the back of Western United going into receivership.<\/p>\n
So you\u2019ve got the biggest and the best from the NSL era going up against arguably the biggest and the best of the A-League era.<\/p>\n
Apologies, Sydney FC fans.<\/p>\n
Put all of those factors together and I just don\u2019t think it could have come at a better time for the game.<\/p>\n
I genuinely believe this match \u2014 not so much what happens on the pitch, but everything around it, the build-up, the crowd and all of that \u2014 can make an impact on the conversations around, first and foremost, South Melbourne\u2019s ability to come into the A-League one day soon.<\/p>\n
And then, by extension, what does our future football pyramid look like?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where I think we actually all do, as football fans, have a genuine responsibility to this match.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a South fan, young or old, existing or lapsed, you need to be there.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n
This game has something for everyone.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s got the NSL \u201cbitters\u201d on one side and the \u201cMcFranchise customers\u201d on the other \u2014 and I say both of those in inverted commas deliberately.<\/p>\n
Even the Eurosnobs in the middle can get around a cupset.<\/p>\n
Mainstream media can talk about the David versus Goliath potential and football media can rightly salivate over the historical significance of the game.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m almost certain that the game will be at AAMI Park.<\/p>\n
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\u2019m reliably informed they\u2019re confident they\u2019ll get the pitch ready in time for the following Saturday night.<\/p>\n
And if we\u2019re taking it as AAMI Park, I think we can sell it out.<\/p>\n
I really do.<\/p>\n
Speaking to some people in the game with various different connections, they weren\u2019t as confident about that yesterday.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m a glass-half-full person.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d 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\u2019ve already outlined.<\/p>\n
With a 30,000 capacity, I reckon we can absolutely sell out AAMI Park.<\/p>\n
It will be absolutely rocking.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I reckon the build-up is going to be huge.<\/p>\n
And that matters.<\/p>\n
Because if this turns flat \u2014 if we\u2019re wrong, if we\u2019re in an echo chamber and we\u2019ve just happened to find 100 people on social media who care about this \u2014 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\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
That does hurt the claims of people who want to unite the pyramid.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
What the hell are we doing with this game?<\/p>\n
And can we have more of this on a more regular basis moving forward?<\/p>\n
As for the result itself, I think we\u2019re almost in a no-lose situation on that front.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, there is still a sporting reality here.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve got a professional club playing against a semi-professional club \u2014 maybe an almost-professional club, if you want to call South that, given the OFC Pro League, Australian Championship and everything else.<\/p>\n
A professional team should beat a semi-professional team in this match.<\/p>\n
So long as it\u2019s not an absolute bloodbath, I think a routine Melbourne Victory win won\u2019t do anything to harm the conversation.<\/p>\n
Likewise, South Melbourne winning \u2014 and I genuinely believe South Melbourne could win \u2014 definitely won\u2019t hurt the conversation.<\/p>\n
Of the three Australia Cup finals we\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
If South do win, there\u2019ll be the knee-jerk, clickbait reaction: \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get them in the A-League now because they\u2019re already beating A-League teams in the Australia Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooler heads will realise it\u2019s a one-off match. Anything can happen.<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t tangibly change the conversation.<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll be a nice footnote to it.<\/p>\n
What happens around the match \u2014 the discussions around it, the crowd, the vibe, all of that stuff \u2014 will be far more material than what actually plays out on the pitch, within reason.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s something else here too.<\/p>\n
South Melbourne versus Melbourne Victory is already the biggest derby in Melbourne football history and it hasn\u2019t even been played yet.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s bigger than the Melbourne City derby.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s absolutely bigger than the Westgate Derby, or whatever the hell they called it with Western United.<\/p>\n
This has genuine rivalry written all over it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s got the foundations of genuine rivalry because there are real, unmanufactured fault lines already in place.<\/p>\n
There will be people genuinely, genuinely hoping and praying their team wins.<\/p>\n
And they\u2019ll be genuinely hurt if their team loses.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a feeling you can say exists for many A-League fixtures at the moment, given the current state of the league.<\/p>\n
So, yes, I believe it has staying power.<\/p>\n
And I already believe, without it having even taken place, that it\u2019s the biggest derby in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
One day, I hope we\u2019re talking about a world where Melbourne Victory is playing against South Melbourne in the A-League.<\/p>\n
South Melbourne is the best example of what is possible right now.<\/p>\n
But I also believe this fixture, and South Melbourne\u2019s aspirations, can be a trailblazer for others to experience a similar glow.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d be curious to see a Marconi versus Western Sydney Wanderers, for example.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d be curious to see an Adelaide City versus Adelaide United.<\/p>\n
If we\u2019re talking specifically in the context of a final, would any others have the same sort of oomph right now?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not to say they couldn\u2019t get there with a runway to be able to do so.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s where I keep coming back to it.<\/p>\n
Is this the biggest Australian club game of all time?<\/p>\n
There have been lots of big games.<\/p>\n
In the A-League era, I think of Alessandro Del Piero\u2019s first Sydney FC home game against Newcastle, when they had Emile Heskey as well.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
You had the Melbourne Derby semi-final at Docklands, which sold out in 2015.<\/p>\n
You had Tim Cahill\u2019s first game for Melbourne City, which he magnified by scoring that stupid goal from close to halfway.<\/p>\n
Then towards the back end of the NSL era, you had a run of huge grand finals.<\/p>\n
Brisbane Strikers against Sydney United in 1997, with 40-odd thousand at what was then Lang Park.<\/p>\n
South Melbourne and Sydney United at Olympic Park.<\/p>\n
Those great grand finals at Subiaco with Perth Glory.<\/p>\n
There have been lots of big games.<\/p>\n
But for all the significance we\u2019ve been talking about \u2014 the historical significance and also the future significance with all the conversations we\u2019re having about what the football landscape looks like moving forward \u2014 I think this takes the cake.<\/p>\n
The most anticipated and biggest club game in Australian football history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Melbourne versus Melbourne Victory. 20 years in the making, we\u2019ve finally got it. And not in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,27013,80079,85],"class_list":["post-893830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-melbourne-victory","tag-south-melbourne","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893830","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=893830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}