Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Melbourne Victory 0 - 1 Adelaide United

Saturday 15th October 2006
Telstra Dome


Wow. What a great match. Only the second time I've gotten to see my own team play live, and the first time they've won. But i had an absolutely great time at this nail biter of a match. Great to see Victory's winning streak finally end, and even sweeter to see it done by my boys in Red.

An engaging match i thought, and although the majority of the 32,000 odd fans at the Dome probably felt pretty down afterwards, I think the game benefitted from two great footballing sides battling against each other for a full 90 minutes. I know i couldn't leave the stadium early, and I don't think anyone else could either. The simple fact that the last three crowds that Melbourne have attracted to their home games have been 32,000 , 26,000 , and over 40,000 is great for the game in this country.

The goal was great, especially to finally see Owens on the board. He's a handy player that as been a little unlucky in the last few weeks. We dominated the game's possession right through, but unfortunately kept breaking down the attack in the final third. A lack of willingness to take shots, which possibly came from great defence by Melbourne or the pressures of the massive crowd.

Sadly the John Kosmina/Kevin Muscat incident marred the match, but it did show the level of intensity these guys were playing for. Kossie will get a couple of games, and deserves it. However Muscat deserves some type of reprimand as well, as the replays clearly show to me that he intentionally pushed Kossie out of the way in his technical area. That shouldn't be allowed.

The only thing marring the live experience for me was the behaviour of the crowd to Kossie and our boys at the end of the match. But that's the first time I've seen Victory lose, so perhaps a lot of the 32,000 thought winning and lots of goals is the way in football. It didn't need it though. An engrossing match where a 0 - 0 all draw would have actually been an accurate representation of the game.

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