Victory in Melbourne 

Leading up to this match I realised I hadn’t seen Melbourne play Adelaide in Melbourne since the 6-0 whitewash of the 2006/07 Grand Final. For last year’s one and only home match against Adelaide I had to rely on text updates as I had other commitments. Also I realised during the game that I still have an intense dislike of Adelaide United - probably a little unhealthy I know but I was extremely happy when that final whistle had blown and we had won 1-0.

The talking point of the match was obviously the sending off on Ney Fabiano for allegedly spitting at Adelaide’s Robert Cornthwaite. I say allegedly because I was sitting at the opposite end of the ground to the incident plus the replays I have seen are pretty inconclusive. Its not like you see a big lurgy fly from the mouth of Fabiano in the direction of Cornthwaite. Fabiano was pretty fired up over the incident and it may just have been a case of him forgetting that old adage of “say it, don’t spray it”. I also think its a harsh call by John over at A seat at the A-League calling for Melbourne to dump him over the incident. Also I do tend to agree with him on the Cristiano “diving” call.

Friday night also saw the end of an era. It was the end of “Kevin Muscat never missing a penalty” era. Fortunately for him it rebounded nicely and he was able to tap home for the only goal of the game. And I must say what a difference a year makes. This time last year every time Matthew Kemp touched the ball he was greeted with jeers of derision. On Friday night every time he took a corner close to where I was sitting he was applauded and cheered.

Good performance by the team to maintain their style of play whilst being down to ten men. It was reminiscent of that Central Coast game back in our championship season. Lopez, still coming back from international duty was certainly missed in the midfield, but Celeski showed that he is capable of playing a different role in the midfield.

Also good to see we got almost 25,000 people to a game that clashed with an AFL final, that in itself only had 47,000 spectators. First time in our history that a Victory game has gone up against an AFL final and the result was extremely pleasing.

Things are certainly looking good - especially from the top of the table after the completion of the round. Hopefully it continues as we travel north to play the Central Coast Mariners and I hopefully find a decent place to watch the match.

Tags: adelaide united, kevin muscat, melbourne victory, ney fabiano, robert cornthwaite

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 7:27 pm and is filed under melbourne victory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.