Melbourne City last week dotted the final i on its relationship with Bruno Fornaroli. How the club and its former captain each addressed the break-up provided further insight into the existential challenge that continues to undermine what should be the most ambitious project in Australian football.
City announced the news on Tuesday evening in routine fashion with a succinct media release containing a synopsis of the Uruguayan’s time at the club and thanks for his service. It was quintessential City: polite, professional, efficient. From a corporate communications point of view it did exactly what it was supposed to.
A few hours later Fornaroli uploaded his reaction to social media. It’s a masterpiece of a farewell address. Despite being frozen out of first team action for most of the season there’s no bitterness, only the cherishing of good times and gratitude for the support he received throughout his time in Victoria. El Tuna’s status as one of the few terrace heroes in his club’s history is assured.
The emotional distance between the two accounts speaks volumes. One is precise and temperate, the other heartfelt and passionate. In the space between these two worlds lies a void that City have been unable to fill since inception. The club began with a Heart - in name at least - but has always struggled to locate its soul, that spirit that unifies fans and players in common cause, that intangible quality that compels otherwise rational folk to align with a tribe to the exclusion of logic.
There is no convincing answer to the question “why become a Melbourne City supporter?”. Not being Melbourne Victory is no longer a satisfying response, especially with Western United appearing in the rearview mirror.
What is the club’s defining characteristic? The unique selling point? They share their home ground, there’s no compelling playing style, they’re not a bandwagon glory-hunters can jump on, and player turnover is alarming (David Williams is the club’s A-League games record holder with 101 appearances, no other player has lasted more than 89 games, and Luke Brattan is now the club’s longest-serving player with 72 caps but he remains, technically at least, a Manchester City player on loan). As for identity, the colours have changed three times in nine seasons.
Fornaroli has come as close as anyone to bridging the gap between the clinical and the visceral. It wasn’t only his output as both a great goalscorer and scorer of great goals, but the passion with which he played and his understanding of how it all mattered for nought unless there were fans to share the success with. “Regardless of the fact that this is my job and profession,” he wrote last week, “we, the players, would be nothing without the fans we play for, even when our roads split and we cannot properly explain why”. More poetic than that time he swore during the FFA Cup presentation but each matter in their own way in the riddle that is understanding a club’s cultural DNA.
But when the time came to consider Fornaroli’s ledger City’s leadership put the wishes of the fans to one side. With scant explanation Fornaroli was marginalised. It was a decision that may have made sense inside a football department charged by Manchester with establishing a new mindset but it made no sense in the stands where it was viewed as self-immolation. Moreover, there remains a sense the club didn’t and still doesn’t get it; this wasn’t any player, it was Bruno.
Fans that haven’t boycotted remain upset at the treatment of a favourite son. Those sticking it out have witnessed moribund football leading to moderate results. The short-term pain may eventually result in long-term gain within City’s locker room but at what cost to the club as an entity beyond the first-XI? A supporter’s sense of belonging involves more than simply winning football matches.
Such abstract cultural metrics stand in contrast to the other demonstrable strategic successes of CFG’s presence in Australia. The state of the art training academy, trophies at W-League and NYL level, and the flipping of Aaron Mooy and Daniel Arzani represent proof of concept. All that remains is the hardest, most nebulous piece of the puzzle; convincing people to care.
This is a challenge Australia-wide when it comes to the professional game of course, but City’s circumstance is necessarily magnified by CFG’s status as the most visible player in football’s cross-territorial empire building and what their motivation for doing so happens to be - especially while the Football Leaks revelations continue to emerge.
Change is coming. Foundation CEO Scott Munn has recently been relocated within the CFG empire and it seems unlikely Joyce will coach a third season. The next wave of decision makers may have more freedom than their predecessors with the advent of an independent A-League. Current and, perhaps as importantly, prospective fans, must hope they execute their next phase of development with them in mind.
