There’s only room in the W-League championship finals for one Melbourne team, it seems. As Melbourne Victory hope to wrap up their first minor premiership this weekend (and with a single point separating the top four, right now nothing is guaranteed), their noisy neighbours Melbourne City are staring down the barrel of their first final-less campaign.
Since entering the W-League in 2015, undefeated in that inaugural campaign, City have enjoyed an ever-presence in the finals, winning the W-League championship every year (their three-peat a record for both the A-League and the W-League). During this same period the Victory have have endured somewhat less salubrious fortunes, with two wooden spoons and a lower mid-table finish to show for their efforts.
Having not managed to break into the top four at any stage this season (only City and Western Sydney Wanderers hold that dubious honour), three points behind Perth Glory, City just miss out on finals football. Assuming, of course, that the football gods don’t have a change of heart and formula, and ordain a thrashing of Sydney FC by City tonight and one of Perth by the Victory this weekend.
What’s really changed for City this season? True, there’s been a shuffle in coaching personnel, as Patrick Kisnorbo took on the assistant coach role with the club’s A-League side and Rado Vidošić picked up the W-League reigns, assisted by former Matildas goalkeeper and captain Melissa Hudson (née Barbieri).
Yes, there’s some noticeable absences from City’s playing squad this season, as neither Jess Fishlock nor Jodie Taylor returned to the side. But these aren’t downgrades – the side still has a core group of top-notch players – the addition of Matildas Tameka Butt and Elise Kellond-Knight to this season’s ranks being standout examples.
As the W-League table stands at the time of writing, the minor premiership is still up for grabs. While the Victory have a game in hand over their rivals, the Brisbane Roar are level with them on points, while Sydney FC and Perth Glory sit just one behind the top two, themselves separated by goal difference alone. Curiously, City actually boast a superior goal difference to the Roar, having scored the same number of goals and shipping three less.
A similar story can be told from the golden boot race, in which City also have no representatives. The league’s first marquee player, the Glory’s Sam Kerr, leads the charge on 12, having also broken the league’s all-time goalscoring record in round 13, passing Michelle Heyman. Fellow finalists-elect Caitlin Foord and Natasha Dowie, of Sydney and the Victory respectively, trail Kerr by three goals. Outside of the finalists cluster, Adelaide United’s American forward Veronica Latsko, in her first W-League season, rounds out the top scorers list, also on nine goals.
Just a point behind City, this season marks something of a turnaround in Adelaide’s fortunes. The Reds will also be disappointed not to have made the finals cut, after sitting in championship places between rounds three and ten, bar one. Having lured Canberra stalwart and former W-League record goalscorer Heyman away from the capital, and seeing Latsko hold her own in the golden boot race, this season marks a considerable improvement for last season’s bottom side. Yet to make a finals appearance, however, they will have to wait another season to break that duck.
We could continue skipping down the league, continue extolling the calibre of the sides and individual players who won’t be enjoying finals football in February. Two points behind Adelaide are the Newcastle Jets, one point behind them are Canberra United, who put City’s title defence out of joint by defeating them in their season opener, yet letting a 4-1 lead slip to a 4-all draw against 10-player Perth Glory a week later. A save here, another goal scored there, a win instead of a draw, for any of these teams, could have brought us different protagonists in the finals.
The competition as a whole is stronger for the tightness of this season’s race and the spread of talent across the league. City’s first season set a standard of excellence for on and off the field performance for other clubs to catch up to, demanding investment in the W-League to deepen the quality of the competition as a whole. Which, ironically, as it has come to pass, has benefited just about everybody bar City.
