Despair for one side of Melbourne, jubilation for the other. It was 5 May 2024 and after a heroic performance from keeper Paul Izzo, Melbourne Victory had just eliminated Melbourne City from the A-League Men finals after a dramatic penalty shootout. Illustrative of the high standards set, it capped off the worst season City had experienced in recent times, scraping into the playoffs after sacking coach Rado Vidošić just two weeks into the campaign and failing to reach the grand final for the first time in five years. A host of club legends would soon depart amid league-wide cuts to distributions and budgets. It almost felt like the recession the club needed to have.
But the bear is gone, and the bull is back. As referee Adam Kersey’s whistle rang out for the final time in front of a record crowd at AAMI Park and players sank to their knees in joyous celebration in front of him, coach Aurelio Vidmar was wrapped in a bear hug by his director of football Michael Petrillo and assistants Scott Jamieson and Paul Pezos. City had sealed a 1-0 triumph over Victory on Saturday night to become champions of Australia for the second time.
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Joe Marston medallist as best despite finishing the game in being a bloody mess, Mat Leckie’s performance was not only of the legacy-defining variety but also reflective of the way his side went about returning to the mountain top. It hadn’t been pretty in the slightest, but it had been effective. Physicality and desperation added to a cunning ability to ride the whistle and slow the game down and disrupt their opponents’ flow. It ensured that Yonatan Cohen’s 10th-minute goal was all that would be needed, Victory failing to produce much in the way of anything that would constitute a major threat to Patrick Beah’s goal.
Losing four of the previous five deciders they had reached – lowlighted by a 6-1 hammering by Central Coast Mariners in their last trip to this stage – men’s grand finals hadn’t been kind to City over the years. But this was different. The top-level talent might not be the same as in previous campaigns but in its place is a trusted if unheralded depth. Vidmar backed 17-year-old Medin Memeti with 24 minutes off the bench in the decider as he replaced 19-year-old Max Caputo, and City carried a level of steel and leadership that didn’t allow them to blink under the bright lights as they had done in the past.
A year ago, Vidmar told the media after the shootout loss that he was set to come back next season, signing a two-year contract extension after initially arriving as a caretaker. Much of the club’s fan base wasn’t impressed. After years of swashbuckling, high-scoring football, there was a feeling Vidmar’s less spectacular approach would neither deliver them the ruthless drive nor the success they craved. This sense of frustration was only exacerbated when former coach Patrick Kisnorbo landed back in Melbourne not at the helm of City but, instead, at Victory.
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But not only did Victory’s gamble on Kisnorbo soon blow up in their faces when he left for Japan in December – Arthur Diles’ late-season resurgence sparing the club plenty of blushes – City would go on to finish second and qualify for Asia under Vidmar, fielding the most miserly defence in the league. Entrusting the dressing room to leaders such as Aziz Behich – the move to loan the skipper to Al Nassr last season, in hindsight, a heavy blow to City’s hopes – Leckie, Andrew Nabbout and James Jeggo, the squad pulled in the same direction more as the season went on.
“Despite people thinking you don’t do a worldwide search, we have the capability of doing that within the [City Football Group],” said Petrillo. “Aurelio’s numbers came up really high in the data that we had.
“He had a lot of things to contend with last year. He inherited a side with probably not quite the right mentality. And we made some wholesale changes at the end – some of them were made for us. But I knew, working with him, I could see where we were going.”
Related: Melbourne City defeat Melbourne Victory in A-League Men grand final – as it happened
Indeed, difficult as it may be to imagine, given he’s got a stand at Hindmarsh Stadium named in his honour, Vidmar’s contribution to Australian football is perhaps underappreciated in the broader footballing public. the 58-year-old is one of the best players ever produced by the country and one of the most talented to ever pull on a Socceroos shirt. But given his playing career ended before the World Cup qualification for 2006, he never got the mainstream exposure of others. His coaching career, meanwhile, features a premiership and Asian final with Adelaide but had largely been characterised in “pissant town” remarks.
Now, though, just over a year after his barbequing of some prime rib was interrupted by his old friend Petrillo calling him out of the blue to come to City, he’s an A-League Men championship-winning coach too.
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