Locale Melbourne Meetings total 23 | Next meeting TBA | |
 | ||
Teams Melbourne City
Melbourne Victory First meeting Melbourne City 2–1 Melbourne Victory
(8 October 2010) Latest meeting Melbourne Victory 2–1 Melbourne City
(4 February 2017) | ||
The Melbourne Derby is an intra-city local derby in Australia's premier soccer competition, the A-League. It is contested between the two Melbourne teams in the competition, Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory, and was the A-League's first intra-city derby. Until 2014, Melbourne City competed under the name Melbourne Heart FC.
Contents
History
With the introduction of Melbourne Heart (who would later be known as Melbourne City) to the A-League at the start of the 2010–11 season (the Victory having joined the league at inception), the first derby was held on 8 October 2010 at AAMI Park. The match was originally scheduled for 2 October 2010 however due to the 2010 AFL Grand Final Replay occurring on the same day, the match was postponed.
Melbourne Heart won the inaugural derby 2–1, with goals from Alex Terra and John Aloisi. Robbie Kruse scored for Victory. Aziz Behich was sent off late in the second half, but Heart were able to hold on and secure the win. Although the game was an official sell out, only 25,897 fans turned up, well short of AAMI Park's official capacity of 30,050. The Victory hosted their first home derby on 22 January at Docklands Stadium, with the match ending in a 2–2 draw. The match was marred by an unacceptable tackle by Kevin Muscat on Adrian Zahra, which earned the Victory captain his second straight red card and a subsequent eight-match ban, ending not only his season, but his A-League career.
The first scoreless draw in the derby occurred in the third round of 2011/12 season, whilst a record crowd at AAMI Park was in attendance for the second derby of the season. This derby was arguably one of the best in the rivalry's brief existence, with Heart midfieldier Matt Thompson scoring twice in a matter of minutes late in the first half to put Heart in the lead 2–1, before Heart substitute Alex Terra scored controversially after appearing to handball preceding his goal in the second half. Heart would win the match 3–2. The intense rivalry and passion between both sets of supporters occasionally boiled over, as occurred in February 2011 when four Melbourne Heart supporters were charged with "conspiracy to falsely imprison a [Victory supporter] ".
In the 2014/15 season, Heart underwent a takeover by the City Football Group. Melbourne City had their first derby win under the new management that season, winning the pre-Christmas derby 1-0 with Erik Paartalu scoring one of the latest winners in a derby. Victory and City later met in the Finals Series for the first time, in front of a derby record attendance of 50,873 at Etihad Stadium. Melbourne Victory won the Semi Final convincingly with a score of 3-0, with goals from Besart Berisha, Kosta Barbarouses and Archie Thompson. The third derby of the 2015/16 season was marred by a series of flares let off both outside AAMI Park before the match and inside the arena during the match by some Melbourne Victory supporters. The poor behaviour from Victory fans also extended to "an alleged assault on TV news personnel outside the stadium, throwing missiles at Melbourne City player Thomas Sørensen and a Victoria Police officer, and altercations with police after the match". Football Federation Australia subsequently issued Melbourne Victory a $50,000 club fine and a suspended three competition points deduction. On the field, the match was lauded as one of the most "captivating" derbies of the rivalry and featured an incredible passage of play for a goal from City striker Bruno Fornaroli. In Round 2 of the 2016/17 season, City recorded just their second ever derby win at Etihad Stadium, comfortably defeating Victory 4-1. The match featured the A-League debut of Socceroos all-time leading goal scorer Tim Cahill for City, who scored an incredible long-range goal to open City's account. The February 2017 derby was a spiteful and controversial affair. Most notably City goalkeeper Dean Bouzanis was forced to undergo an education course after ethically slurring Victory striker Besart Berisha during the late stages of Victory's 2–1 win. Tim Cahill was also red carded before even being entering the field of play, and Victory held on to record a stunning come from behind win.
The two rivals have been drawn for an FFA Cup derby only once; in 2016 at the semi-final stage of the tournament. Melbourne City advanced to the Final, knocking out Victory 2-0 in what was one of the most physically confrontational clashes between the two rivals.
Heart/Victory era
City/Victory era
* RS: A-League Regular Season, FS: A-League Finals Series, GF: A-League Grand Final, CUP: FFA Cup
+ AAMI: AAMI Park, Etihad: Etihad Stadium
Statistics
As of 25 October 2016, there have been 21 competitive meetings between the teams. Thus far, both Victory and City have won on eight separate occasions, with five games drawn. The first finals series derby match occurred on May 8, 2015, a game which Victory won 3-0. The first FFA Cup derby came in the 2016 Semi-finals, which City won 0-2.
The biggest victory went to Victory, who won 5-2 on 25th of October 2014. The most frequent result in the derby is 2–1, which has occurred in seven encounters, Victory having won four of those games.
Top goalscorers