Melbourne Victory 0 - Adelaide United 1

(penned within hours of the result, but posted today on my return from Sydney)

I was fortunate to catch the live broadcast of this game in Sydney of all places, as we were holidaying in apartments in Parramatta at the time.

This game will be remembered for a number of reasons:

1. The second highest ever record crowd (at that time) of 33,000 at Telstra Dome, vindicating the Victory’s decision (gamble?) to move a majority of home games from 15,000 capacity Olympic Park to the Dome. This near-record was probably in part due to a sporting drought in Melbourne in the transition between AFL and cricket seasons – the other part due to the bandwagon rolling (and a rare winning football team in Melbourne!)
2. The clash between two hot-heads, Victory’s Socceroo squad member Kevin Muscat and the Reds’ Socceroo Assistant Coach John Kosmina when they clashed attempting to pick up the ball on the sidelines. Muscat got a yellow card, Kosmina sent to the stands. I’m sure we will hear more about that incident from the FFA.
3. What happened on the field itself, where United ended Victory’s 7-game unbeaten run (8 games if you count their last-round win in 05/06) with a gutsy and sure-to-be-famous (including for the above reasons) 1-0 win.

My best 3: Rees, Kemp and Burns. Rees for being resolute in defence, Kemp for his surging runs from defence to earn corners and trouble the opposition, and Burns for his assist on the goal by Owens to win the game (a clever choice not to go to the run of Qu, who understandably attracted the attention of both defenders, leaving Owens open to score his first goal after many long-range attempts this season), plus Burns had the most enterprise of all our forwards up front. Really the whole defence earned its keep today in a game played in 05-06 premiership style: grinding out the 1-0 result.

The very vocal Melbourne crowd were a credit to the club, urging their side on – but credit too to the traveling United fans who were a visible presence on the broadcast and no doubt encouraged the Reds to victory.

I’m very proud of the boys for a fantastic win that really does set up our season. Melbourne go to 7-0-1, we go to 4-1-3 so 7 points behind them in third place (after Queensland Roar's win later that day over Perth in the West). We play the hapless Knights (3-0 losers to former-bottom side, Newcastle Jets) in Adelaide next week (can’t wait to give the boys a big welcome home) and Romario will help start dazzling and increasing the crowds in weeks to come. If Fernando Rech can get over his hammie problems, we are looking very dangerous.

Well done you Reds, see you at Hindmarsh.