A-League Women heavyweights fight for grand final glory and a shot at history

The A-League Women is a league that thrives on a sense of chaos. It’s a key tenet of the league’s mythos, earning it a special place in the hearts of devotees. However, when Melbourne City and Sydney FC take the field at AAMI Park on Saturday to contest the grand final, it will be a decider that was widely tipped before the season – two behemoths that fancy themselves the best in the league’s history.

At the end of the first full home-and-away season in league history, where each team has had to navigate ebbs and flows, this feels very apt. City and Sydney are the two standout sides in ALW history for different reasons but their legacies are built on understanding the whirlwind that is existence in “the Dub” and mitigating, or even harnessing it for their ends.

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Under Ante Juric, Sydney have become masters of sustainability and planning, for the next season and years to come. Foundation pieces such as Cortnee Vine and Jada Whyman are fostered and retained, supplemented by the future-proofing of shrewd recruitment and youth development. Other sides have risen to meet them over the years, but Sydney never falls.

This season is a case in point. Injuries have decimated Sydney, as have junior international call-ups outside Fifa windows, forcing the Harboursiders to deploy the youngest side in the competition. There has been fixture congestion and the challenges of playing in the AFC Women’s Club Championship. But they still fought for the premiership right down to the final day of the season, only to see it fall into the hands of City after back-to-back defeats against Canberra United and Melbourne Victory.

Nobody has won more ALW trophies than Sydney, with four titles and five premierships, and none can match their consistency of playing finals every year of the league’s existence and in seven-consecutive grand finals. But they also had a head start.

City’s seven trophies – four titles and three premierships in nine years compared to Sydney’s 16 years – does give them a better strike rate than their rivals. They have met in grand finals three times and on each occasion, City has emerged triumphant – the most recent in March of 2020, when Matildas star Steph Catley inspired City to a 1-0 win.

That, however, was the last time City played in a grand final or won silverware before this season’s premiership; making their return to this stage against the same opponent, at the same venue, a superb bookend to their evolution over the past four years.

When borders began to close in 2020 due to Covid, there was a mass exodus of Matildas and top-end talent who shifted to the European leagues waking up to the potential of women’s football – and the demographics of the ALW irrevocably changed.

No side was hit harder by this than City. All bar one of their starting XI in 2020 were senior internationals – Catley, Ellie Carpenter and Emily van Egmond among the seven Matildas – and it forced a complete rebuild.

City now field a cadre of young talent of its own, exemplified by 17-year-old Daniela Galic, who was identified as part of a push to find talented youth from around Australia and assemble them at the City Football Academy.

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Those young players rising through the ranks are supported by a core of established talent– led by Rebekah Stott, a returned 2020 figure more crucial to her team than any other player in the league. Stott acts as a safety net for this side, a leader whose ability to operate under pressure in and out of possession empowers her teammates and masks their limitations. When City needed to beat Perth Glory on the final day of the season to win the plate, she was the one popping up on the goalline to protect their lead.

Whereas City previously could impose their will through sheer talent, they now do so with a steadfast philosophy. Monopolising possession, Dario Vidošić’s side, at their best, force games to be played on their terms, enveloping and overwhelming opponents. Across both legs of their eventual 6-0 aggregate win over Newcastle in the semi-finals, they absorbed every punch the Jets threw at them before grinding them down with lethal finishing and suffocating possession, over-running their opponents in the second leg and finishing with 71% of the ball.

Sydney, however, should test this. Vidošić is committed to his style, but the Sky Blues don’t need a lot of the ball to beat an opponent, with the likes of Vine and Mackenzie Hawkesby capable of producing something out of nothing. There are questions over Sydney’s ability to beat the best teams outside New South Wales, but City will not be relying on that on an occasion such as a grand final.

One of these two sides will become the first in Australian women’s football to win a fifth title on Saturday. Both are worthy of the honour, having forever changed women’s football in the country. Perhaps that’s what makes it mean something more. Saturday is not just about being great, it’s about being the best.