Melbourne Victory fell 0-2 to Melbourne City in an eventful Melbourne Derby on Saturday night at AAMI Park.
Summary
A sold-out AAMI Park set the tone for an eventful evening as Melbourne’s football heavyweights were welcomed onto the arena by a spine-tingling rendition of Stand By Me.
Chris Ikonomidis and Stef Nigro replaced Ben Folami and Leigh Broxham in Victory’s starting XI from last week’s home opener against the Wanderers.
Victory started full of promise as Josh Brillante found himself open in the box in the early stages and forced a strong save by the City ‘keeper from an on-target header to keep it scoreless.
City broke through in the 17th minute after the referee reviewed a foul by Luis Nani which was deemed to be in the box, resulting in a Jamie Maclaren penalty.
City found the back of the net again just moments later as a well-executed corner play fired into the back post and off the legs of Kadete, who had no time to react to the unfortunate ball.
The job got even more difficult for Victory in the 35th minute as captain Josh Brillante received his second yellow card for a late tackle, reducing the home side to 10 men.
Paul Izzo pulled off the first of many fine saves just before the main break, diving to his left to deny a menacing Marco Tilio attack.
Victory fought hard in the second half to close the gap but were unable to overcome City’s defence.
Their best chance came in the 60th minute as Jake Brimmer‘s gorgeous cross found Nick D’Agostino, who had a penalty shout waved away after contact in the box.
Izzo stepped up again late to keep the scores at 0-2, denying Maclaren and Tilio in the final stretch.
Player in Focus
Paul Izzo made plenty of impressive saves to keep Victory in the game throughout the night.
Implications
Victory’s record falls to 1-0-2 after three rounds.
Result
Isuzu UTE A-League 2022/23 Round 3
Melbourne Victory 0
Melbourne City 2 (Maclaren 17′, Kadete OG 19′)
Next up
Victory head to Brisbane to face the Roar next Saturday afternoon at 3pm AEDT.
