Melbourne Victory and Perth Glory will battle it out in the FFA Cup final at AAMI Park on Saturday night.
The two teams could not have had more different FFA Cup campaigns to get to the decider. Victory kicked off their run in style with a 6-0 win in the round of 32 over Balmain Tigers – with six different goal scorers on that night. They then beat Rockdale City Suns 3-2, with the NPL NSW side pushing the reigning A-League champions all the way. Melbourne’s quarter and semi-final matches were convincing 3-1 and 3-0 wins over Adelaide United and Hume City respectively.
Perth Glory, on the other hand, were taken to extra time on three occasions – two of them being decided on penalties. Their round of 32 clash saw them draw 2-2 with fellow A-League side Newcastle Jets before the earned progression through to the next round, winning 4-3 on penalties. Their round of 16 match saw them lose goalkeeper Jerrad Tyson to a red card in the opening 10 minutes of the match. The eventually secured the win in the 116th minute thanks to Chris Harold. After a 1-1 draw with Western Sydney Wanderers, which Perth won 4-2 on penalties, the Glory hosted Melbourne City in the semi-final and secured a 3-1 win.
While Victory have, arguably, had the easier run Perth are no strangers to the main event match having made the final last season as well.
Key battle – Besart Berisha v Michael Thwaite
Victory’s Albanian striker has simply loved playing in the FFA Cup this season. He has scored in each of the Melbourne club’s four FFA Cup matches so far this campaign. His form in the A-League has been just as impressive, scoring a brace in the Victory’s 3-0 win over Wellington. Berisha loves finals and both Michael Thwaite and Dino Djulbic will need to put in an exceptional shift to keep the striker quiet and off the scoresheet. While Thwaite and Djulbic have played together for a few seasons now – including last season and some time at the now defunct Gold Coast United, Perth have yet to keep a clean sheet in the league this season. Could the attacking prowess of the Victory be too much to handle?
Team news
Victory have been noticeably managing their list of these past few weeks with the inclusion of the FFA Cup fixtures in between league games. Due to this, they should be at their strongest, with only Archie Thompson and Nick Ansell remaining on the injury list.
Perth Glory have a few key players under injury clouds with the likes of Diego Castro, Gyorgy Sandor, Chris Harold and Mitch Oxborrow. The Glory will look to Michael Thwaite, Richard Garcia, Nebojsa Marinkovic, Josh Risdon and Dino Djulbic – the five players still at the club from the starting XI in last year’s final – to call on their experience.
Head to head
These sides have met once before in the FFA Cup with the Glory winning in their quarter final last season. In the league they have played 31 times. Victory narrowly have the advantage in this fixture with 12 wins to Glory’s 11. There have been eight draws.
Previous meeting
These teams last meeting in the FFA Cup was a dramatic 4-2 win to the Glory. Despite Victory getting off to the perfect start through Fahid Ben Khalfallah, Andy Keogh was able to restore parity in the opening 15 minutes. Glory looked to have secured the win in normal time when Keogh scored again in the 81st minute but Gui Finkler’s injury time free kick saw the game go to extra time. Victory then imploded with Daniel Georgievski being sent off just minutes before Danny De Silva took the lead for Perth. Nebojsa Marinkovic added a fourth while Adrian Leijer received his second yellow for the match, Melbourne finishing with only nine men on the park.
https://youtu.be/zqEzpqAsx9w?t=14
As for the league, their previous meeting was a one all draw at AAMI Park in round 20 of last season.
Prediction
Both teams enter the match having played extra games in the last two to three weeks thanks to their involvement in the cup. Despite this it is a cup final after all and both sides will be ready and raring to go come kick off on Saturday night. Perth Glory have had their fair share of off-field dramas and winning the Cup would be perfect, especially in light of losing the final last year. Victory will be hungry to make it a treble of trophies in 2015 to add to their premier’s plate and the championship. Matches between these two teams last season were always highly entertaining affairs but with such a different Glory squad to that of last season it is unclear whether fans will witness that same level of entertainment this time.
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Melbourne Victory 2 Perth Glory 1
