Melbourne Victory 4-4 Western Sydney Wanderers
By Alyce Collett 5/1/25
Above: Ellie Wilson celebrates her goal. Photo. A-Leagues.
Melbourne Victory and the Western Sydney Wanderers have played out a thrilling eight goal draw to round out the weekend’s A League Women’s action.
With goals to Claudia Bunge, Ellie Wilson, Alex Chidiac and an own goal off the foot of Gemm Ferris, the Victory looked home with matter of minutes to go. But, two goals in two minutes to the Wanderers from Talia Kapetanellis and Sophie Harding to compliment earlier goals from Harding and Sienna Saveska rescued some points for the visitors.
Although Victory had more of the ball than the Wanderers initially and looked more comfortable with ball at foot, it was the home side who landed the ultimate blow first. Only a matter of minutes into the contest, Harding pounced on a bad pass from Bunge, and worked her way towards the goal and snuck the ball into the bottom corner of the Victory net for the opening goal of the match.
After the goal the contrast between the sides was intriguing.
On the one hand, the Victory were doing more of the attacking play, but were unable to feed the ball to their strikers with much effectiveness, with the likes of Amelia Bennett, Amy Harrison and Gema Ferris working really well together to neutralise any dangerous movement close to goal from the Victory attack.
On the other hand, the Wanderers had less of the ball in attack, but the likes of Amy Chessari were feeding the ball really well into the likes Harding and Danika Matos, who were creating plenty of headaches for the Victory defenders.
One thing that was not helping the Victory’s cause was the wind, which gave through balls extra distance.
The Wanderers did almost have a second goal inside the opening half an hour but an offside call denied Matos a goal.
But with half time only a matter of minutes away, Victory found the equaliser after Bunge headed in an Alex Chidiac corner, and suddenly the game had taken an intriguing turn.
The home side started the second half like they finished the first, and were very much on the attacking foot early. They did eventually find some reward for effort when Wilson rocketed one in from outside the box to give the home side the lead.
But the Wanderers were not going to die quietly, and levelled things mere minutes later after Saveska countered with a long range bomb of her own.
As the second half progressed it was a pretty free flowing match, with both sides having a number of chances in their attacking third.
Victory did catch a lucky break about halfway through the half when an unlucky bounce off the foot of Ferris and into the back of the net to restore the lead to the home side.
Victory found a fourth with a matter of minutes left in the match, where after a chaotic passage of play, Chidiac ultimately slotted a goal into the bottom corner.
Western Sydney weren’t done though, as Kapetanellis slotted one through in the 90th minute to give her side some hope.
Harding then slotted her second through minutes later to level up the game again.
The Wanderers kept pushing right until the dying second but ultimately could not find themselves a winner.
Team: MELBOURNE VICTORY (3-4-1-2): Newbon, Wilson, Bunge, Sakalis, Murphy, Chidiac, Flannery, D’Appolonia, Morrison, Jancevski, Lowe. Substitutes: O’Grady, Gielnik, Briedis, Pickett, Candy.
Scorers: Bunge 45’, Wilson 51’ Ferris (O.G) 77’ Chidiac 87’
WESTERN SYDNEY WANDERERS (4-1-4-1): Khamis, Ferris, Bennett, Chessari, Harrison, Harding, Saveska, Matos, Rue, Younis, Harada. Substitutes: Price, Trew, Kapetanellis, Lobo, Segavcic
Scorers: Saveska 54’, Kapetanellis 89’, Harding 4’, 90+2’
Referee: Caitlin Williams
Attendance: 725.
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