Melbourne City 0-1 Central Coast Mariners
By Alyce Collett 11/5/25
Above: The Mariners celebrate a dramatic win. Photo: A-Leagues
The Central Coast Mariners have pulled off arguably the biggest upset of this A League Women’s season, pulling off a 1-0 win over Melbourne City to not only move through to next weekend’s Grand Final, but end Melbourne City’s invincible season.
It was an at times chaotic match, and the sides were unable to be split until the dying moments of the second half of extra time, when Isabel Gomez popped up and scored that deciding goal.
It was a pretty free flowing beginning to proceedings, with a lot of end to end, non congested action on display.
However only 10 minutes into the match disaster struck for City, when Holly McNamara went down after a heavy collision with Mariners keeper Sarah Langman. After a significant delay, City was forced to substitute their star striker, while Langman was able to continue.
Things went from bad to worse for City at the 25 minute mark when Lourdes Bosch was shown a straight red card for assaulting Brooke Nunn after letting her frustrations get the better of her.
Nothing was going right for City, but it was not necessarily because of anything the visitors were doing. Their list of playable players was decreasing fast, and they just could not make the most of any goal scoring opportunities.
As the first half progressed, momentum certainly shifted and although there were no goals to show for it for either side, the Mariners looked a lot calmer on the ball than City did, and also looked the more dangerous of the sides.
After a whopping eight minutes of extra time at the end of the half, the score was still nil all, Emily Husband would have certainly been the happier of the two coaches heading into the half time break.
Perhaps as a sign of their awareness of their predicament, Melbourne City went on the attack early in the second half, with plenty of attacking momentum despite their numerical disadvantage.
The Mariners did have some moments of potential, with Gomez starting to become lively and create really movement after moving to a more central role, but the visitors just could not quite find the back of the net.
As the minutes started to tick down, neither side really looked like scoring, so extra time was looking more and more likely, and extra time was eventually needed.
Through the first half of extra time it was City who dominated possession despite having a numbers disadvantage.
However despite the best efforts of both sides a goal just could not be found, and the score remained at nil all heading into the second half of extra time.
It was clear that their efforts were starting to take a toll on the City players, with several players pulled from the field due to cramps, with the City coaching staff not taking any chances.
Just as it looked like the match was heading to penalties, Gomez broke the hearts of the home fans, chipping the City keeper to finally find a goal in stoppage time of the second half of extra time. It was a goal that caused huge controversy with claims that Gomez was offside. Referee Molly Godsell was not moved, and the goal stood.
City did not stop attempting to find the equaliser even with so little time left, but a resolute Mariners defence denied every attempt they made, and the history-making win was theirs.
Check out our Instagram feed @impetusfootball to see Beck Hartley’s stunning EXCLUSIVE set of images from the game:
Teams: MELBOURNE CITY (4-4-2): Mieres, Roestbakken, Stott, Otto, Apostolakis, Hughes, Davidson, McKenna, Henry, McNamara, Bosch. Substitutes: Barbieri, Karic, McMahon, Pollicina, Speckmaier, Vlajnic.
CENTRAL COAST MARINERS (4-4-2):Langman, Nash, Martin, Gomez, Pennock, Galic, Ray, Rasmussen, Rowe, Krazula, Nunn. Substitutes: Morrissey, Fuller, Quilligan, King, Hughes, Trimis.
Scorers: Gomez 120 +1’.
Referee: Molly Godsell.
Attendance: 578.
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