Melbourne Victory 1-3 Canberra United.
by Alyce Collett (5/12/25)
Above: Canberra United celebrate after scoring one of their three goals against Melbourne Victory. Photo: via A Leagues.
Canberra United has caused quite the upset to open the weekend’s A-League Women’s action, downing the ladder leading Melbourne Victory 3-1 for the first time away from home since 2016.
The Victory had more chances than their visitors to score but just could not make the most of them, whereas Canberra did make the most of its chances once it got going. A goal to Kennedy White was eventually cancelled out by a goal from Nanako Sasaki, and then Canberra added to its lead in the second half with a goal from Sasha Grove and an own goal from Kayla Morrison.
The initial moments of the match were at times chaotic, with the ball bouncing all over the place in an unsettled fashion, and clean passes hard to come by.
Victory did not take too long to score – not even five minutes – after a well placed Holly Furphy cross connected with White in the box, who helped it over the line.
After things started to settle down a bit, the game started to pan out in a similar way to the first half of Victory’s match against Perth last weekend.
Every time Victory went into attack they would have so many more players in useful positions to try and progress the attacking play than Canberra did when trying to do the same thing. Rachel Lowe in particular was playing a pivotal role in the centre of the park and playing as a pivot point that could open up the angles for Victory.
However, as little chances that Canberra was having in comparison to the home side, the visitors did eventually make the most of one of them and level up proceedings. After a good pass into the box from Hayley Taylor-Young, the ball bounced around several times and off several different players before eventually deflecting off Sasaki and into the back of the net.
Sasaki’s goal really evened up proceedings, with Canberra improving its tightness of defending, particularly on the counter.
Grove was doing a lot of running for the visitors from right back and was almost playing a wing back-esque role with how high into attack she was getting, while the likes of Sienna Dale were doing a lot of the grunt work through the middle and setting up the attacking chances alongside the likes of Taylor-Young.
Neither side was able to add to their score before the half time whistle, but it did leave the match poised for a potentially very interesting second half.
The second half started in a very different way to the first half, with a lot calmer ball movement and very even possession between the sides.
Both sides had a number of closer chances early in the second half, but Grove took it upon herself to make one of these chances work, beautifully curling a shot from outside the box into the diagonal top corner of the net to give Canberra the lead.
Despite the scoreline it was in fact Victory who continued to pepper the goals as the half progressed, but as hard as they tried the Victory attackers just could not get past Sally James and the Canberra defence.
Canberra extended its lead even further with just over 10 minutes to go when a well placed cross bounced awkwardly off a retreating Morrison and past Courtney Newbon and into the Victory goal.
Even with the increased margin to make up, the Victory did not stop trying to claw at least one goal back, but the Canberra defence held strong and ensured their side took home the full three points.
Teams: MELBOURNE VICTORY (3-4-1-2): Newbon, Jančevski, Morrison, Maher, Bunge, McMeeken, Sakalis, Pollicina, Lowe, White, Furphy. Substitutes: Ray, O’Grady, Pickett, Curtis, Techera, Woodward.
Scorers: White 4‘
CANBERRA UNITED (3-5-2): James, Anton, Aulicino, Grove, Robers, Taylor-Young, Dale, Bertolissio, Gordon, Sasaki, Heyman. Substitutes: Majstorovic, Wardlow, Hawkins, Stanic-Floody, Christopherson, Malone.
Goals: Sasaki 22’, Grove 55’, Morrison 77’ (OG)
Referee: Rachael Mitchenson.
Attendance: 782.
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