Melbourne City 2 – 1 Melbourne Victory
By Alyce Collett 23/12/2025
Above: Melbourne City celebrate after coming from behind to defeat cross town rivals Melbourne Victory. Photo: via A-Leagues.
Melbourne City have come from behind to defeat crosstown rivals Melbourne Victory 2-1 in a physical and at times fiery Melbourne Derby. The Victory initially took the lead in the first half thanks to Rhianna Pollicina, but her goal was cancelled out by an own goal from Claudia Bunge before Holly McNamara found a late winner.
As any fan would expect in a Melbourne Derby, there was certainly plenty of action early as both teams tried to use particularly their respective left wings to work themselves into an attacking position. Defensively both teams were very switched on from the get go so it was not always easy for either side to get long, clean passes away.
Players like McNamara and Sofia Sakalis were trying to use their agile footwork to their benefit and navigate their way around the defences, but Rebekah Stott, Taylor Otto, Kayla Morrison and Bunge were proving too tough to navigate around.
Melbourne City did look closest to scoring in the first quarter of the match though, with some very well placed crosses from Danella Butrus and Alexia Apostolakis landing in some very dangerous areas in the box, but thankfully for Victory their defence held strong and was able to clear wave after wave of attack.
Leah Davidson went incredibly close to scoring about halfway through the first half, but an impressive save from Courtney Newbon ensured that it was not the opening goal of the match.
Leticia McKenna also tried a long range shot, but just like Davidson she too could not quite get the angles to work completely in her favour.
However, despite how on top City were, it was Victory who opened the scoring, and poetically it was Pollicina who scored against her old side after slipping the ball past Malena Mieres on an incredibly tight angle.
This goal really turned the game on its head, with Victory punishing City for its inability to finish despite its dominance in terms of time in the attacking third. City were unable to level before the half time break, so the ladders leaders took the upper hand into the half time break.
As the second half began and progressed, City were again the ones to do more of the attacking than Victory, and were eventually rewarded with the equalising goal. Aideen Keane was able to square the ball to in front of the goal, and unfortunately for Victory the ball then ricocheted off Bunge and into the back of the net.
City kept pushing hard for the winner, and with just over five minutes to go they found it through McNamara, who curled a shot beautifully from one corner of the box into the top box on the other side of the net.
Melbourne Victory kept pushing hard for a last minute equaliser and had several corners in the dying minutes but could not make any of them count.
Teams: MELBOURNE CITY (4-4-2): Mieres, Turner, Otto, McKenna, Butrus, Apostolakis, Stott, Uchendu, Keane, Davidson, McNamara. Substitutes: Rako, Jackson, Roestbakken, Sarris, Barbieri, Wilson.
Scorer: Bunge 65′ (OG), McNamara 84′.
MELBOURNE VICTORY (3-4-1-2): Newbon, Bunge, Sakalis, Ray, Furphy, Pollicina, White, Morrison, Jancevski, Pickett, Lowe. Substitutes: O’Grady, Saveska, Curtis, Techera, Young, Woodward.
Scorer: Pollicina 32’.
Referee: Georgia Ghirardello.
Attendance: TBC.
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