Melbourne Victory 0-1 Melbourne City
by Alyce Collett (2/5/26)
Above: Leticia McKenna (light blue uniform in foreground) and her Melbourne City team mates have the upper hand in their two leg semi final. Photo: Adrian Geremia for Impetus.
Melbourne City have won the first leg of its A-League Women’s Semi Final, picking up a narrow 1-0 win over crosstown rivals Melbourne Victory tonight.
The scoreboard reflected how even the match was in terms of possession, with Leticia McKenna’s goal late in the first half all that separated the teams.
The hosts had the first really strong opportunity of the game, when a well timed flighted shot from Rachel Lowe almost got the better of an outstretched Malena Mieres.
City almost had a chance of their own up the other end minutes later, but a mistiming from Holly McNamara meant that she could not connect with the incoming cross.
The action was free flowing and end to end, but both teams were taking very different strategies to get the ball to goal.
The Victory were using more central channels – with players like Rhianna Pollicina and Taylor Ray at the heart of the action – while players like Aideen Keane and Bryleeh Henry out on the wings were doing a lot of the heavy lifting for City.
As the half progressed, City started to accumulate more meaningful time in their attacking third than Victory did, and really put the Victory defence under siege.
City kept pushing hard to find the opener right up to the half time whistle, and finally got one in the final minute of regular time.
After earning a free kick after a rough tackle against her from Holly Furphy, McKenna placed her free kick perfectly, and after Courtney Newbon stuffed up the save, the ball bounced into the net and City had a well deserved lead, which they ultimately took into the break.
Victory started lively in the second half, going close to scoring on a couple of occasions. However, some very strong keeping from Mieres meant that none of those shots ended up in the back of the net.
Interestingly, much of the second half felt even more even in terms of possession and the flow of the match than the first half had.
Perhaps as a sign of how they felt about their position in the two legged tie, City made a very interesting substitution with about 10 minutes to go, replacing central forward Holly McNamara with someone who generally plays more of a central midfield role in Laura Hughes.
City also had some chances in the later parts of the second half, but ultimately neither side could change the half time ledger, giving City the important upper hand heading into next weekend’s second leg.
Teams: MELBOURNE VICTORY (4-4-2): Newbon, Blissett, Morrison, Bunge, Pickett, O’Grady, Ray, Maher, Furphy, Lowe, Pollicina. Substitutes: Techera, Curtis, Woodward, Jancevski, White, Sakalis, Saveska, Flannery.
MELBOURNE CITY (3-4-3): Mieres, Otto, Stott, Turner, Davidson, Mckenna, Henry, Roestbakken, Keane, McMahon, McNamara. Substitutes: Aoyagi, Apostolakis, Barbieri, Hughes, Jackson, Karic, Wilson.
Scorers: McKenna 45’
Referee: Sophie Allum.
Attendance: TBC.
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