Melbourne City 3-1 Wellington Phoenix
by Alyce Collett (16/5/26)
Above: Melbourne City celebrate after one of Holly McNamara’s two first half goals that helped propel them to winning the 2025/26 A-League Women’s Grand Final. Photo: Tilly McDonald for Impetus.
Melbourne City have won the 2025/26 A-League Women’s Grand Final after defeating Wellington Phoenix 3-1.
City ultimately showed their class to take the title, with a first half brace from Holly McNamara and a second half goal from Leticia McKenna getting the job done on the scoreboard. Makala Woods did score a goal after City’s three goals to breathe some life back into the game, but the Phoenix could not find any more than that.
McNamara was also named a worthy Player of the Match.
City were on the front foot early and had a strong chance at goal in only the fifth minute of the match, ultimately to be denied by some well timed keeping from Victoria Esson. Leah Davidson also had a strong chance at goal in the 16th minute but her shot ultimately went wide.
Bryleeh Henry was giving the Phoenix defenders plenty of headaches early. She had a canny knack for being able to sneak past the last line of defenders and get herself into some really dangerous positions to either shoot or to cross to someone in a better position to shoot.
The Phoenix had their first proper chance at goal about 20 minutes into the match through Lucia Leon.
She had received the ball from Brooke Nunn after she had gone on an impressive run through the heart of the City formation. Unfortunately for the Phoenix though, Leon’s shot ultimately sailed over the crossbar.
City went agonisingly close to opening the scoring at about the half an hour mark, but an almost perfectly placed Leticia McKenna free kick ultimately smacked straight into the crossbar and then over the top of the net.
Both sides had plenty of time in their attacking final thirds throughout the first half, but just could not tune their shooting radars well enough to find the back of the net.
City thought they had the opener in the 37th minute through McNamara, but it was ruled invalid after it was determined Karly Roestbakken was offside.
McNamara did not have to wait much longer to get a valid goal though, when she scored an absolute banger from outside the 18 yard box about three minutes later.
She had a brace literally two minutes later when she was fed through the ball on the opposite wing by Shelby McMahon, and then curled the ball perfectly around Esson in the Phoenix net.
This three minute window totally flipped the game on its head, and gave the home side a very comfortable buffer heading into half time.
City found a third mere minutes into the second half when McKenna joined in on the long distance goal scoring fun, also scoring a goal from outside the 18 yard box.
After being on the back foot for much of the match thus far, the Phoenix managed to breathe some life minutes after McKenna goal, when Woods tapped home a goal after a scramble in the box.
This goal started a good run of attacking time for Wellington, but some superb goal keeping from Malena Mires saved City on a number of occasions.
The Phoenix kept fighting hard and did have plenty of chances to cull more of the deficit, but couldn’t make any of them count and ultimately ran out of time to score any more goals.
Teams: MELBOURNE CITY (3-4-1-2): Mires, Turner, Otto, McKenna, McNamara, McMahon, Stott, Roestbakken, Davidson, Keane, Henry. Substitutes: Wilson, Butrus, Apostolakis, Jackson, Hughes, Karic, Barbieri.
Scorers: McNamara 41’, 43’, McKenna 49’
WELLINGTON PHOENIX (4-4-2): Esson,Barry, Walker, Jale, Elliott, Leon, van der Meer, Nunn, Vlok, Woods, Pijenburg. Substitutes: Jaber, Fraser, Brazendale, Wall, Benson, Anthony, Danieli.
Scorers: Woods 51’,
Referee: Isabella Mossin.
Attendance: 7,174.
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