The 2010 A-League Grand Final took place at

Etihad Stadium The City of Manchester Stadium in Manchester, England, also known as the Etihad Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is the home of Premier League club Manchester City F.C., with a domestic football capacity of 53,400, making it the 6th-largest ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

on 20 March 2010. It was the final match in the

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

2009–10 season, and was played between premiers

Sydney FC Sydney Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The club was fo ...

and runners-up

Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Competing in the country's premier men's competition, the A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL), Victory e ...

. Sydney FC won the match 4–2 on penalty shootout after drawing the game 1–1 and became the winners of the 2009–10 Championship in addition to their premiership. The

A-League National Youth League A-League Youth, formerly known as the National Youth League and Y-League, is an Australian national soccer youth developmental and under-21s league, founded by Football Federation Australia and now run by the Australian Professional Leagues. Th ...

Grand Final was held at

prior to the main game. After coming 4th in the 2009–10 season,

Gold Coast United Gold Coast United Football Club is an Australian soccer club based in Gold Coast, Queensland. The earliest incarnation of the club formed in 1966 and its home ground was at Nikiforides Family Park in Broadbeach. The first era of Gold Coast Unit ...

won the youth title in their inaugural season, coming from a goal down to defeat

Perth Glory Perth Glory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Perth, Western Australia. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues. Founded in 19 ...

, 2–1.

Route to the final

Match

Summary

An early knee injury forced key striker

Archie Thompson Archie Gerald Thompson (born 23 October 1978) is an Australian former professional association football, footballer. He also is serving as a club ambassador for Melbourne Victory FC. Born in New Zealand, Thompson played youth football at the N ...

, who scored 5 goals in the 2007 A-League Grand Final, off the field in the sixteenth minute. He was replaced by

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

n Marvin Angulo. With both teams struggling to break the deadlock, Melbourne were left stunned when

Mark Bridge Mark Robert Bridge (born 7 November 1985) is an Australian professional football (soccer) player who plays as a striker for NPL club Mounties Wanderers. Bridge is the Western Sydney Wanderers' first ever goalscorer, earning himself the nickn ...

scored a goal in the 63rd minute after a deflected cross. To add to Melbourne's misfortune, it was scored less than a minute after Rodrigo Vargas' headed goal was correctly disallowed by the assistant referee for offside. Melbourne were able to find an equaliser through Adrian Leijer after

Kevin Muscat Kevin Vincent Muscat (born 7 August 1973) is an Australian former association football player and the current manager of Yokohama F. Marinos. As a player, he represented the Australia national team at international level winning 46 caps and sco ...

delivered a set piece. Leijer's late header resulted in some frantic final minutes, but neither team were able to find the breakthrough goal in normal time. Extra time resulted in few opportunities and the game was decided by penalties for the first time in

history.

Details

Statistics

References

External links

Official A-League Website
{{AUS fb A-League MV 1 A-League Men Grand Finals Melbourne Victory FC matches Sydney FC matches A-League Grand Final 2010