The 2019 A-League Grand Final was the fourteenth A-League Grand Final, the championship-deciding match of 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 ...

in Australia and the culmination of the 2018–19 season. It was played on the 19 May 2019 at

Optus Stadium Perth Stadium, currently known as Optus Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is a multi-purpose stadium in Perth, Western Australia, located in the suburb of Burswood. It was completed in late 2017 and officially opened on 21 January 2018. The s ...

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

between

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 ...

and

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 ...

, who finished the regular season first and second respectively. This was the first A-League grand final hosted in Perth and it is the highest attended grand final in A-League history. Sydney participated in their fifth grand final, winning three of the previous four played prior to this match. Perth participated in their sixth grand final overall and second in the A-League era, winning two of the previous five. The match ended 0–0 after extra time, with Sydney winning 4–1 on penalties to secure their fourth A-League title.

Teams

''In the following table, finals until 2004 were in the National Soccer League era, since 2006 were in the A-League era.''

Route to the final

The A-League Grand Final is the grand final for the

, a professional club soccer league that is based in Australia and New Zealand. The 2018–19 season was the fourteenth season in history and also the 42nd of top-flight football in Australia. Each team played against each other three times throughout the season for a total of twenty seven matches. After the regular season, the top six teams qualified to play in the finals with the teams placed between third and sixth playing in week one of the finals while the top two teams got an week off. This meant that playing in the first week was,

Adelaide United Adelaide United Football Club is a professional Association Football, soccer club based in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club participates in the A-League Men under North American professional sports league organization#Systems ar ...

, Melbourne City,

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 ...

and

Wellington Phoenix Wellington Phoenix Football Club is a professional association football club based in Wellington, New Zealand. It competes in the Australian A-League, under licence from Football Federation Australia. Phoenix entered the competition in the ...

while

and

having the bye for the first week. The grand final will be contested by Perth Glory and Sydney FC which respectively finished one and two after the regular season with Perth finishing ahead of Sydney by eight points. During the regular season, the two teams played three times with Sydney leading the head-to-head at two wins to one.

Perth Glory

During the pre-season, they acquired former

Socceroos The Australia men's national soccer team represents Australia in international men's soccer. Officially nicknamed the Socceroos, the team is controlled by the governing body for soccer in Australia, Football Australia, which is affiliated with ...

Tomislav Mrcela from Korean club

Jeonnam Dragons The Jeonnam Dragons (Korean: 전남 드래곤즈) are a South Korean professional football club based in the city of Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province that competes in the K League 2, the second tier of South Korean football. The Dragons play thei ...

Matthew Spiranovic Matthew Thomas Spiranovic (born 27 June 1988) is a former Australian soccer player who played as a defender. Spiranovic started his career with Melbourne Victory, making one competitive appearance before being released with the consent of coac ...

from Chinese club

Zhejiang Greentown Zhejiang Professional Football Club (), commonly referred to as Zhejiang FC or simply Zhejiang, is a professional Chinese football club that currently participates in the Chinese Super League under license from the Chinese Football Association (C ...

and

Jason Davidson Jason Alan Davidson (born 29 June 1991) is an Australian professional Soccer player who plays as a defender for Belgian club Eupen. Club career Hume City On 26 January 2009, he signed with Victorian Premier League club Hume City, becoming t ...

from Croatian side

HNK Rijeka Hrvatski nogometni klub Rijeka ( en, Croatian Football Club Rijeka), commonly referred to as NK Rijeka or simply Rijeka, is a Croatian professional association football, football club from the city of Rijeka. HNK Rijeka compete in Croatia's top ...

in what became a trio in the backline. In the opening game of the season, they drew with

Western Sydney Wanderers Western Sydney Wanderers Football Club (colloquially known as Western Sydney, or simply as Wanderers) is an Australian professional soccer club based in the Western Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier ...

1–1 at home with

Andy Keogh Andrew Declan Keogh (born 16 May 1986) is a former Irish professional footballer who last played as a striker for A-League club Perth Glory. Born in Dublin, Keogh played the first several years of his professional career playing for a number ...

scoring the first goal for Perth in the 2018–19 season. After gaining win in Round 2 and 3, Perth went to the top of the table after knocking off Adelaide United with two goals in the second half from

and

Chris Ikonomidis Christopher James Ikonomidis ( el, Χριστόφορος Οικονομίδης; ; born 4 May 1995) is an Australian professional association football, footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder or as a winger (association football), winge ...

securing the victory.

Sydney FC

Summary of results

Pre-match

Venue

The Grand Final was held at

, and was the second time that a major soccer match was held at the stadium, after the friendly between

and

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

on 23 July 2018. The stadium is mainly used as an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

ground for the

West Coast Eagles The West Coast Eagles are a professional Australian rules football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded in 1986 as one of two expansion teams in the Australian Football League (AFL), then known as the Victorian Football ...

and the

Fremantle Dockers The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represent the port city of Fr ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

in the winter months, while in the summer it's used for cricket for the

Perth Scorchers The Perth Scorchers is an Australian domestic Twenty20 franchise cricket team representing the Western Australian city of Perth in the Big Bash League (BBL). The Scorchers are the current BBL Champions, having defeated the Sydney Sixers in the ...

and occasionally the

Australia national cricket team The Australia men's national cricket team represents Australia in men's international cricket. As the joint oldest team in Test cricket history, playing in the first ever Test match in 1877, the team also plays One-Day International (ODI) an ...

Ticket details

Ticket sales started on the Monday prior to the event. In the first few hours over 35,000 tickets had been sold, of which 20,000 were from club members. Two days later tickets went on sale to the general public.

Match

Summary

The match started at 4:45pm AWST in Perth with

Shaun Evans Shaun Francis Evans (born 6 March 1980) is an English actor and director. He is best known for playing a young Endeavour Morse in the ITV drama series '' Endeavour''. Early life Shaun Francis Evans was born on 6 March 1980 into an Irish famil ...

, recipient of the A-League Referee of the Year, as the referee. The match was his first A-League Grand Final.

Details

Statistics

Broadcasting

The Grand Final was broadcast live throughout Australia on

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...

and

Network Ten Network 10 (commonly known as Ten Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of five ...

. The radio rights for the grand final was held by

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

with their grandstand coverage of the game.

References

External links

Official A-League Website
{{Sydney FC matches 2018–19 A-League season A-League Men Grand Finals A-League Grand Finals A-League Grand Final 2019