The 2022 A-League Men Grand Final was the 17th

A-League Men Grand Final The A-League Men Grand Final is an association football match to determine the champions for an A-League Men season. Played at the end of the finals series, the game has been held annually since 2006. The club which wins the grand final receiv ...

, the championship-deciding match of the Australian

A-League Men 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 ...

and the culmination of the 2021–22 season. The match was played between season premiers and defending champions Melbourne City and

Western United Western United Football Club is an Australian professional football club. The club is based in the western Melbourne suburb of Truganina, the club aims to represent western Victoria, incorporating the western suburbs of Melbourne; the region ...

on 28 May 2022 at

AAMI Park The Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, known as AAMI Park for sponsorship reasons, is an outdoor sports stadium on the site of Edwin Flack Field in the Sports and Entertainment Precinct in the Melbourne central business district. When completed ...

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 ...

. The match was Melbourne City's third consecutive and overall A-League Men Grand Final, while it was Western United's inaugural feature in the Grand Final. Western United won 2–0. This was the first A-League Grand Final to feature two teams of the same city, with both teams representing Melbourne. Western United's win saw the club became just the second expansion side ever to win the A-League Championship, the quickest expansion side to win it, the first team to triumph in their first Grand Final appearance since

Brisbane Roar Brisbane Roar Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Brisbane, Queensland and has won the domestic title on three occasions, as well as holding the longest unbeaten record of 36 league matches without defeat. Brisba ...

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

, and one of just two teams to have won the Championship after finishing outside the top two, with

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 ...

first achieving this feat in

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. Due to the

Australian Professional Leagues The Australian Professional Leagues, commonly abbreviated to the APL, and sometimes referred to as the A-Leagues, are the governing body for the A-League Men, A-League Women, A-League Youth and E-League. Since their formation, they have been most ...

announcing on 12 December 2022 that 2023, 2024 and 2025 A-League Men Grand Finals would be hosted in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

regardless of which two teams qualified, the 2022 Grand Final will be the last Grand Final to be played outside of Sydney until 2026.

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 2021–22 season was the league's seventeenth since its inception in 2005, and the 45th season of top-flight association football in

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 ...

. Twelve teams competed in the regular season, with each team playing a total of 26 matches, resulting in an uneven fixture that involved some clubs meeting three times and others meeting only twice. The top six teams qualified for the finals series, which were played in a straight-knockout format, with the top two teams earning an automatic place in the semi-finals and the bottom four teams playing off in elimination finals. One change made was that both semi-finals were now two-legged fixtures with the two winners of the semi-finals on aggregate meeting in the grand final. Melbourne City and

qualified for the semi-finals by virtue of finishing first and second respectively, whilst

(third) met

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 ...

(sixth) in the first elimination final and

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 ...

(fourth) took on

Central Coast Mariners Central Coast Mariners Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Gosford, on the Central Coast of New South Wales. It competes in the A-League Men, under licence from the Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The Ma ...

(fifth) in the second elimination final.

Melbourne City

Western United

Western United finished the season in 3rd place, where they played 6th placed

in the first elimination final, where they won 1–0 at

in front of 3,376 fans. Western United then faced

in the semi-final, who had finished the regular season in second place. After losing the home leg 0–1, Western United then mounted a comeback in the away leg, defeating Melbourne Victory 4–1 in front of 15,349 spectators, with the scoreline being 4–2 on aggregate, to progress to their first ever

Pre-match

Venue selection

The Grand Final was held at

, the home ground of Melbourne City. This was the third Grand Final hosted at the venue, after

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and the previous edition in

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.This Grand Final was the last final to be played outside of Sydney until 2026.

Broadcasting

The Grand Final was broadcast throughout Australia live and free on

Network 10 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 ...

and streamed on

Paramount+ Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...

and

10Play 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 latter being for free.

Officiating

Chris Beath Chris James Beath (born 17 November 1984) is an Australian Association football, football Referee (association football), referee in the A-League. Refereeing career He has refereed at the National Youth Championships in 2003 and in 2004. Beath ...

was selected to officiate the Grand Final on 25 May, which would be his third consecutive A-League Mens Grand Final. Beath was assisted by Anton Shchetinin and Ashley Beecham. The video match officials for the match were led by

Kris Griffiths-Jones Kris Griffiths-Jones is an Australian football referee who currently officiates in the Hyundai A-League and the NSW Premier League. He made his A-League debut in the 2008-09 A-League season. He began his refereeing career witGDFRA(Granville D ...

, who was assisted by Kate Jacewicz and Kearney Robinson. Daniel Elder was the fourth official for the match. Andrej Giev was the fifth official.

Attendance

The match was the first A-League Men Grand Final since

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

that did not have the attendance impacted by COVID-19 restrictions.

Opening ceremony

Young Franco Joseph Da Rin de Barbera (born 1994), who performs as Young Franco, is an Australian DJ and record producer from Brisbane, Queensland. He is based in Sydney, New South Wales. Career Barbera has performed at many Australian festivals includin ...

Tkay Maidza Takudzwa Victoria Rosa "Tkay" Maidza ( ; born 17 December 1995) is a Zimbabwean-born Australian singer-songwriter and rapper. Biography Maidza was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. Her parents are metallurgists. In 2001, her family moved to Australia ...

and Nerve performed before the start of the match and at half-time.

Match

First half

Second half

Details

Statistics

Post-match

References

{{2021–22 in Australian soccer 2021–22 A-League Men season A-League Men Grand Finals Soccer in Melbourne Melbourne City FC matches Western United FC matches