Melbourne City FC won the W-League championship on February 12, 2017 by defeating the Perth Glory 2-0 in front of 4,591 fans in NIB Stadium.
First the lineups of the two finalists:
Perth Glory Women | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Sarah Carroll 75‘ | DF |
| 3 | Kim Carroll | DF |
| 4 | Alyssa Mautz | MF |
| 7 | Nikki Stanton | MF |
| 9 | Rosie Sutton | FW |
| 10 | Vanessa Di Bernardo 83‘ | MF |
| 13 | Jaymee Gibbons 54‘ | MF |
| 17 | Natasha Rigby | DF |
| 18 | Gabrielle Dal Busco | GK |
| 20 | Samantha Kerr (C) | FW |
| 22 | Arianna Romero | DF |
Substitutes | ||
| 1 | Melissa Maizels | Sub |
| 5 | Patricia Charalambous 75‘ | Sub |
| 6 | Carla Bennett | Sub |
| 8 | Shawn Billam 54‘ | Sub |
| 14 | Caitlin Doeglas | Sub |
Manager | ||
| – | Slobodan Despotovski | MAN |
Melbourne City FC Women | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lydia Williams | GK |
| 2 | Teigen Allen | MF |
| 3 | Lauren Barnes | DF |
| 5 | Laura Alleway | DF |
| 6 | Aivi Luik | MF |
| 7 | Stephanie Catley (C) | DF |
| 10 | Jessica Fishlock 45+1‘ | MF |
| 11 | Erika Tymrak 90+4‘ | MF |
| 13 | Rebekah Stott | DF |
| 16 | Beverly Goebel 72‘87‘ | FW |
| 17 | Marianna Tabain 66‘70‘ | MF |
Substitutes | ||
| 12 | Olivia Ellis | Sub |
| 14 | Melina Ayres 90+4‘ | Sub |
| 15 | Amy Jackson 70‘ | Sub |
| 19 | Tyla Jay Vlajnic 87‘ | Sub |
| 20 | Emily Shields | Sub |
Manager | ||
| – | Jessica Fishlock | MAN |
First-Half Highlights:
- 1′ (first minute) – Yanez receives a nice cross, but heads the ball down for an easy save.
- 7′- Alleway sloppily gives the ball to Kerr, but recovers in time to stop a goal scoring opportunity for Perth.
- 28′ -Tymrak is wide open for an easy goal and “skies” it out of play.
- 37′ -Luik has across to Fishlock, who heads the ball, but goes wide right of goal.
- 41′ – Yanez from 18 yards outs has a nice shot, but just misses the upper corner of goal.
- Also throughout the half, DiBernardo had several shots, mostly about 20 yards out going over the bar.
- 45′- In the penalty box area, Yanez passes to Tymrak, who passes to back to Yanez, who has a nice cross. Fishlock just gets a toe on the ball to re-direct the ball into the corner of the net. GOAL!
- Halftime – Melbourne City is leading 1-0 over Perth.
Second-Half Highlights:
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- 56′ – Fishlock is one on one with goalkeeper Dal Busco, and the goalkeeper makes a nice save grabbing the ball at her feet.
- 59′- Barnes bravely tackles the ball away from Kerr in the penalty box area, resulting a corner kick. The corner kick play later resulted in loss of possession for Perth.
- For the next ten minutes or so, Melbourne goalkeeper Williams is busy making several easy saves from several Perth players. None is a real goal scoring threat.
- 72′ – Yanez has one of those shot/cross combinations that completely fooled the Perth goalkeeper, who may have gotten her fingertips on it. Nevertheless, it goes in and scores a GOAL! Melbourne now leads 2-0.
- From here Melbourne goes into a bunker defense and Perth gets more desperate, losing any consistency in their play.
- 79′ – Perth fans are upset at what seemed to be a time-wasting ploy by Melbourne . Play is stopped as Yanez is down at the penalty box area forcing the referee to stop play, and ending a Perth drive. Yanez was down momentarily, and the injury not serious as she returned a minute later.
- There were several weak attempts by Perth, but Melbourne goalkeeper Williams was not stressed and the game ends after five minutes of extra time.
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You can watch highlights of the game here on ESPN3.
Congratulations to W-League season nine champions Melbourne City FC!
For NWSL fans, pre-season begins around mid-March, and the season will open around April 15th. In the next few weeks, we will begin previewing each team’s roster before the season starts.