Melbourne Derby (A-League)

Melbourne Derby

A Melbourne Derby match at Etihad Stadium in progress in 2014.
Locale	Melbourne
Teams	Melbourne City Melbourne Victory
First meeting	Melbourne City 2–1 Melbourne Victory (8 October 2010)
Latest meeting	Melbourne Victory 2–1 Melbourne City (4 February 2017)
Next meeting	TBA
Statistics
Meetings total	23
Most wins	Melbourne Victory (10)
Top scorer	Besart Berisha (9)
Largest victory	Melbourne City 4–0 Melbourne Victory (1 March 2014)

The Melbourne Derby is an intra-city local derby in Australia's premier soccer competition, the A-League. It is contested between the two Melbourne teams in the competition, Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory, and was the A-League's first intra-city derby.

With the introduction of Melbourne Heart (who would later be known as Melbourne City) to the A-League at the start of the 2010–11 season (the Victory having joined the league at inception), the first derby was held on 8 October 2010 at AAMI Park. The match was originally scheduled for 2 October 2010 however due to the 2010 AFL Grand Final Replay occurring on the same day, the match was postponed.

Melbourne Heart won the inaugural derby 2–1, with goals from Alex Terra and John Aloisi. Robbie Kruse scored for Victory. Aziz Behich was sent off late in the second half, but Heart were able to hold on and secure the win. Although the game was an official sell out, only 25,897 fans turned up, well short of AAMI Park's official capacity of 30,050. The Victory hosted their first home derby on 22 January at Docklands Stadium, with the match ending in a 2–2 draw. The match was marred by an unacceptable tackle by Kevin Muscat on Adrian Zahra, which earned the Victory captain his second straight red card and a subsequent eight-match ban, ending not only his season, but his A-League career.

The first scoreless draw in the derby occurred in the third round of 2011/12 season, whilst a record crowd at AAMI Park was in attendance for the second derby of the season. This derby was arguably one of the best in the rivalry's brief existence, with Heart midfieldier Matt Thompson scoring twice in a matter of minutes late in the first half to put Heart in the lead 2–1, before Heart substitute Alex Terra scored controversially after appearing to handball preceding his goal in the second half. Heart would win the match 3–2. The intense rivalry and passion between both sets of supporters occasionally boiled over, as occurred in February 2011 when four Melbourne Heart supporters were charged with "conspiracy to falsely imprison a [Victory supporter] ".