Melbourne Victory v Melbourne City FC

The A-League season commenced a couple weeks ago, and tonight was the first of the Melbourne Derby games between Melbourne Victory and the newly branded Melbourne City FC (formerly Melbourne Heart).  Justin was kind enough to invite Neil and me to come along to this sold out match at Etihad Stadium.  His seats were ridiculously close as we were eight rows up near the center of the field (Etihad moved all the lower level seats out towards the rectangular ground).  The atmosphere of the game was fantastic, and the North end Victory fans were lighting flares even before the match had started! 

Melbourne City FC struck with the first goal in the 13th minute, but Victory tied things up about 10 minutes later with a goal from Archie Thompson.  Then City came back to score again within the next 5 minutes, and held a 2-1 lead until Victory's Besart Berisha tied it up just before half time.  In the second half it was all Victory as Berisha again scored right at the start of the half and in the 67th minute.  To put the icing on the cake Thompson got another goal a few minutes before the end of match resulting in a 5-2 win for Victory.  The crowd were super excited throughout and flares got lit after each goal.  We were also lucky to get to watch Spanish player David Villa, who is on loan for up to 10 games to Melbourne City FC from New York City FC, which will compete for the first time in the MLS in 2015.