Titans will clash! The New Year opens with the biggest game so far in the Hyundai A-League season
Sunday 2 January 2011 5PM
Help history repeat itself! Heart have already beaten Fury twice, including a historic first ever win, can they make it a landmark hat-trick?
Two-thousand-and-ten will go down in Melbourne sporting history as the year that its second Hyundai A-League football team was born. It was also the year that Melbourne Heart beat their cross-city rivals in their first ever encounter. That-s a night no-one on the red and white side of the city will ever forget!
It has been quite an extraordinary few months for fans of the Hyundai A-League-s newest club as the team gradually found its feet and developed into a strong force in the Hyundai A-League. Now, in 2011, the club aims to move up to the next level and challenge for silverware, and they want you alongside them the whole way!
Football, after all, means little without its fans. So show your club that you are right behind them by getting yourself down to AAMI Park and making non-stop noise. Your vocal performance in the stands leads to points on the pitch. So give the stripes the boost with song after song.
Sunday-s opponents, North Queensland Fury, play a pivotal role in Heart-s story. The Hyundai A-league-s new-born side picked up their first ever win when the Green Army visited AAMI Park back in September with a 1-0 triumph in front of a jubilant crowd. Later in the year, Heart also beat Fury by the odd goal in five in a cracker at Dairy Farmers Stadium.
Wins like these have put John van‘t Schip-s team in a decent position to make an assault on the top six places. Will this already memorable Hyundai A-League season become the stuff of legend? Imagine securing a top six place and then being paired with Victory in the Grand finals! The city of Melbourne, already the beating heart of domestic football in Australia, would be absolutely buzzing beyond anything we-d have seen before!
However, in order to squeeze into the Grand Finals, bread-and-butter games like this match-up with North Queensland Fury must be won. It-s that simple. However, anyone expecting this to be a cakewalk for Heart clearly hasn-t-t been paying especially close attention to North Queensland Fury this season.
Sure, it-s been a struggle, both on and off the field, for the Tropical Green, but they play some fine stuff and never, ever stop battling from the first whistle to the last. For an example of the passion and commitment of the Hyundai A-League, you need look no further than the brave effort that Fury are putting in this season.
Franz Straka could have done without 20-year-old Osama Malik being ruled out for over a month, but his hard-working side will persevere in his absence.
Help your team start the New Year as they mean to go on. It-s Melbourne Heart against North Queensland Fury and it is set to be a humdinger of a clash. Can Heart complete a clean sweep of victories against the Queensland outfit and keep well in the hunt for a top six place? Grab your ticket today and show plenty of Heart from the stands, as the season steadily moves towards the business end!
