As Adelaide United and Melbourne Victory steel themselves for Hyundai A-League battle on Friday night, we look back ten years to the most famous meeting between the two.
The 2007 Grand Final will go down in history as one of the most astonishing nights in Australian football.
Victory were runaway winners of the Hyundai A-League Premiers Plate, finishing 12 points clear of Adelaide United after 21 games.
The two met twice across the first fortnight of the Final Series, with James Robinson’s late goal in the second leg enough to see Victory win hosting rights for the Grand Final.
The Reds joined them a week later, but only after beating the Jets 4-3 on penalties in the Preliminary Final.
On Sunday 18 February 2007, over 55,000 fans packed into Telstra Dome to watch the highly-anticipated decider.
VICTORY GO BANG-BANG
After 20 goalless minutes, Victory opened the scoring when Archie Thompson latched onto a through-ball from Brazilian Fred to poke the ball past advancing Adelaide goalkeeper Daniel Beltrame.
Nine minutes later, Thompson doubled the lead, tapping home a Fred cross from inside the six-yard box.
ROSS SEES RED…AND THOMPSON NAILS HIS HAT-TRICK
If Adelaide weren’t already up against it at 2-0 down, their task was made immeasurably harder when Adelaide captain Ross Aloisi was shown a second yellow card and sent off after just 34 minutes.
Five minutes later, Thompson effectively ended the game as a contest, receiving a clever ball from his captain Kevin Muscat inside the penalty area and completing a 39-minute hat-trick with a tidy left-footed finish.
FIVE-STAR ARCHIE
Any thoughts that Victory might ease off after the break were soon put to bed when Thompson added a fourth goal ten minutes into the second half.
Fred was again the provider, playing his red-hot front-man through one-on-one with Beltrame, with Thompson rounding the hapless Reds ‘keeper and side-footing home.
And Thompson – who incredibly had never previously scored against Adelaide – drilled home a fifth after 72 minutes with Fred – inevitably – again the provider.
KRISTIAN ICES THE CAKE
As the game approached its conclusion and with Victory’s fans well into their celebrations, substitute Kristian Sarkies was introduced by Melbourne coach Ernie Merrick to allow Thompson a standing ovation as he departed.
But Sarkies himself wasn’t there just to run down the clock; instead, he curled home the best goal of the game in added time to complete a quite remarkable Victory win.
SEALED WITH A KISS
The jubilant Victory players were presented with their winners’ medals by Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
As Sarkies collected his, he provided one of the most iconic moments in Hyundai A-League history, kissing the bald head of the country’s leader to the delight of Victory fans and television viewers alike.
