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The weight of the world was on Bianca Galic’s shoulders. After 120 minutes of football, nothing could separate her Central Coast Mariners and Melbourne Victory and the first-ever shootout to decide an A-League Women grand final was needed. Eight successive penalties had rippled the back of the net to that point, with only Alana Jančevski’s initial attempt failing to do so. It meant that the game, a title – a fairytale – all came down to this.
The 26-year-old bent down to adjust the ball. At the end of the third game that had been played on AAMI Park across the weekend, and after rain had blanketed Melbourne the day prior, the penalty area at both ends of the pitch was churned up. Player of the match Isabel Gomez had slipped as she struck her shot on goal, the relief pouring over her as Victory keeper Courtney Newbon proved just unable to get enough of a touch on the ball to keep it out.
Satisfied with the position of the ball, Galic made her way to the top of her run-up and paused, boos from the home fans crashing down on her as she steeled herself. And then she sent the ball straight down the middle. Cue the blue and yellow party.
Central Coast Mariners are the champions of the A-League Women, completing a remarkable smash-and-grab to claim their first title. Two years ago, their program didn’t exist, placed into storage in Gosford by a club that couldn’t afford to operate it. Now, they stand alone at the peak of Australian women’s football.
Emily Husband is a championship-winning coach, the first woman to lead a side to a title since Jess Fishlock in 2017. The Yorkshire native arrived in Australia as a backpacker nine years ago, juggling coaching the various age groups at Sydney University SFC with meeting the requirements of her working holiday on a farm in Rankin Springs.
And she did so with a team that is reflective of the hard work, determination, and intelligence that she has had to show along the journey. Sunday’s decider exemplified a team that works as a unit, battles for every loose ball and puts in the work to lay every tackle. Few gave them a chance heading into the game, just as few had given them much hope of defeating Melbourne City across a two-legged semi-final in the weeks prior.
But proving people wrong has become a mantra of this side, built from players that Husband identified as having the ability to make something of themselves at this level, but just needed an opportunity, or for someone to have confidence in them.
There is no better representation of this than Gomez, who started the week with a call-up to the Matildas squad and ended it by being named a unanimous best-on-ground. The 22-year-old has flourished under the guidance of Husband and helped turn the midfield into a battlefield on Sunday.
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Bursting through to capitalise on Claudia Bunge fresh-aring a potential clearance, it looked like her 46th minute goal would be enough to win the game until the New Zealand defender secured redemption with 10 minutes to go, sending the game to extra-time with a header.
Victory will rightly be furious that they weren’t awarded a penalty three minutes into extra-time after the ball bounced off the palm of Taylor Ray as she closed down Nikki Flannery’s run into the box. The absence of VAR had again come to the Mariners’ rescue, after Gomez’s offside goal against Melbourne City the week prior was allowed to stand. They also had two goals disallowed during regular time, albeit both of these were correctly adjudged.
On another occasion Victory, win this game. They created plenty of chances across the 90 minutes, keeper Sarah Langman making a series of strong saves, and the story of the extra 30 minutes of football quickly became the Mariners grimly holding on to take the game to penalties. But they couldn’t deliver a knockout blow. And perhaps that’s the story of not only this title-winning team but also the Central Coast Mariners as a club. No matter what you do, in the moments that matter, you just can’t seem to keep them down.
