The 2022 A-League Men Grand Final was the 17th A-League Men Grand Final, the championship-deciding match of the Australian

A-League Men A-League Men, also known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional Association football, soccer league in Australia and New Zealand and the highest level of the Australian soccer league system. Established in 2004 as ...

and the culmination of the 2021–22 season. The match was played between season premiers and defending champions Melbourne City and

Western United Western United Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club. The club is based in the western Melbourne suburb of Tarneit, the club aims to represent western Victoria, incorporating the western suburbs of Melbourne; the regional ci ...

on 28 May 2022 at

AAMI Park The Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, currently known as AAMI Park for sponsorship reasons, is a multi-purpose stadium located in the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct in the suburb of East Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victor ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Background

The match was Melbourne City's third consecutive and overall A-League Men Grand Final, while it was Western United's inaugural feature in the Grand Final. Western United won 2–0. This was the first A-League Grand Final to feature two teams of the same city, with both teams representing Melbourne. Western United's win saw the club became just the second expansion side ever to win the A-League Championship, the quickest expansion side to win it, the first team to triumph in their first Grand Final appearance since

Brisbane Roar Brisbane Roar Football Club is a professional soccer club based in Brisbane, Queensland. competing in Australia's premier men's competition, A-League Men, which is the top tier Australia's football pyramid. When Queensland Lions F.C. were ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

, and one of just two teams to have won the Championship after finishing outside the top two, with

Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Competing in the country's premier men's competition, the A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL), Victory ...

first achieving this feat in

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

Previous finals

''In the following table, finals until 2004 were in the National Soccer League era, since 2006 were in the A-League era.''

Route to the final

Summary

The 2021–22 season was the league's seventeenth since its inception in 2005, and the 45th season of top-flight association football in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. Twelve teams competed in the regular season, with each team playing a total of 26 matches, resulting in an uneven fixture that involved some clubs meeting three times and others meeting only twice. The top six teams qualified for the finals series, which were played in a straight-knockout format, with the top two teams earning an automatic place in the semi-finals and the bottom four teams playing off in elimination finals. One change made was that both semi-finals were now two-legged fixtures with the two winners of the semi-finals on aggregate meeting in the grand final. Melbourne City and

qualified for the semi-finals by virtue of finishing first and second respectively, whilst

(third) met

Wellington Phoenix Wellington Phoenix Football Club is a professional football club based in Wellington, New Zealand. It competes in the Australian A-League Men, under licence from Football Federation Australia. Phoenix entered the competition in the 2007–08 ...

(sixth) in the first elimination final and

Adelaide United Adelaide United Football Club is a professional men's soccer club located in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. The club was one of the eight founding members of the A-League Men and have competed in it concurrently since its formation, u ...

(fourth) took on

Central Coast Mariners Central Coast Mariners Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Gosford, on the Central Coast of New South Wales. It competes in the A-League Men, under licence from the Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The Mar ...

(fifth) in the second elimination final.

Melbourne City

Western United

Western United finished the season in 3rd place, where they played 6th placed

in the first elimination final, where they won 1–0 at

in front of 3,376 fans. Western United then faced

in the semi-final, who had finished the regular season in second place. After losing the home leg 0–1, Western United then mounted a comeback in the away leg, defeating Melbourne Victory 4–1 in front of 15,349 spectators, with the scoreline being 4–2 on aggregate, to progress to their first ever A-League Men Grand Final.

Pre-match

Venue selection

The Grand Final was held at

, the home ground of Melbourne City. This was the third Grand Final hosted at the venue, after

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

and the previous edition in

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

Broadcasting

The Grand Final was broadcast throughout Australia live and free on

Network 10 Network 10 (commonly known as the 10 Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paramount Global's UK & Australia division and is one of the five national free-to-a ...

and streamed on

Paramount+ Paramount+ (formerly known as CBS All Access in the United States and 10 All Access in Australia) is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, stream ...

and

10Play 10Play or 10 Play (formerly known as Tenplay, set to rebrand as 10 in 2025) is an Australian free video on demand and catch-up TV service run by Network 10. The service became available on 29 September 2013, replacing the network's old website ...

, the latter being for free.

Officiating

Chris Beath was selected to officiate the Grand Final on 25 May, which would be his third consecutive A-League Mens Grand Final. Beath was assisted by Anton Shchetinin and Ashley Beecham. The video match officials for the match were led by Kris Griffiths-Jones, who was assisted by Kate Jacewicz and Kearney Robinson. Daniel Elder was the fourth official for the match. Andrej Giev was the fifth official.

Attendance

The match was the first A-League Men Grand Final since

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

that did not have the attendance impacted by COVID-19 restrictions. The match attendance of 22,495 was the third lowest Grand Final attendance, and the lowest attendance for a Grand Final that was not impacted by COVID-19 restrictions.

Entertainment

Young Franco,

Tkay Maidza Takudzwa Victoria Rosa "Tkay" Maidza ( ; (born 17 December 1995) is a Zimbabwean-born Australian singer-songwriter and hip hop artist from Adelaide, South Australia. She has been nominated for and won many awards, and released two albums: '' Tk ...

and Nerve performed before the start of the match and at half-time.

Match

Details

Statistics

Post-match

Due to the

Australian Professional Leagues The Australian Professional Leagues, officially abbreviated to the APL, and sometimes referred to as the A-Leagues, are the governing body for the A-League Men, A-League Women, A-League Youth and E-League. Since their formation, they have been ...

announcing on 12 December 2022 that 2023, 2024 and 2025 A-League Men Grand Finals would be hosted in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

regardless of which two teams qualified, the 2022 Grand Final would have been the last Grand Final to be played outside of Sydney until at least 2026, but the deal was scrapped in October 2023.

References

{{2021–22 in Australian soccer 2021–22 A-League Men season A-League Men Grand Finals Soccer competitions in Melbourne Melbourne City FC matches Western United FC matches A-League Men matches 2020s in Melbourne 2022 in Victoria (state)