It may be have Valentine's Day but there certainly wasn't any love shown by the Melbourne Victory to their rival on Saturday night. But although love may not have been in the air at the Telstra Dome, it certainly was a night full of surprises.
When most Victory fans listened and watched whilst the starting XI was being announced they wouldn't have expected to hear the name Carlos Hernandez. Considering that he only stepped off a plane from Costa Rica less than 12 hours before, many were of the opinion that he would come on as a substitute if at all.
But in a season where Ernie Merrick hasn't been afraid to make the big decision, the naming of Hernandez in the starting XI proved to be a masterstroke. For the last two years, Melbourne Victory fans have been looking for a performance that would rival that of Fred in the 2006/07 Grand Final and on Saturday night, they may have very well seen one.
The Costa Rican midfielder put on a master class as he set up three of the four goals and scored the other against a totally demoralised Adelaide outfit. A performance of that calibre also puts the pressure on the Melbourne Victory administration to put their money where their mouth is and sign him up. Maybe we should also put him on a plane to Costa Rica more often if we are going to get performances like that on his return.
Over the first four seasons of the A-League, matches between Adelaide and Melbourne have always been full of passion and because of this, it's a clash to which I always look forward to the most, along with any Sydney clash.
This would have to be the first time that I have witnessed a clash between these two sides where that passion has been non-existent. What we saw was an Adelaide team who simply looked like they didn't want to be there and this surprised me, considering what they have achieved in the past year. There was that two-goal deficit to take into account but I would have expected more.
Whilst I won't deny that it's always good to beat Adelaide because as you all know I don't particularly like them. However, not long after Victory's fourth goal I became a little disinterested and spent the rest of game silently praying that Muscat wouldn't pick up a yellow card. Fortunately for us all, my prayers were answered and our captain will again lead us out in two weeks time.
I was also surprised that the crowd for such a clash was only a tad under 35,000. If my memory serves me correctly, the corresponding clash two years ago cracked the 50,000 mark. Maybe, it was the fact that Melbourne was already 2-0 up or the fact that it was Valentine's Day (what could be more romantic than a night at the football), but the crowd figure was a little disappointing to say the least.
Now we have our second Grand Final in four seasons to look forward to and a chance to do the double for the second time. It will certainly be interesting to see who our opponent will be this time around.
