Preparing to commence the 2022-23 A-League Men (ALM) season against the side that vanquished his Melbourne City in last year’s decider, Patrick Kisnorbo says his side is targeting an improvement in “one-off games” heading into a new year.
City will host Western United at AAMI Park to open the new ALM campaign on Friday evening, the same venue where, just under five months ago, the newest kids on the block defeated the Citizens 2-0 in the 2021-22 grand final.
Despite securing their second-straight premiership earlier that campaign, reasserting their dominance over the rest of the league over the course of 26 weeks, it continued City’s not-so-dominant run in major one-off fixtures during the Kisnorbo/Erick Mombaerts-era.
Though imperious in the league, the Citizens have now lost two of the three grand finals they have qualified for, as well as the 2019 FFA Cup final.
It’s an area that Kisnorbo, now entering his third year in charge as head coach, has targeted for improvement heading into the new season.
“If you look at our journey over the last couple of years. Obviously, in Australia it’s the one-off games that hold relevance, instead of a 26-game season,” he said.
“And sometimes on the day you win and lose. What we’ve tried to do, I think, is not try to shy away from that.
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“We’ve understood that and asked how we can learn from that, these one-off games, if we ever are in a situation like that again.
“And we’ve put our best foot forward and are trying to learn from that and do that. It’s the first game of the season tomorrow, but we know we’ve got to take every game one by one.”
Though Kisnorbo wasn’t putting the horse before the cart, City will enter the 2022-23 campaign widely tipped to reach their fourth-successive ALM grand final, with the talent assembled at Casey Fields possessing both high-end quality and significant depth.
Although Connor Metcalfe is now in Germany, City has brought in internationals Thomas Lam, Richard van der Venne, and Valon Berisha to reinforce an already stacked line-up, as well as former Sydney FC defender Callum Talbot.
So impressive are the stockpiling efforts that fringe-Socceroo Marco Tilio, who would almost certainly start at every other ALM club, will likely be relegated to a bench role behind Andrew Nabbout, Mat Leckie, Jamie Maclaren, and Florin Berenguer.
“When we bring players into this club they have to be good people,” said Kisborno on the new signings. “And all of them are great people. We check on that before we even think of bringing someone in. They’re fantastic characters.”
Beyond marking the start of a new season, Friday evening will also serve as the 300th ALM game of City captain Scott Jamieson.
Signing with City ahead of the 2017-18 season, Jamieson has since played well over 100 games in City Blue and, reflecting on his career to date, the four-time Socceroo said things have gone just about as well as he could have hoped when he put pen to paper after leaving IFK Göteborg.
“At the time I signed a four-year deal,” he reflected.
“I’d returned from Sweden where that was my last crack at trying to go overseas and make something really big of it. And the security and the ultimate package of coming back to a club that the expectation to try and win things were mirrored to mine.
“That’s about trying to win and play in these big games and that was the case.
“When it came to signing a four-year deal and that time coming up it was always just trying to stay here. One or two conversations at the time when my contract was up with one or two clubs but it was never serious to want to look elsewhere.
“I’m super proud of what we’ve been able to do as a club and I’m grateful for the opportunities they’ve given me.
“I’m pretty sure the first thing people think of me is a shit talker or chat shit or whinges. But on the flip side of that, I accepted that a long time ago. Some people who don’t know me are going to think that.
“But what I do take a lot of comfort in and I’m proud that the people I’ve played with and worked with, they know the real me. They know first and foremost I’m a pretty good person.”
For all of City’s success, however, it is their opponents on Friday night that will enter as the defending champions of Australia.
And for United defender Ben Garrucio, at least, the hunger for silverware has been far from satiated.
“I want everything. I’m a winner,” Garrucio said. “I’m never happy even if it’s at training and we don’t win. I think the boys probably get sick of me moaning and yelling at training.
“But that’s just how I am, I’ve been like that for as long as I can remember. So I want to win, I want to win every game. I hope that we’ll be up there and I’m confident we will be if we play to our potential.”
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Header Image Credit: Melbourne City
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