South Melbourne Hellas Win Australia Cup on Penalties

By Taki Panos

Some nights a football club wins a trophy. Other nights a trophy finally catches up with a football club. On Saturday at AAMI Park, South Melbourne, the Greek-founded club that everybody in Melbourne still calls Hellas, came from behind in the dying minutes of extra time against Melbourne Victory, drew 1-1 and won the Hahn Australia Cup final 4-3 on penalties. That made them the first club from outside the A-League ever to lift the trophy, as the official Australia Cup match report confirmed, in front of a record AAMI Park crowd of 29,911.

If you are new to this story, here is the short version. South Melbourne Hellas was formed in 1959 out of a merger of Melbourne clubs with deep roots in the city's Greek community, and it became one of the giants of the old National Soccer League, winning four national titles before that league folded in 2004. When the A-League was born, South were left outside it, and they have spent the 22 years since playing state-level football and knocking on the door. In the Guardian, Joey Lynch wrote that the club was "discarded and deigned to be forgotten." It never forgot.

The final itself was a proper cup tie. South, the less fancied side, started on the front foot, with Yuki Uchida skipping to the byline early, but Victory carved out the clearer looks. Goalkeeper Javier Lopez pushed a Santos shot onto the post in the first half, and in the 78th minute Santos had the ball in front of goal with only Lopez to beat and could not get a clean connection. Lopez blocked it, and the game rolled into extra time at 0-0.

Five minutes into extra time, Victory finally broke through. Denis Genreau, on as a second-half substitute, turned in the box and looped an improvised half-volley that hit the underside of the bar and crept over the line, AAP reported. That looked like the night. Bul Juach then rattled the crossbar for South, and Michael Ghossaini headed against the post for Victory, the kind of back and forth that ages a fan about a year per minute.

With fewer than five minutes left, substitute Jordan Swibel burst down the right and whipped in a cross, Juach's shot was blocked, and Max Mikkola, another substitute, was in the right spot to force it home in the 117th minute. I grew up around Boston and New York watching Greek teams of every size refuse to go quietly, and this had that same stubborn flavor. Down a goal, out of time, and still not leaving.

Then came the shootout, and it followed a script nobody would dare pitch. Lopez saved Harrison Sawyer's kick, was ruled to have come off his line, and saved the retake too. Sawyer, for the record, is a former South Melbourne captain. South scored all four of their penalties, with captain Marco Jankovic going first, which left Victory skipper Jason Davidson needing to score. Davidson, the son of South great Alan Davidson, sent it over the bar.

Lopez, a Spaniard, was named the Mark Viduka Medallist as man of the match, and he summed up the season in two sentences. "I remember in January when the club said we want to win the Australia Cup. I said 'you guys, that would be crazy'," he told AAP. "Now we are the champions."

For anyone watching from Athens, Thessaloniki or Kefalonia, the most familiar part of the night came before kickoff. Greek outlets including Gazzetta and SDNA described Melbourne musician Steve Pavlidis firing up the crowd on the bouzouki, a Notis Sfakianakis song about being Greek booming over the speakers, and dozens of Greek flags in the South end. Maria Marouli, a Melbourne singer whose father is from Kefalonia, sang the Australian national anthem. At the final whistle, Gazzetta reported, the South fans broke into the same chant that went viral after Greece's first ever win over Germany in Augsburg last month.

The South end also carried banners of club legends Ange Postecoglou, Ferenc Puskas and John Margaritis. Postecoglou, born in Athens and raised in Melbourne, captained South and then coached them to back-to-back national titles in 1998 and 1999, a reminder of how much of Australian football's story runs through this one club. Puskas, of all people, coached there too, which is the sort of detail that still makes old-timers at the kafeneio sit up straight.

Club chairman Bill Papastergiadis, a Melbourne lawyer with roots in Kastoria, dedicated the title to the supporters, according to Gazzetta. Captain Jankovic spoke to them directly. "You guys have stuck with us for 20 years, playing in the NPL and you've shown tonight what this future holds for this great club," he said, per AAP.

It was not a perfect night. AAP and the Guardian both reported that a section of the crowd at the South end booed the Welcome to Country before the match, with terrace leaders scrambling to hush them. A club that spent two decades asking to be respected knows better than most that respect runs both ways, and nothing that made Saturday special needed that moment.

The bigger question now is the A-League. South have made no secret of wanting in, and coach Sinisa Cohadzic did not exactly whisper it afterward. "I really cannot find any excuse not to see this club to play in the A-League," he said. It was his team's 54th game of the season, a campaign that also included a loss to Auckland FC in the OFC Pro League final, and AAP noted the cup technically earns South a place in next season's Asian Champions League Two. Victory coach Giovanni Savarese was gracious in defeat: "I think it will be remembered as one of the most iconic."

Here is my measured take. Australian football's leaders do not have to decide South Melbourne's future on the strength of one penalty shootout, and they should not. But they also cannot pretend they did not see 29,911 people pack a stadium for a cup final between a second-tier club and an A-League giant. Meanwhile, back in Greece, the Super League has its own big night, with Olympiacos hosting Panathinaikos in the derby tonight at 21:00, per Newsbreak. If you follow from abroad, here is how to stream Greek soccer live, and if you are a Greek Australian thinking about your own ties to the old country, start with our guide to holding Australian and Greek citizenship.

Image: South Melbourne FC crest, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).