Cricket
Racing
Rugby
League
Motorsport
Football
Golf
Combat Sports
Basketball
Tennis
Other Sports
Sport Nation
Simon Hill gives Grand Final prediction ahead of final A-League match
Nicholas Quinlan • May 31st, 2025 12:10 pm
Respected broadcaster Simon Hill has given his tip for Saturday’s A-League Grand Final between Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City.
Hill’s voice has become synonymous with the A-League having commentated 15 out of a possible 19 grand finals.
Although, his 16th grand final will be his last A-League game as he heads back to the UK after 22 years in Australia.
And what a game to close his A-League commentary career on.
It will be the first time in the competition’s 20-year history that we see a Melbourne Derby grand final between City and Victory in front of a sold-out AAMI Park.
City comes into the match as favourites although their Grand Final record is less than desirable.
In the last six seasons, they have made five grand finals. But they have managed to only win one and have suffered major embarrassments on this stage with the worst being in 2022/23 when they lost 6-1 to the Central Coast Mariners.
Hill did note their previous history in grand finals but believes that their current form and player availability are good enough to win their second title.
“It could be,” Hill noted on SEN 1170’s Afternoons.
“They’ve choked on a few occasions. They’ve also lost an Australian Cup final by four goals to nil I seem to remember back in 2019 (against Adelaide United).
“Their record on these big occasions is not great. But they are in a good trot of from at the moment, eight games unbeaten.
“They’ve got a lot of their injured players back, great depth to their squad. When you can bring a 78-time capped Socceroo in Matt Leckie off the bench which they did in the semi-final in both legs against Western United, you know that you’ve got good depth.
“I don’t think they will have any fear going into this one. You just hope for the state of the occasion, that they don’t choke which they have done before.”
After losing last year’s Grand Final to the Central Coast Mariners, Melbourne Victory will be keen on redeeming themselves on the grand final stage.
A win on Saturday will mean that Victory will equal Sydney FC’s record of five A-League titles.
However, it was not always expected that they would reach this stage.
Former Melbourne City manager Patrick Kisnorbo took the reins at the start of the season from now Socceroos coach Tony Popovich.
Kisnorbo started life at Victory on a high as they sat 2nd in the first couple of weeks of the season.
However, he unexpectedly walked out of the club after seven games to take up an assistant coach role at J1 League side Yokohama F. Marinos.
This saw assistant coach Arthur Diles become the interim coach.
After a rocky start that saw Victory sit outside the finals at the halfway stage of the season.
However, Diles managed to find his feet and got Victory back into finals and into the grand final which has seen him become the full-time coach.
“Arthur is in his first grand final and strangely enough, of course, he was the long-time number two to Tony Popovich who coached teams in five grand finals and couldn’t win one,” Hill explained.
“It will certainly be a little bit ironic if Arthur was to win it in his first season. I mean, it took him seven games to even get his first win as Victory coach and there was a bit of a delay before they announced them as the full-time successor to Patty Kisnorbo.
“He’s done a good job to steady the ship at Victory and in some ways, I guess, he’ll feel that he’s done his job already. I mean, of course, he’ll want to win.
“But to take the team to the grand final after all that, I think is probably success enough of its own.”
When asked to give a prediction for the game, Hill felt that it could be anyone’s game but slightly leaned towards Melbourne City.
“On current form, I think I would slightly be leaning towards City,” Hill said.
“But derbies are a bit different. Last year, Victory went away and they're away again technically. But they had what, 3/4000 fans in Gosford for the game against the Mariners.
“Tomorrow, they’ll be away, and they’ll probably have 20 (thousand) of the 30,000 fans so that gives them a good boost tomorrow.
“So honestly, I don’t know, flip of the coin. I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes to penalties.
The Grand Final will take place at AAMI Park on Saturday night.
The match will be broadcast live on Channel 10, 10Play and Paramount Plus with coverage starting at 7pm AEST with kick-off at 7:40pm.
