Melbourne City FC will play its FFA Cup quarter-final against Wellington Phoenix at Casey Fields this Wednesday night.
The match will be the first competitive game City’s senior men’s team has played in Greater South East Melbourne and comes almost a year to the day since the club announced it was relocating its training and administration headquarters to Casey Fields.
The FFA Cup is the national men’s knockout competition, bringing together professional clubs with grassroots clubs across the country.
Patrick Kisnorbo’s side qualified for the last eight by defeating South Melbourne in the Round of 32 and Hume City in the Round of 16.
Wellington moved into the quarter-finals with a 4-1 win against local Victorian side Avondale last week.
The match will take place on the Casey Fields Main Oval, where the Melbourne Demons play AFLW and AFL pre-season matches and where the Melbourne Storm hosted an NRL pre-season match in 2020.
The match will be free to enter, with fans just required to check-in at the gate as per Covid-19 protocols.
Melbourne City’s move to Casey Fields forms part of a 30-year partnership entered into by the club and City of Casey and its wider commitment to the South East Melbourne region via a heads of agreement with the City of Greater Dandenong.
Despite the short notice and coming just days before Christmas, the match will be an interesting test case in light of the Victorian Government’s ongoing business case study into the feasibility of a new rectangular stadium next to Dandenong Train Station.
Construction on City’s new training and administration facilities at Casey Fields commenced in mid-2021 and are expected to be complete in late-2022.
City won the FFA Cup in 2016 courtesy of a Tim Cahill-winner in the final against Sydney FC.
