Xavier Stella

Defensive Midfielder - Melbourne Victory
24 Nov 2026
Tuesday
Process
Overview Personal Contract News 2 Transfers Relations Events 19 Awards Matches History

Marked for Xavier Stella

9 Edition

The Melbourne Victory Post

28 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad28 Sep 2026

Words exchanged at Melbourne Victory

Juan Mata and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.

Squad28 Sep 2026

The step up is real for Xavier Stella

At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.

Squad28 Sep 2026

8 new faces, and Melbourne Victory are still learning each other

A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.

In brief

Back issues
6 Edition

The Melbourne Victory Post

7 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Market7 Sep 2026

Matthew Grimaldi agrees terms with Western Sydney Wanderers

The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Melbourne Victory people have started saying his name in the past tense.

Boardroom7 Sep 2026

Deadline passes with 15 signed and 1 gone

That is the business done at Melbourne Victory until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.

Market7 Sep 2026

Lautoka come back empty-handed

The bid was some way short and Melbourne Victory did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.

Boardroom7 Sep 2026

Melbourne Victory go back to the board over Kavian Rahmani

The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $16.1K — a club that wants Kavian Rahmani enough to be asked twice.

Transfer targets7 Sep 2026

Too dear: Melbourne Victory walk away from Alessandro Lopane

$32.0K was the most the club would pay and Melbourne City were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.

Transfer targets7 Sep 2026

Door shut on Josh Thomas

Melbourne Victory asked and Swansea City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.

Squad7 Sep 2026

Jordi Valadon falls out with a teammate over standards

The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.

Squad7 Sep 2026

Emre Sağlam pulls a muscle — 14 days out

The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.

Transfer targets7 Sep 2026

Melbourne Victory ask about Yuto Ozeki

A loan enquiry to Kawasaki Frontale: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.

In brief

  • Market The window shut and Joshua Rawlins is still in the building
  • Squad Jordi Valadon is put on a programme of his own
  • Squad Santos is the talk of the training ground