The Melbourne City Gazette
Squad29 Mar 2027
Liam Bonetig 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.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
When it matters, Patrick Beach plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Benjamin Mazzeo has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Benjamin Mazzeo has written the date down.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Ali Auglah knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ali Auglah trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Ethan Alagich finally belongs at Melbourne City
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Takeshi Kanamori is the talk of the training ground
Sharpest man there all week, by every account. It is the quietest line on this page and it usually runs the week before somebody’s run in the side begins.
In brief
- The dugout Liam Jackson keeps his manager's vote
- Squad Beckham Baker is out on the grass again