I wonder who'll be the referee? 

It'll be a contest. Generally alright the game is in Gosford. Guaranteed to sell out but Allianz would've gotten pretty close if not full also. 

2:1 Mariners. 

Back-to-back GFs feels good 😎

It looks like Arzani is out. 3 yellow in the finals

Hopefully Folami starts, rather than Khelifi 

If I was a CCM supporter, I would be very worried at how much Sydney dominated that last game. 

Nah not worried, completely different type of teams

If I was a CCM supporter, I'd be worried about how much the APL are going to jack the ticket prices up. Stadium is too small to get the revenue they would like for a GF, so the price will almost certainly be high. I wouldn't be surprised if adult tickets are starting at 100+. 

Excellent, because I would be very disappointed if Victory rolled you. Love the way CCM play and I absolutely hate the football Popas teams dish up. 

Not as bad as Wellington with sideways/backwards passing in their own half for majority of every game. At least victory try to attack most of the time

8 tickets per membership number can be purchased, resellers going to love this.

So MV have this bus deal for fans that want to go to the GF. I'm genuinely curious as to what type of person would think this sounds good. Definitely not me.

For $250 (does not include actual ticket to the GF)
You have to get on a bus at 5am Saturday from Southern Cross. You then drive to Gosford. Two 30min stops along the way. You arrive at the stadium at 6pm. That's 12 hours on a bus with Victory fans, and not just any Victory fans, these are Victory fans that are happy to take a bus from Melbourne to Gosford. You then attend the game with the ticket you purchased separately. After the game you jump back on the same bus at midnight same day and head back to Melbourne with an arrival time of 1:15pm on Sunday. That's another 12 hours on a bus with the same Victory fans, only this time, not only do they smell like they've already been on a bus for 12 hours but now they also smell like they're been in the away active section of a football final. 
https://melbournevictory.com.au/finals/travelling-to-gosford/

Younger fans for sure that just want to have a laugh with their mates. I'm to old for it now but I can see the appeal 

FFS anyone but Faghani...

I'd even take Evans ahead of Faghani! 

Any referee who is happy for the game to be about the players - and not the referee - would be a good choice.

I wouldn't even do that with a ticket to the game included 

Even as an 18-23 year old, this would have sounded terrible to me.

Even at $109 a pop, it looks like it'll sell out in 1 day. But the whole 8 tickets per member code is total bullshit.

Its looking like about 3,000 Vuck's heading north. I'm sure we'll make enough noise to drown out the theatre goers. The 4 lower bays allocated to us went pretty quick and I know many of our fans purchased tickets in the bays allocated to CCM next to us.  

Not a good weekend for limited train services. We have been told we need to get a train from Strathfield to Gosford (instead of from Central). And at this stage, there is only 1 train returning back to Sydney after the game. That needs to be fixed. 

As for the game itself, I'm quietly confident. 2 draws and a loss from 3 games this season, but I would suggest we were the better team in 2 of them. If we were able to find a way in Wellington last week, we can definitely find a way in Gosford. 

If you go a goal up in the first half you are doomed. Popa will defend the lead until it is too late.

Mariners have been forged in success throughout this season and being hardened 'veterans' at big games now you know they will play their game well.

Victory are hit and miss and impossible to tell which version of them will show up. Both Machach and Fornaroli are due for good games. Nisbet was very quiet last game too so he is also due. Which means nothing really...

Kaltak, Hall and Vukovic v De Silva, Miranda and Izzo. What a huge match up of strong defences.

To beat Wellington over 2 legs, and especially in Wellington was/is a much tougher assignment than winning a one of game in Gosford against this CCM team.

 Poppa dreams of this scenario, underdog, on the road.

CCM deserve to be favourites, but is a coin flip imo.

Having the GF in a permanent place or on a 5 year rotation wouldn't prevent price gouging for travel anyway. Still, the number of tickets available to members not to mention what appears to be a decent section of bays for corporate, a lot will go without or pay through the nose.

Would the Mariners get 16k or more down to Allianz or Commbank? 26k went to Commbank last time so 13k Mariners/ 3k City and 10K neutrals? Victory would bring so many. Tricky situation but we probably just need to accept the highest hosts and that's that. 

That bus to Melbourne sounds absolutely horrible but at least it's being offered. Sadly no airline will ever offer something at a reasonable rate at such short notice.

No high speed rail but if the highways had German autobahn laws.... 

We don't have the footskills, vision or decision making yet to match it with the German autobahns :(

Jagged 3 tickets. Go CCM.

And idiots drive slow in the right lane here. It's so annoying 

I know history means nothing once the whistle is blown on Saturday, but we have conceded 2 goals in 6 Grand Finals and have never been beaten in regular time. That fills me with confidence. So does the form of Izzo and our defence.

Scoring goals has been our issue for 2 seasons, now. I said in another thread that this is Bruno's time. If he doesn't want to end his career in Australia without a trophy, he needs to produce the goods this week. 

Mv have not lost many games

ccm the massive favourites and mv are the little train who could here. 

My prediction is Victory will win this one quite easily!

Ha ha ha.... "perhaps the greatest underdogs in football history"?
With the talent Victory have, they are the overwhelming favourites, despite CCM finishing top.
I can see Victory running out easy winners in this.  Although I would prefer CCM to win. They really don't have any standout match winners, unlike Victory who have them all over the park.

The bookies all have CCM as the favourite. It is pretty close though.
People seem to want CCM to be the underdog, but they just aren't this time around. They won the GF last year against a very good team. They are premiers this season. They won the AFC cup. They beat SFC in regular time. They have home ground advantage with their first ever true home grand final. They are full of confidence.
MV are defensively strong, can't deny that. However so are CCM who had the better defensive record during the regular season. MV has struggled with goals. Look at the Nix final, goal scorers were Traore who never scores and Ikonomidis who should score but never does. Expected goal scorers were largely ineffective.
That being said, if it goes to a shootout, my money would be on Izzo at the moment.

https://www.footballaustralia.com.au/news/alex-king-appointed-referee-2023-24-a-league-men-grand-final

Jo King was in the VAR box with Abrahams in that last Faghani match if that gives you any peace of mind.