MELBOURNE Victory does not have to wait long to gain some grand final revenge on Sydney FC as the two rivals have been pitted together in an opening round blockbuster.
With the 2017-18 A-League fixture released today, Cross-town rival Melbourne City will open the season against Brisbane Roar at AAMI Park on Friday, October 6, before Victory hosts the Sky Blues in a grand final rematch at Etihad Stadium the following night.
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Victory and City will then play the first of three Melbourne derbies at Etihad Stadium the following week, before doing battle at AAMI Park on December 23 and again on March 2.
As has become the norm, the first two of those derbies will be played on Saturday nights, which mean they will be beamed live across the country on commercial television. Network 10 has taken up the rights to one A-League game a week for the first time.
But the third derby is on a Friday night and will be exclusive to Fox Sports.
One of the Sydney derbies will be played on a Sunday, also exclusive to Fox.
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Victory and City, along with the two Sydney clubs, have been given preference in the lucrative free to air TV slot.
The Melbourne sides will feature in eight Saturday night prime time games each, while champions Sydney feature 10 times and Western Sydney seven times.
Two other big-capital-city sides Adelaide United and Brisbane (five times respectively) also feature prominently.
Wellington and Perth will not host a Saturday night game on Free To Air because of time zone restraints, but will still feature as the away team three times.
While Central Coast (five games) and Newcastle (three games) have not been frozen out either, with A-League boss Greg O’Rourke saying these clubs deserve a chance to grow their brand and, in effect, the strength of the competition as a whole.
This year there will be two split rounds to help Australia’s Asian Champions League participants — Sydney, Victory and, potentially, the Roar.
Victory’s schedule in the back end of the season also minimises travel with the ACL in mind, as Kevin Muscat’s men will play six of seven games in Melbourne between February 3 and April 8.
The trade off is that last season’s runner-up will be on the road four times out of five in a late-November to late-December stretch.
Victory will once again take on Adelaide United at the Adelaide Oval, in Round 3, while City has a great chance to again increase its average attendances with two home games against each of Victory, Sydney and the Wanderers.
Also, as revealed by the Herald Sun on Tuesday, Victory has scored an extra game in Victoria by virtue of its clash with Central Coast in Geelong.
Victory was meant to have 13 home games this season, but will play a 14th at “home” with the Mariners giving up hosting rights, as it did when the two teams met at Simonds Stadium in the 2015-16 season.
Originally published as A-League locks in Round 1 GF rematch