For many decades Olympic Park was the home of Victoria soccer’s biggest games. This included the FIFA World Youth Championships; Socceroos matches and of course many of South Melbourne’s biggest moments.

Although that stadium was demolished in 2012, in many ways the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium (AAMI Park) has become its spiritual successor. With this in mind the Australia Cup Final at AAMI Park echoes some of those other great South Melbourne moments, including the 1991 NSL Grand Final against Melbourne Knights.

Just like the 2026 Australia Cup Final, the 1991 NSL Grand Final was a Melbourne Derby and saw over 20,000 spectators pack the stands. There was national silverware on the line and South were the underdogs.

In the regular season South finished second on the table and the Knights finished first. The Knights had also beat South in their most recent encounter.

Heading into the final the Knights were led by coach Ken Worden and South were led by coach Ferenc Puskas and their captain, Ange Postecoglou.

At the 25^th the Knights took the lead when Marth scored. The Knights would then dominate the rest of the game with South forced to absorb the pressure. However, South maintained the narrow deficit and at the 88^th minute had a chance to change the game.

Trimboli collected the ball in the midfield and threaded a perfect through-ball to Palatsides on the edge of the box. As the time ticked down and the goal keeper charged towards him Palatsides narrowly passed the ball into the net to equalise the scores and send the match into extra time.

This gave South a lifeline however no winner was to be found after 120 minutes, and the game would have to be decided by penalties.

The Knights seemed to have the early advantage after Palatsides’ penalty hit the post however the Knight would go onto miss two penalties which swung the advantage to South.

Finally Kelic stepped up to keep the Knights in the game but missed the target completely – giving South the win and the NSL Championship!

Fans stormed the field in celebration and soon thousands of blue and white clad supporters where cheering on Postecoglou and Puscas as they raised trophy!