A-League tipping : the Grand finale

Welcome to the final A-League tips and predictions for the 2025/26 season. What a season it has been, and based upon the season’s results and form coming into the finals, the least likely of the four semi-finalists made it through to the big one. Auckland FC, fresh from a second-half pasting of Adelaide on their own turf, and this time backed by a raucous full house at Go Media Stadium, take on Sydney FC at 8.10pm local time (6.10pm AEST). Will the late kick-off work against them? Does the extra day of recovery and the lack of extra-time come into play? Will Patrick Kisnorbo taste defeat in his first game in full charge of the Sky Blues? Is the Grand Final the most pointless game ever, with no qualification for continental football and no prize money?

Be somewhere near a TV on Saturday evening. Whether you’re brave enough to head to a venue in Sydney while Vivid is on, you’re watching on at home or you’re at the Altona Magic game, keep an eye on this one. It’s going to be a rip snorter.

Submit your tip and give yourself a shout-out in the comments section underneath. Bid farewell to The Roar’s last remaining feature article here at its temporary home. It has been a pleasure.

Stuart Thomas

Auckland

In search of redemption, Auckland FC hosts the 2025/26 A-League Grand Final and will have a booming local voice to cheer them on. Sydney FC have had a wonderful season to get all the way to the decider, something that did not look likely at certain moments during the course of home and away play.

Yet they have advanced and now take on one of the toughest tasks in the league; Auckland away and with just a small number of Sky Blue support to cheer them on. It looks a home win on paper, with extra-time likely. Auckland by a single goal to win its first championship.

Andrew Prentice

Auckland

It’s a crying shame that the best and most entertaining team in the competition won’t be hosting the Grand Final on Saturday. But sometimes winning and entertaining are mutually exclusive concepts – for solid evidence of that look no further than Arsenal’s turgid path to the English title. Still, Newcastle’s season has been exceptional. But they’re not at the big dance because Sydney FC have shown resilience and passion to come from 5^th spot to occupy a GF slot in a match that has its own in-built sense of theatre. Steve Corica – an institution at the Sky Blues with back-to-back titles – will be plotting the downfall of his former home castle on Saturday night in front of what is sure to be a jam-packed Mount Smart Stadium. The Black Knights have gone one week further than their remarkable inaugural season while ironically finishing lower on the table. It was the manner of their ruthless dismantling of Adelaide last week that has me leaning towards them. Sydney under Patrick Kisnorbo have been akin to Andre The Giant – an immovable object. However, Auckland have the firepower to be the irresistible force on Saturday night, which will disrupt Sydney’s smash-and-grab tactics. If Auckland lead early, that might be enough to throw the Sky Blue bus off-course. It will be no surprise if this goes to extra time.

Texi Smith

Auckland, Sydney

Unless you’d forked out the $1,000 for the flights and were heading over to Auckland for the grand final, the average Sydneysider wouldn’t even know there was a game on this weekend. But their premier football team has been hard at work. After all the excitement of last weekend’s incredible semi-final showdown in Newcastle that abruptly curtailed the Premiers’ chase for the treble, Sydney FC have captured their interim manager’s signature for the foreseeable future, and the scenes as it was announced to the squad told the story of how well he has done to reunite the dressing room. We don’t have to look back too far to find the last game between these two teams, a game that Sydney had to win to ensure a home elimination final but one where they coughed up the lead late on – the rest is history.

Auckland have been dominant in all the games between the two sides this season, their physicality, long throws, height and strike power easily too much for the Sky Blues. However, Saturday night sees a different Sydney FC, one that believes in itself, one that has no fear, no hesitation and one that has an eye for goal. Apostolos Stamatelopoulos is due a starring role, and he will power home a header from a free kick towards the end of the first half to silence the home crowd. Wataru Kamijo and Paul Okon-Engstler are purring in midfield, and Piero Quispe is on hand to poke home at the far post for a second midway through the second period. A surge from the home team sees them reduce the arrears through Jesse Randall and tee up a grand finale, but Harrison Devenish-Meares makes two game-winning stops late on and Sydney FC come away with a thoroughly-deserved Grand Final triumph.

The Crowd has romped to victory this season, but it’s the battle for second that is is capturing the imagination. Smith’s unlikely double last weekend saw him overtake Prentice and Thomas, but he’s putting it all on the line for Sydney FC. What a fool! Let’s see what happens :

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Give us your thoughts below on the Grand Final, and let us know where you’d like to see your weekly A-League tips and predictions when October rolls around …