Perth's Italian expat community came out in force as Serie A giants AC Milan visited the Western Australian capital for the second consecutive season, one year after 59,522 people saw them lose 5-2 to AS Roma at the back-end of the 2023/24 season.
It continues the club's burgeoning relationship with Perth, which thanks to significant investment from the state government has been selected to host the first Serie A game on foreign soil when Milan takes on Como at Perth Stadium in February whilst the San Siro is in use for the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony.
AC fielded a very strong 22-man matchday squad in their 9-0 friendly win over A-League Men (ALM) wooden spooners Perth Glory on Thursday with six different players getting on the scoresheet, including a starting double from Noah Okafor and braces off the bench for both 19-year-old defender Vittorio Magni and Portuguese Tottenham target Rafael Leão.
The scoreline reflected head coach Max Allegri's assertions after the game that the team took the pre-season hit out "seriously".
"The boys did well," Allegri told reporters.
"We needed a good run-out. It was a great evening for sport in Australia.
"We need to take it one step at a time. Game by game. As I've always said, we need to work with calmness and balance and not get carried away when things go well.
"We will have tough moments, and in those bad moments we need to make sure that we don't let our heads drop.
"We need to stay mentally balanced, knowing that a league season is a campaign of 38 games, in which we always need to maintain the same speed."
Glory manager Zdrillic was unwilling to slam his youthful side for the result, describing it as "a great learning experience".
One Perth Glory supporter and podcaster was understandably displeased with the result, slamming it as a "disgrace" in his otherwise entertaining matchday vlog of the historic friendly:
Australia Cup Round of 32 exits for five ALM outfits
Just six of the 13 A-League Men's clubs qualified for the Australia Cup Round of 16 to take place in mid-August following a couple of 'cupsets' late last month.
Glory's pre-season was already disappointing enough prior to being beaten up by AC Milan after they crashed out of the Australia Cup at the hands of Wellington Phoenix, losing on penalties in front of just 1,141 people at Kingsway Reserve during a match that had a lengthy lightning delay.
That ground belongs to WA NPL club Olympic Kingsway, who two days later created a shock result of their own when they dumped two-time Australia Cup winners Melbourne Victory out of the tournament 4-3 after extra time.
It was Kingsway's first ever victory over an A-League opposition and came courtesy of all-time tournament leading goalscorer Liam Boland, who for the third time in his career recorded an FFA/Australia Cup brace against an A-League opposition, whilst it was Melbourne Victory's second 'cupset' following a 2018 defeat to NPL NSW team APIA Leichhardt.
Speaking of APIA Leichhardt, they added Melbourne City to their list of A-League scalps Victory (2018) and Western Sydney Wanderers (2021) with a dominant 2-0 win over a weakened City side.
City fielded a squad with several youth team players including 16-year-old Mathew Baker in the back four, highlighted by the many shirt numbers in the 40s and above resembling cricket scores that Australian opener Sam Konstas would have been happy with in the Caribbean!
Whilst it officially goes down in the books as City's first 'cupset' defeat, APIA started only as the narrowest of outsiders at Lambert Park thanks to the team fielded by City, who are still very early into their pre-season along with the other 12 A-League clubs.
Elsewhere, the Newcastle Jets won 2-1 as outsiders against Adelaide United at Maitland Sportsground, whilst Sydney FC were also triumphant as the underdogs at Ironbark Fields in Tarneit when they came out on top 1-0 against Western United.
Western woes go from bad to worse
Western United were unable to field club captain Ben Garuccio or new signing Jaiden Kucharski in their Australia Cup loss to Sydney FC during the week thanks to the transfer ban they were hit with back in May 2025 because of what FIFA vaguely described as "various infractions, such as financial disputes or regulatory breaches".
The infractions are believed to relate to ongoing issues related to paying both players and staff on-time with parent company Western Melbourne Group (WMG) in serious financial trouble.
Nine newspaper The Age revealed in June that club boss Jason Sourasis was hit with a personal tax bill of $3 million relating to unpaid taxes across six of his companies, five of which the ATO have sought to have liquidators appointed to.
Sourasis' business partner Steve Horvat was also served a $10 million personal tax bill, according to The Age.
The news came not long before Brisbane Roar settled their own $1.5 million tax debt with the ATO, money which was owed by previous owners.
There was some good off-field news for Western United, however, after they were able to strike a deal with head coach John Aloisi to sign a two-year contract extension.
