2022–23 A-League Men
The 2022–23 A-League Men, known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons, was the 46th season of national level men's soccer in Australia, and the 18th since the establishment of the competition as the A-League in 2004.
The regular season commenced on 7 October 2022. The season featured a mid-season break from 18 November 2022 to 8 December 2022 due to the 2022 FIFA World Cup being held in Qatar.
Melbourne City were the defending premiers and Western United were the defending champions. Melbourne City successfully defended their title, winning their third premiership in a row with two games remaining. Central Coast Mariners won their second championship, defeating Melbourne City 6–1 in the Grand Final.
This season was the first A-League Men season since 2013–14 to record an increase in average attendance compared to the previous season.
Clubs
Stadiums and locations
Twelve clubs are participating in the 2022–23 season.Foreign players
| Club | Visa 1 | Visa 2 | Visa 3 | Visa 4 | Visa 5 | Non-visa foreigner | Former player | |||||||||||||
| Adelaide United |  Regular seasonThe 2022–23 season sees each team play 26 games, starting on 7 October 2022, and concluding on 30 April 2023, with a mid-season break between 14 November 2022 and 8 December 2022, due to the 2022 FIFA World Cup. This will be followed by a finals series for the top six teams.AFC Champions League qualificationDue to the re-formatting of the AFC Champions League to have an inter-year schedule from September instead of an intra-year schedule, the qualification for the 2023–24 AFC Champions League was changed. The single qualification spot for this competition goes to whichever of the Premiers for the current season or the previous season accrues the most combined points over both seasons. Melbourne City won the Premiership in both the 2021–22 and 2022–23 seasons, thereby automatically qualifying for the Champions League.Melbourne Derby pitch invasionDuring the Melbourne Derby between Melbourne City FC and Melbourne Victory FC on 17 December 2022 at the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, the match was abandoned in the 22nd minute after several incidents of hooliganism took place both on and off the field. Throughout the match, supporters of both teams both ignited and threw flares.In the 20th minute, the match was interrupted due to flares being ignited and thrown onto the pitch, two of which had been thrown by Melbourne Victory supporters. Conflict arose when Melbourne City goalkeeper Tom Glover, who was defending the goal in front of the Melbourne Victory supporters end, picked up and threw the flares away from the pitch, the second of which was thrown into the crowd of Victory supporters. This sparked a pitch invasion by between 100 and 200 spectators, who proceeded to attack Glover and match referee Alex King, both of whom sustained minor injuries. The match was abandoned as a result. On 23 December, Football Australia handed down interim sanctions on both clubs while a full investigation was being conducted. Both teams had their active supporter bays closed, with Melbourne Victory further sanctioned with supporter restrictions: travelling support was banned for away games, while home games were restricted to only valid club members. The match was resumed on 5 April 2023 from the 21st minute, with the score resuming at 1–0 to Melbourne City. The match ended in a 2-1 win to Melbourne City, with Aiden O'Neill and Nishan Velupillay scoring for the Victory. Finals seriesFormatThe finals series was held in mostly the same format as the previous year, run over three weeks, and involving the top six teams from the regular season. In the first week of fixtures, the third-through-sixth ranked teams played a single-elimination match, with the two winners of those matches joining the first and second ranked teams in two-legged semi-final ties. The two winners of those matches met in the Grand Final.On 12 December 2022, the Australian Professional Leagues announced that the 2023 A-League Men Grand Final would be the first of three successive Grand Finals hosted in Sydney, regardless of which two teams earned the right to play in the final. The move received a large amount of backlash from supporters of all 12 clubs, and was overturned in the following season. Elimination-finals----Semi-finalsMatchesMelbourne City won 5–1 on aggregate.---- ''Central Coast Mariners won 4–1 on aggregate.'' Regular season statisticsTop scorers
|
