South Melbourne FC beat Melbourne Victory on penalties to win the Hahn Australia Cup final at AAMI Park on Saturday, becoming the first NPL club and the first side from outside the A-League Men to lift the trophy.
Melbourne Victory's Denis Genreau opened the scoring with an overhead kick in the sixth minute of extra time, a goal confirmed by VAR for the first time in an Australia Cup final. South Melbourne's Max Mikkola equalised in the 117th minute to send the match to penalties.
Victory missed two spot-kicks in the shootout. Harrison Sawyer, a South Melbourne junior product, had his penalty saved by goalkeeper Javier Lopez, then saw his retake saved again. Victory captain Jason Davidson then put the decisive kick over the bar to hand South Melbourne the title.
The match drew the largest crowd ever to pack into AAMI Park for a sporting event.
Jacob Eliopoulos was booked in the third minute for a high challenge on Jordi Valadon. He was replaced at half-time by Paulo Retre, South Melbourne's only change of the match.
Melbourne Victory brought on Guillermo May and Genreau from the bench in the 58th minute, with Genreau's overhead kick breaking the deadlock soon after extra time began.
In the shootout, May converted first for Victory before Jankovic replied for South Melbourne. After Sawyer's two missed attempts, Jordi Swibel, Michael Ghossaini, James Lackay, Genreau and Andrico Mesourouni all converted their penalties before Davidson's miss sealed the result.
South Melbourne reached the Australia Cup final for the first time in the club's history after coming from behind to beat Queensland Lions FC 3-1 at Lakeside Stadium.
The club competes in NPL Victoria, is chaired by Bill Papastergiadis and is based at Lakeside Stadium in Albert Park.