Sport / Melbourne, VIC

Brace yourself for the biggest match in Australian domestic soccer history

The Age

16 Sept 2026 15:30 AEST Summary

From the report

This is not the first time a former NSL club has met an A-League club in the Australia Cup final but this is the match people have been longing to see, and exactly the kind of philosophical meeting the tournament was designed to generate.

Headline check

The one thing this headline claims is in the report.

Figures, names and quoted words in the headline, looked for in the report itself — not in the summary above. One claim in this headline could be checked, so this is a narrow pass and not a thorough one. How this is checked

This is a summary. The indicators are not. Every score on this page was measured over the full 1234-word report, which is the only way the numbers mean anything.

How it is written

Niral Score 16.1 · mostly calm mundaneloaded

10 more readings adjectives, repeated words, sentiment, political diction and 1 more and 5 at zero

Highlighted in the text. Words that carry a fact and quoted words are not counted.

soccer12club8clubs7game6final5made5match5ever4national4never4way4champions3domestic3every3good3history3night3sport3together3across2administrators2beat2behind2below2better2bid2biggest2bit2competition2continued2dream2embodiment2everything2extra2felt2former2founded2four-time2happened2involving2items2itself2kind2level2levels2old2position2remember2saved2side2since2tournament2tried2won2

Sentiment -0.0 hostilefavourable Political diction -0.0 left-codedright-coded Mood 77.8 sorrowjoyful

5 read zero: generational, gender, jingoistic, religious, sourcing

Generational 0 harder on the oldharder on the young Gender 0 no gendered framingframing throughout Jingoistic 0 reports to a readerwrites from a camp Religious 0 not invokedovert Sourcing 0 unattributednamed sources

How the article is written, not whether it is correct. How each is measured.

Measured on The Age’s report as filed, which is all we may publish of this one.

How each outlet filed it

Also covered by The Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times. We hold only their summary of it, not the report, so there is nothing of theirs to measure here.

Outlet	Niral Score	Adjectives	Happiness
The Ageas they published this story	16.1	34	77.8
WAtoday	16.1	34	77.8

The Age, WAtoday scored identically because they filed the same copy — they share a newsroom. Identical rows here are syndication, not agreement.

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The same event elsewhere

3 other outlets filed this story. The scoreboard above is what they did differently.

The Sydney Morning Herald Brace yourself for the biggest match in Australian domestic soccer history Niral 21.7 · mostly calm political 0 Brisbane Times Brace yourself for the biggest match in Australian domestic soccer history Niral 21.7 · mostly calm political 0 WAtoday Brace yourself for the biggest match in Australian domestic soccer history Niral 16.1 · mostly calm political -0.0