Besart Berisha loves to score goals against Melbourne City. On Saturday night, Melbourne Victory’s Albanian striker scored his sixth goal in five games against City to secure a 3-2 victory at Etihad Stadium.

We can talk endlessly about what separates City from Victory, chatter interminably about that nebulous concept “identity”, but in the end it is on the field where the Melbourne derby will recapture its charm.

For the first half, at least, it was a derby befitting a flat start to the A-League season. A surprisingly muted affair, with both teams focused on the football rather than getting the physical or psychological edge over the other side.

There were no wild challenges, no heated arguments, nothing off the ball. Even on the stroke of half-time, when City’s Uruguayan striker Bruno Fornaroli fired up at Daniel Georgievski in front of the benches, it diffused almost before the crowd could roar their approval.

To that end the football on display was enterprising and, for the most part, entertaining. Victory centre-cack Thomas Deng was outstanding in his starting debut, earning man of the match for his performance, while there was plenty of talent on display through the midfield – Aaron Mooy and Robert Koren for City; Oliver Bozanic and Guilherme Finkler for Victory.

In the first half both sides lacked polish in the final third, with Victory particularly guilty of wasting some good chances. Indeed it took a slice of luck to break the deadlock on 23 minutes. Fahid Ben Khalfallah’s shot took a wicked deflection off Paulo Retre, leaving Thomas Sorensen stranded in goal.

Sorensen – the veteran Dane playing in his first Melbourne derby – might well have felt aggrieved, but in truth Ben Khalfallah had the better of Retre down the left flank from the very beginning. Victory right-back Georgievski, who helped create the goal, spent most of the first half camped in City’s half. As they say, you make your own luck.

It was down the flanks that Victory found an early advantage over City. On their right, Victory’s fluoro-booted pair of Georgievski and Kosta Barbarouses overwhelmed City’s left back Jack Clisby; on the left Ben Khalfallah needed no support to terrorise Retre. It was a mismatch that was always going to cause headaches for City.

It was this combination that created Victory’s second goal 10 minutes into the second half. Ben Khalfallah found space down the left flank to float a cross to the back post. Casually, and with barely a hint of pressure from Clisby, Barbarouses was able to rise up and nod the ball past Sorensen.

Two goals is a dangerous lead in football, especially with plenty of time left on the clock, and two goals to City in the space of three minutes changed the momentum.

In the 68th minute, a delightful spin and shot in the box from Fornaroli gave City a sniff, and in the 71st minute, an inch-perfect cross-field ball from Mooy was met on the fly by second-half substitute Stefan Mauk, who finished calmly past Danny Vukovic. Both goals, from the vision of Mooy to the dexterity of Fornaroli to the sublime first touch of Mauk, were as good as any we have seen in the Melbourne derby’s short history.

But it wasn’t enough for City, and Berisha was on hand to score a dramatic winner for Victory in the dying moments. An all-too familiar face, and an all-too familiar derby result for City.

The manner in which City came back from two goals down should please their fans, and provide some hope that the gulf between them and their cross-town rivals is becoming narrower. “It’s still disappointing of course that you lose it in the end,” said City coach John van ‘t Schip of his side’s effort. “But I must say that at least they reacted in the second half in a very good way.”

There is, however, only one Besart Berisha. After the match, Victory coach Kevin Muscat said he was “outstanding”, and that he deserved to score the winning goal. “There is an unbelievable will and want to win in that group,” Muscat said.

Nobody, surely, personifies this will and want more than Berisha. We are witnessing the greatest striker, the most lethal finisher, in the A-League’s history.