September 29, 2007
A-League - Round 6 Preview
Melbourne Victory 2 v Queensland Roar 0
Muscat (pen)
Thompson
Sydney FC 1 v Newcastle Jets 0
Brosque
Wellington Phoenix 4 v Perth Glory 1
Aloisi Celeski
Smeltz
Coveny
Lochhead
Adelaide United 2 v Central Coast Mariners 1
Djite 2 Petrovski
Victory v Roar
What a shocker of a game. Two teams that struggled to string more than half a dozen passes together. Don’t let the scoreline fool you, no one deserved this one. Victory were just lucky to pick up a borderline penalty decision and Archie’s shot would have been saved if he had come up against a keeper of better quality that the thuggish Reddy.
With games of this quality the A-League is under threat of extinction.
The great Brazilians are supposed to add something to this league but with the likes of Marcinho, Love, Reinaldo & Hernandez (who can’t even make the first team) they’re lucky to get a strike on goal let alone actually getting one on target and causing the keeper to save something. Reinaldo is just laughable.
Then you come to players like Muscat & Tiatto, both lucky to stay on the park. These two reminded me of two old rutting bull moose. Both are capable of playing sublime football but both prefer to bellow and bark and kick the crap out of each other.
Let’s get some quality on show in this league or people will abandon the league in droves.
Comment by Blackjack — September 28, 2007 @ 10:16 pm
Spot on, BJ. If that game represents what the league has degenerated to - and I think it does - the A-League is in trouble. The game was technically and tactically poor. The shooting, for example, was woeful and not worthy of a top-flight competition.
The A-League is a franchise-based competition, just like the American league. Promotion-relegation is the lifeblood of football. When a franchise-based competition hits a low, as the A-League has, there are big storm clouds ahead as there is no way in which it can be regenerated unless big money is spent on quality imports. That won’t happen in the A-League because good-quality imports are too expensive these days when football has become big business and there is no money in the A-League. Some teams can’t even get major shirt sponsors.
Lowy has created an A-League which rode the crest of the World Cup wave. After the failure of our Asian Cup venture and the failure of our club sides in the Asian Champions League (probably because we were out of synch in this competition in so far as our best sides at the time weren’t representing Australia - we were a year behind), people lost interest quickly.
It may revive if we qualify for 2010, but that is looking increasingly unlikely and the A-Team may well be history by then anyway.
Our A-League resembles the American league. The American league is of interest only to immigrants, particularly Mexicans and South Americans, and its imports are has-beens. The American league changes franchises regularly, but the US has more money and a much larger population that we have.
Sorry to be a doom and gloom merchant, but after last night’s game, what other outlook can one have?
Comment by Scribe — September 29, 2007 @ 9:44 am
I am a Victory supporter and also watched the Roar/Victory encounter. I don’t agree the A league is in jeopardy of extinction though. This match was an aberration from the usual standard of A League matches this season. I also thought it was a very poor match, but mainly from the Victory perspective. They played abysmally, particularly in the first half.
Overall, apart from the profligacy in front of goal and the low scoring, the standard has improved in most matches I’ve seen. As the players are getting fitter, teams are able to defend with greater efficacy. Payers are now fit enough to defend in greater numbers, making it more difficult for teams attacking to convert.
All teams have improved their defensive systems after a few seasons working out team chemistry and defensive strategy. Some teams have also strenthened their defensive personnel too, which doesn’t augur well for forwards.
The improved fitness prediction was made by a fitness advisor from an A league club in the first season. When asked to comment on the relative fitness of A league players compared to AFL players in the first season, he said they were incomparable. AFL players had experienced many seasons of professional training. The A League players had only had one professional season he argued. He predicted A league players would be much fitter by the beginning of season 3. It looks like his prediction may be correct.
The only problem now is the increased athleticism and enduramce of our players, coupled with the greater speed of play, and the physical strength and toughness of the players, is making it difficult for the imported and local playmakers to make their mark in the A league. Technical players such as Denni, Marcinho and Hernandez spring to mind. Even players like Kristian Sarkies, who has excelled in Olympic qualifiers against more technical and less physical teams, is still coming to terms with the body contact physicality of the HAL. Kaz Patafta is in the same category.
This rugged physical style is not conducive to receiving leniency from Asian referees. Mark Milligan stated his precursory experiences with the Olympic team, helped him understand the decision making process of adjudicators in the Confederation. It stood him in good stead for the Asian Cup, unlike most of his team-mates.
Comment by Decentric — October 4, 2007 @ 11:00 pm