[quote=āThe Wild Colonial Bhoy, post: 904637, member: 80ā]was at it yesterday, cant see how Brisbane will win it baesd on that, Brioch is great to watch but the rest of them lack composure
very close league where anyone can beat anyone
watching the roar in suncorp in the sun is class, roll on Perth Glory[/quote]
I know they beat you (again FFS), but how awful a team are Newcastle? They are the anti-football team, I fucking detest them and their scum fans.
Will Broich hang around Australia after this season?
Jesus christ. 4 defeats in a row, we were fucking BRUTAL on Friday night. 4 players atsrted from the team that won the grand final last year. Horrendous. Weāre playing in South Korea tomorrow night in the ACL, I dread to think what will happen.
Then Sydney on Saturday, hoping at long last to see Del Piero in the flesh.
Brisbane getting the wobbles @The Wild Colonial Bhoy ?
Finally, finally, I got to watch Allesandro Del Piero play football on Saturday. He was majestic, we won 2-1, breaking a five match losing streak. Sydney are an appalling football team, Del Piero is very slow and tired now, but you can see the class. He also seems to be a very nice man and I shook his hand after the game, which was pretty cool.
Brisbane Roar are the Hyundaiā¢ A League Champions of 2014 after an extra time 2-1 triumph over the Western Sydney Wanderers last night at Lang Park, Brisbane, in front of a crowd of 52,000.
Congratulations to @The Wild Colonial Bhoy
Terrific game and the Roar are now the most sucessful football club in Australia with 3 A League titles. A remarkable achievement for the Wanderers to have reached their second final in the second season of their existance.
The Mariners amazingly finished third and were knocked out in the semi by the Wanderers.
Canāt wait for next season. football is taking off big time here. The NRL under serious pressure, crowds dropping, participation rates collapsing and scandal after scandal hitting this abomination of a sport.
Will be interesting to see what marquee players come here nest season. Damien Duff is mooted to be a big chance, Lots of rumours about Tottiā¦
@Fitzy
i watched the 2nd half of Melbourne City and Wellington Phoenixes yesterday morning
Melbourne won 2-1 with a portly Ross McCormack who has been thru a string of championship clubs before getting the boot at Villa knocking in 2.
that lad from fiji roy krishna scored for the phoenixes and looked very lively all round, it was entertaining fare for a saturday morning and triggered me doing a bit of research on the whole thing,
it was difficult to gauge the standard, both defenses were non exisistent from most of the proceedings so it made for entertaining stuff, after one viewing i couldnt really place it, i would say tho , in comparsion to LOI , players are allowed more time on the ball and each team had a couple of standout footballers Kirishna, McCormack that may have papered over the restā¦ it didnt have that typical hot country league feel about it that you see in cyprus, israel , greece and north africa where the players are all physically almost identical and play at a slow deliberate pace with very few goalsā¦ this was all action stuff in fairness.
regarding melbourne, 2 teams in the city, both games yesterday were one after the other , the city game was sparesly attended one could see
it was hard for me to gauge the attendance, the size of the stadium tho led to very little athmosphereā¦ the phoenixes bottom of the league but im guessing no system of relegation there
mccormackās case made me think, ok Andy Keogh allegedly is doing ir for Perth, he is late 30ās now, Roy O Dononovan did it for a while,these are lads retiring so im thinking the aussie league is place where journeymen could come to rest their weary bones and earn a few pound like MLS ā¦ mccormack tho, its an odd one
Itās better than the Airtricity League. An A-League club has won the Asian Champions League when WSW won it in 2014. I couldnāt see an Airtricity team winning that. Also, the Socceroos team who I would consider to be fairly similar to us, will be 40% madeup of home based players. The Socceroos squad that home the Asian Cup in 2015 had 8 home based players, 5 of them would have been making a contribution. Couldnāt see Ireland ever drawing players regularly from the Airtricity. I suppose itās a financial difference. They will hold on to their best home grown players slightly longer than the Airtricity, due to have more financial clout, however they will still leave, for example Mooy.
@mickee321
Itās a strange one the A League. The association the FFA are itās worst enemy, more interested in spin and stupid marketing gimmicks loke the recent Star Wars round ffs than building sustainable clubs. Their ongoing war witj Western Sydney supporters an example.
It certainly suffers from competition with other sports, which are more mainstream in Australian terms. Replicating a foreign football culture here isnāt really working and it needs to find itās own way inztead of trying to ape European football.
The crowds are not good at all and falling. The standard has actually regresssed in the last two years (or at least since @Loko_Cove left these shores). Up to about 2 years ago, I thought it was going in the right direction, but a lot of teams have slipped. Melbourne Victory are terrible this season, ditto Brisbane. Adelaide play some very good football, but can be very flaky. Perth are completely inconsistent. Melbourne City are a fucking horrible corporate entity and a bunch of nasty little pricks on the pitch.
Neecastle are playing great football this season, a combination of a new manager, Ernie Merrick who has managed most A League clubs but kniws what heās doing along with sone great signings, OāDonovan one of them, though heās injuredbat present.
The only club playing consistently good football, with a settled side, a definite plan and no ongoing on or off field dramas are Sydney Fc. They were last season and even more so now, years ahead of everyone else. Theyāll win the title at a acanter.
The standard as I said has regressed, teams have very little structure and the defending as you saw is comical at times. The finishing is worse.
Itās surprising as so much is being put into youth football and develoment now. I think in 10 years time the standard of player coming through will improve significantly as so many kids play football now in comparison to other sports.
The days of trying to sign huge names are over. We wonāt see another Del Piero. But there are some veey handy foreign players here, who would be well known in their native lands. Sydneyās Ninkovic and Masjewjski are great examples and these kind of players are great for the league. Alingside that though there are the likes if that fat hun gimp we have to watch.
The biggest problem is apathy among the footballing class here. I know lots of chaps in their 20ā and 30ās who will start off Monday morning in work with an hour long conversation about the Epl and know everything about it. As soon as I mention the A League, they havenāt a clue and stare blankly at me. Sound familiar?
The ones who do know about domestic football donāt necessarily follow the A League. I have one mate who is typocal of this. A decent player in his day, still involved with a B licence, but for Blacktown City in the National Premier League, the second and third tiers. This supporter will be devoted and will turn up on a freezing cold tuesday night no problem to watch a bunch of semi pros.
This is wherr the whole argument for promotion / relegation kicks in. If Blacktown City or South Melbourne or Wollongong Wolves get promoted to the A League, you have a serious increase in crowds and probably standard too. Mediocrity then is no longer acceptable. It would probably be the end of my beloved Mariners in the A League, unless we start winning (though weāve made a startt on that).
The FFA have to introduce it, stop treating fans like kids, stop being gimps and support grassroots football. Otherwise this league that I actually love will wither and die.
Sou d familar?
(Apologies for spelling and grammar, writing this on a phone)
I forgot to mention the abomination that is the VAR.
The Video Assistant Referee is a nice idea in theory. But itās a fucking joke in practice. The FFA jumped atvthe chance to be the guinea pig for this, with basically no consultation whatsoever with players, clubs, supporters (stakeholder groups the Sir Humphrey like mandarins in the FFA could do without) or even the referees. So this season we have had the advent of the VAR, where the referee can stop the game, go to the sideline and view a play back if an incident on a fucking iPad. A player canāt request it incidentally, they will get booked for asking for it (Iām not kidding).
Iām sure this works in āsportsā like rugby league and bridge and the like where there is an ad break every 3 minutes, but is association football, the beaitiful game we love, itās a fucking disaster.
5 minute delay recently in a Sydney game to review an offside. Two Mariners players after getting justifiable yellow cards have them overturned when the ref goes to VAR. Overturned in that they were both sent off leaving us with 9 players against WSW. The Wanderers players were giving shit to the ref as they thought it was a joke. Meanwhile one if the Wanderers players gets away with a certain red (and three months for gbh if it was off of a football field) after a disgusting tackle.
The players hate it, the coaches hate i t, the refs hate it. Not that it matters to the FFA but the supporters absolutely hate it.
If itās to be introduced to a leaf ue near you, resist. It will be the death of football.
I think itās an offence for a player to ask for the VAR to be used wherever itās been rolled out. Itās seen as being similar to players waving imaginary cards and looking for opponents to be booked, for example. Iāve watched a few Serie A games this season and players still do it.
I donāt have a list of what other leagues are using it in Europe but it was used in England for the first time ever last night in the FA cup third round tie between Brighton and Crystal Palace.
We havenāt renewed our membership for the coming season. Total jokeshop. Theyāre treating us like shit, Iāve very nearly had enough of this bollocks. Iāll give them one more season. I can take a team losing (Iām a Wexford man and Ireland football supporter so Iām used to it) but the sheer contempt this pommy bollocks owner is treating us with is too much.
I reckon Iāll be a Wanderers supporter soon.
Big news coming out of Brisbane Roar tomorrow mate.