The Spawning Salmon

Moving house!

2012-02-01T14:45:00.001+10:30

Hey, so after a couple of years I've decided to do a bit more football blogging - starting afresh at http://vulgargesture.wordpress.com/. Wassup!

Huuuuuugene and Jamo for the Roos

2009-12-24T08:44:00.010+10:30

Yep, Galekovic and Jamieson have been named in Verbeek's 23-man squad for the upcoming Asian Cup qualifier away to Kuwait on January 6. All of the English Premier League guys are unavailable, so there's an opportunity for some of the A-League boys to stake their claim leading up to the World Cup.

Eugene is probably the best keeper in the league (if not an actual God walking amongst men) and he has had another good season, so his inclusion is a no-brainer; Jamo hasn't reached any great heights this year but he had a brilliant previous season and Pim has seen enough to give him another shot in the green & gold.

Galekovic will be up against Fumbles Velaphi and High Five Vukovic for the 'keeper spot, ex-Red Matthew Kemp and highly-rated Plymouth Argyle young'un Shane Lowry will probably be Jamieson's main competition for the left back position. Also interesting from a Reds point of view is the inclusion of big bad bustling Bruce Djite in the squad, time for him to step up & stake a claim for a World Cup spot.

Oh and congrats to Tommy Oar, if he gets on the pitch he'll be the youngest Socceroo since Harry Kewell.

THE SQUAD

Alex Brosque, Jacob Burns, Nick Carle, Simon Colosimo, Jason Culina, Bruce Djite, Eugene Galekovic, Scott Jamieson, Mile Jedinak, Matthew Kemp, Shane Lowry, Matthew McKay, Craig Moore, Tommy Oar, Nikita Rukavytsya, Matthew Spiranovic, Mile Sterjovski, Archie Thompson, Matthew Thompson, Tando Velaphi, Dario Vidosic, Danny Vukovic, Luke Wilkshire

Adelaide 1-1 Wellington

2009-12-21T18:43:00.002+10:30

With the chances and possession Adelaide had they should have put this game to bed. There were about 20 minutes at the start of the second half where the team played better than they have all season, and it was great to see. And Alemao scored an absolute belter. Yet in true Reds fashion they couldn't hold it together, lost concentration and conceded a soft equaliser.

The past couple of matches have definitely been a step forward for United though, if their form continues to improve we could be in for a decent ACL after all.

Time for some positive news

2009-12-16T11:08:00.003+10:30

The weekend's 1-0 win over Roar came hot on the heels of news that the Reds were successful in snaring the services of Argentine midfielder Marcos Flores for two years, starting with the upcoming ACL campaign. Since Diego left the team has been in need of a creative attacking mid, and maybe Flores is the guy to fill the gap.

There's more positive news on the transfer front, as well - striker Michael Baird and defender Hayden Foxe are currently training with the Reds, and apparently Mark Rudan is set to sign a contract extension.

Baird moved to Romanian side FC Universitatea Craiova after a good season with the Roar in 2005-06 - he's a handy player and still in his mid 20s, exactly the sort of guy that A-League clubs should be trying to lure back to Australia.

Foxe has had a tough time at Perth Glory with injuries, but he's a class act and he's spent many seasons playing for some big clubs in England - West Ham, Portsmouth and Leeds Utd. Since Veart retired I've always thought Adelaide was in need of a new talismanic ranga, Foxe ticks all the boxes.

With any luck there will be some better days ahead for Adelaide United - the signs are good.

Hayden Foxe - new Red?

Brisbane 0-1 Adelaide

2009-12-16T10:46:00.004+10:30

Last Saturday night, for the first time in two months, Adelaide United recorded a win. A Barbiero header sealed the result over fellow table-propper-uppers Brisbane, in front of the Oranje's lowest ever home crowd. It wasn't a completely convincing performance but it was definitely well fought, and for the first time in a while the players showed a bit of heart.

Vidmar rang in the changes, leaving Cornthwaite, Rudan, Hughes and Pantelis at home and giving Shin and Monterosso a bit of well-deserved game time. The absence of Rudan's leadership was notable in a backline that was shaky at times, but the boys in red managed to keep their first clean sheet in a long time, thanks mostly to a few brilliant stops by Galekovic.

The best thing about the win was the reaction of the players at the full time whistle. Finally the team is starting to look united again.

I'm back

2009-12-14T16:35:00.003+10:30

Hooray!

Yeah, I'll admit, I'm lazy... I went overseas for a couple of months and didn't really find the motivation to write much once I came back. The way AUFC have been travelling hasn't really inspired me much anyway.

So let's get back into the swing of things. Here's a piece I've submitted for this month's issue of the excellent Half Time Heroes zine:

-----

I think we're now in a position where we can safely say that this year has not quite gone to plan for Adelaide United. Two thirds of the season has passed and we're sitting dead last, with misfiring strikers, a leaky defense and a coach whose motivational genius is exemplified by his suggestion that his players might benefit from having their heads severed from their bodies. Well, at the moment anything's worth a shot.

I do feel for Vidmar, though. He's obviously a capable coach, and he's still got some brownie points up his sleeve after the feats of last season and the ACL. But the pressure is definitely on, and it's showing. Bad results piling up, unhappy players and behind-the-scenes issues at the club create a vortex that is very difficult to escape from. And the fans want blood.

Football supporters aren't known for being the most rational creatures when things aren't going well. Once a scapegoat has been identified, the knives come out. Viddie is number one with a bullet on the terrace hate-list at the moment, with a few of the players not far behind.

Of course, by and large, we supporters don't know what the hell we're talking about. If decisions were made based on terrace opinion, Kristian Sarkies would have been sent packing last season. This year, he's been our best player. 'Two up front!' became a mantra earlier in the season for supporters sick of drab football - well now Viddie's tried it, and the team played worse than ever.

Once things are going this badly, the vortex of negativity is so strong that it starts to override anything positive. Last home game, for example, there was a period of play where Adelaide actually kept possession for a little while. The team was holding the ball, patiently passing it around outside Newcastle's penalty box, probing for an opening. Fair enough it wasn't quite like watching Brazil circa 1970 but it was the right idea. Behind me, though, there was a bloke going absolutely off his nut: "Put the fucking ball in the box you muppets! You are FUCKING USELESS!" This was the same guy that made donkey noises whenever Cornthwaite or Hughes went near the ball, and gave Vidmar a massive spray every time a substitution was not made.

Obviously, that guy was a moron. But for all his negative, irrational idiocy, one thing about his ranting struck me: at least he cared. It takes a lot of commitment to hate your own team so strongly. It's better than the antipathy of some of my mates, who have just gradually stopped coming to games because they can't be arsed any more. It would be nice if we could all go to every match happy, watch some great football and come away with a win every week, but reality doesn't work like that. Through the bad times, it's the discontent, injustice and endless disagreement that keeps us going as fans. It’s not pretty, but being a football supporter rarely is.

Because of a Pissant Town... this blog is on hiatus

2009-06-16T13:52:00.004+09:30

You'll notice that I've been a bit lax in updating this blog. And it's not as though there's been nothing to talk about.. the FFA's World Cup bid, ongoing soccerphobia from sections of the media (go here to check out what the Executive Sports Editor of one of Australia's biggest dailies has to say about our game), Socceroos matches, A-League preseason ramping up, etc. etc.

The reason the Spawning Salmon is on hiatus is that I've been directing energy towards an AUFC & A-League fanzine (working title: Because of a Pissant Town...), Issue 1 of which will be launched in time for the Round 1 game against Perth. Check out http://pissanttown.blogspot.com/ for news about the zine...

Cheers all!

Half time in Rome

2009-05-28T05:06:00.003+09:30

It's five a.m. and, very much contrary to my usual sleeping rhythms, I'm awake. For good reason though - it's the European Champions League final. Barcelona v Manchester United.

I haven't been following European football all that closely of late, due to the advent of the A-League and my increasing (but completely natural and healthy) obsession with Adelaide United. But I've always considered myself a Barca fan, and the way this match is going reminds me what I like so much about the Catalans. They play great football, and they genuinely try to play a beautiful game.

Man U are a great side as well, but the way they play isn't on the same level as Barcelona. They seem to have a philosophy of 'get it to Ronaldo and we'll see what happens.' Barca, on the other hand, play as complete unit. You'll find plenty of commentators frothing about the style and sexiness of their play, so I'll try not to.

As I see it, this game is the best team in the world versus the best player in the world. I don't want to jinx the final result but I'm hoping that the best team pulls through.

Then I'm going back to sleep. If only I didn't have to work today.

DJ LMO in tha house?

2009-05-23T11:07:00.003+09:30

As the off-season progresses, Adelaide fans are naturally starting to get a bit antsy about new signings. We have a squad of 16 going through the motions of pre-season training at the moment, and, needless to say, we'll need to get some new blood in before the A-League kicks off in August.

With that in mind, Adelaide have been having a good look at ex-Ghana international and Cheltenham Town striker Lloyd Owusu, who has just completed a successful season on loan with Brighton-Hove Albion. And he's been having a look at us. He's been in town to check out the club and the facilities, and has been giving the impression that he's ready for a change from the sodden pitches of English League One football. Or, he could just be out here for a free holiday.

Either way, I hope he signs. His football ability notwithstanding (he averaged a goal every two games last season), he seems a great character. According to this AdelaideNow article, "Owusu was known as DJ LMO, a master of hip-hop scratch in the London dance club scene 10 years ago."

He's known for exuberant and ridiculous goal celebrations and is not exactly a picture of modesty. Speaking of his aerial ability, he says: "I don't want to sound big-headed but if I time my jumps right I don't think any centre half can deal with me. They don't call me 'Hang Time' for nothing."

DJ Hang Time LMO is not the only new player on Vidmar's radar, either. There are ongoing rumours about a mysterious Chilean (or is that Argentinean?) attacking midfielder, and an article in the Sydney Morning Herald today claims that "experienced Italian defender Andrea Merenda and Ivory Coast duo Vamarra Diarra and Ousmane Toure have all been scouted by Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar." Obviously, we can't fit all these players into the squad considering that we already have several foreign players, but at least it sounds as though wheels are in motion.

The main thrust of that article, though, is the proposal for a second-tier national league to sit under the A-League. That really warrants a whole post of its own, and I'm too lazy at the moment, so for now I'll just say that I think it would be a fantastic way to bring the strong 'traditional' clubs - the Adelaide City, South Melbourne, Marconi Stallions et al - back into the fold. Get onto it Buckley & co.

Roar Against Papism

2009-05-18T15:42:00.004+09:30

Now it's official - the Brisbane Roar, a team playing in orange and featuring two ex-Rangers players, will be playing Celtic FC in Brisbane on July 12, for the Roar against Racism fixture.

July 12 happens to be Orangemen's Day, commemorating the victory of William of Orange at the Battle of Boyne in 1690. If you're unfamiliar with the significance of this, let's just say that some Irish and Scottish Catholics don't look to kindly on the triumphalist, sectarian undercurrents of the Orangemen's Day festivities.

King Billy ready to Roar against Papism

Celtic and Rangers both have huge fan bases in Australia. I wonder if there'll be a march to the ground?

Marquee or not marquee?

2009-05-18T09:30:00.004+09:30

That, fellow Salmoners, is the question.

The Football Federation of Australia has given United the green light to sign a marquee player for the upcoming season. However, according to Val Migliaccio (never a good way to start a sentence, but there you go), Michael Valkanis has indicated that United won't be looking to spend a huge amount on any player signed outside the salary cap.

Mile Sterjovski, then, would appear to be out of the picture. As would the superbly-talented Uruguayan playmaker Alvaro Recoba, who has also expressed interest in playing in the A-League. Perth had a sniff at him but chose not to stump up the cash. Perhaps a wise move, given his injury struggles over the past few years.

If we do take the marquee route, it will more likely be the sort of player that can provide a spark on the pitch and entertain a crowd but is not necessarily a household name in Australia. Which may not be such a bad thing. Sometimes the lesser-known marquee and import players in the A-League - guys like Fred, Shengqing Qu, Carlos Hernandez - have performed at a level well and truly above big-money signings like John Aloisi and Paul Agostino.

Above all, the player has to be the right fit for the team and has to be able to make an impact. A 'big name' might attract attention for a little while, but if the performance doesn't match the paycheque and the reputation the novelty soon wears off.

Mutiny on the Con Air

2009-05-12T12:08:00.006+09:30

The Newcastle Jets are currently providing the sort of off-season story line that wouldn't seem out of place in Ramsay Street or Summer Bay. Con Costantine, the club owner with notoriously shaky ethics whose motto appears to be 'my way or the highway', is on a collision course with his playing group.

The players, who have the backing of the Professional Footballers' Association, are threatening to boycott their decisive Asian Champions League clash against Ulsan Hyundai due to outstanding match payments. Con has proposed a 'crisis meeting' but the players are refusing to come to the table, preferring not to deal with him personally and to let the PFA operate on their behalf.

And, of course, a new hombre has recently ridden into town to shake things up: the eccentric, enigmatic Ljubo Milicevic.

The Ljubmobile has never been backward in coming forward. Refreshingly, he speaks his mind and doesn't seem to give a fuck who he puts offside. Even his employer. He recently slammed Con for not providing appropriate travel arrangements for the players' Asian jaunt. He's compared the Jets' organisation to running a fish and chip shop. He's worn a knit vest and pork pie hat on The World Game. His interviews are littered with references to gay discos.

Gary van Egmond backs his star defender's footballing qualities, suggesting that he should be in Verbeek's plans for the Socceroos. He also seems to support Ljubo's leadership and attitude on the training paddock, despite the recent hoopla about his blow-up at young Sean Rooney for being a lazy sod. But Dutchie has been very diplomatic about the standoff between the players and Con. Understandably - after all, he doesn't want to get thrown off a balcony.

What's amazing is that on the pitch Newcastle are actually doing quite well. Their last-minute come-from-behind win against Beijing Guoan, with Sean Rooney providing the winning strike, demonstrated a fighting quality that is, quite frankly, very surprising given all the rubbish that's going on at the club.

Newcastle fans have had a real rollercoaster ride over the past four years, probably more so than any other supporters in the league. It must be frustrating having to cope with such drama on a seemingly daily basis. They deserve some stability.

FFA: can't live with 'em, can't remain solvent without 'em

2009-05-08T09:20:00.007+09:30

I got an email this morning from the club, confirming what we all knew was coming:

____________

Dear Friend (that's me!),

As a valued friend of the Adelaide United Football Club, I wish to inform you of an important announcement that will shortly be made public. Club owners, Bianco Trade Supplies, today handed back its Hyundai A-League Licence and therefore ownership of AUFC, to the Football Federation Australia.

It is business as usual for the club and notwithstanding the transfer back to the FFA of the club’s licence, Adelaide United organisationally and people wise, is healthy and stable; and remains a strong, vital member of the A-League competition. Preparation for the 2009/2010 HAL season will carry on as usual, including day to day administration, football and financial operations.

The financial and personal contributions made by owner Nick Bianco and former chairman, Dario Fontanarosa are truly significant. They leave a legacy that will survive for years to come, in creating an intrinsically Adelaide entity that has set the benchmark in our still evolving national competition.

Full details will be announced tomorrow.

Yours sincerely

Sam Ciccarello

Chief Executive Officer, Adelaide United Football Club

__________

So, it's official. Adelaide United's ownership is now, along with the newly-renamed Brisbane Roar, in the hands of the FFA. Which is not necessarily a bad thing: at various stages the governing body has aided or (in the case of Perth Glory) taken full ownership of other A-League clubs, with positive results.

The franchise system, which gives the FFA far greater centralised control than a system in which individual clubs are masters of their own destinies (as per the 'traditional' European leagues), can be a bone of contention. Some are uneasy with the notion of a big brother governing body being directly involved in the way clubs are run and setting all the rules.

This has been a source of frustration in the past for Adelaide fans, with the FFA carving up the club's winnings from its recent Asian Champions League campaign and distributing the loot between all eight clubs and the league itself. The only club not to actually profit from Adelaide United's ACL success, ironically, was Adelaide itself.

Some people might view the franchise system as socialistic. Which, in a way, I suppose it kind of is - the FFA is a powerful central administration which redistributes the wealth, ensuring that each of its consistuent clubs remains on a relatively equal footing, for the supposed betterment of the league as a whole. The downside of this is that the ambitions of individual clubs are somewhat hamstrung by the FFA's requirements, most obviously the limited salary cap. Clubs are prevented from growing and flourishing organically, as they might in a less regulated system.

The upside, as we are seeing now, is that when a club (or, in Adelaide's case, its owner) runs into financial difficulty, the FFA has the power and resources to jump in and steady the ship. So long as the governing body itself is financially sound, clubs' survival is more or less guaranteed. The abortive New Zealand Knights aside, I can't see the FFA ever actually cutting the cord on any of its clubs unless things really go pear-shaped.

Bianco wanted out; transferring ownership to the FFA gave him the ability to get out without fundamentally damaging the club. Now the club has time to find the right sort of investors. I don't see this as a bad thing for United at all. Let's line up a cashed-up sheik or Russian oligarch and really start cooking with gas.

Off-Season Youtube Nostalgia

2009-05-03T20:47:00.004+09:30

Here's some of last season's best goals in the A-League, thanks to Youtube's freshcelery. A good variety of long range crackers and well-constructed team goals.

And here's some pure Red goodness for your viewing pleasure, put together by a noble soul by the name of Reds4PM. There are some gems from previous years in there, like the Fred Agius missile against Brisbane Strikers in the last season of the NSL:

National Football Curriculum

2009-05-01T13:33:00.006+09:30

The footballing revolution continues. The long, brave march towards footballing utopia has been given another prod in the back today, with the FFA's release of a National Football Curriculum which aims to improve player development and team performance.

I can haz Han Berger?

The main thrust of the football curriculum is that it heavily emphasises development of skill and technique. Skill development takes place within the context of game-related situations, rather than through drills that exist in isolation.

An extension of this is that the FFA has identified 4-3-3 as the ideal playing formation for 'proactive' football with a technical emphasis. As such, all of the FFA's 'development' sides - for example, the national representative teams underneath the Socceroos and Matildas - should be playing this structure. Increasing players' skills will, theoretically, be favoured over results.

Those that worry about the credentials of our domestic coaching stocks should be able to breathe a sigh of relief, as well - in future there will be specific minimum requirements for high-level coaching positions within the FFA structure, including national team, A-League, W-League, National Youth League, AIS and State Institute coaches and technical directors.

All of this is, to me, a good sign that Australian football is still going in the right direction. We have a governing body with a clearly-structured plan for ongoing development of the game. We're not going to see the results straight away, but things like this have to happen for football to benefit in the long run. Maybe one day, when I'm old and grey, we'll see the seeds planted in this decade finally come to fruition.

Pre-Season Matches

2009-04-29T09:23:00.004+09:30

This pre-season, it looks as though A-League clubs are really starting to pull their fingers out in terms of attracting big European clubs to our shores. So far, from what I can gather:
- There will be a mini-tournament in Perth, featuring Perth Glory, North Queensland, Fulham and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Wolves are currently in the Championship but look set for promotion to the Premier League;
- Fulham will play in Melbourne and Brisbane as well. They'll be Brisbane's opponent for the 'Roar against Racism' match that, in previous years, featured SuperSport United and Palmeiras;
- Brisbane will also host Celtic - sure to pull a very large crowd given the club's huge levels of support in Australia.

There doesn't seem to be any movement at the station for Adelaide United, but it's early days yet. Oh well, we're used to disappointment - remember how Inter Milan were supposed to play a match at Adelaide Oval?

Sterj for sale

2009-04-24T09:57:00.009+09:30

According to the Daily Mirror, Nigel Clough is currently in the process of overhauling his Derby County squad. It seems that Mile Sterjovski is not part of the plan for the Rams' future, and has been placed in the shop window with a 'for sale' sign around his neck.

Sterj seems to be an ideal candidate for a move to the A-League (and was apparently considered by Gold Coast United) - he's a current Socceroo, played at the World Cup and in the English Premier League, still at the top of his game but at an age where he may be starting to think about returning to Australia with his young family. He's a good player at a Championship level in England, but could certainly make an impact in the A-League as a marquee player.

Given Adelaide's dearth of good attacking players, Sterj should be at the top of our shopping list. He could do the job as a wide striker, right winger, second striker or even attacking playmaker - the only problem would be fitting he & Travis Dodd into the same lineup. But that's a problem that any A-League club would love to have.

A-League Draw 2009-10

2009-04-20T13:06:00.011+09:30

The t's have been crossed, the i's have been dotted, and the 2009-10 A-League draw is finally ready for public consumption. Here is is in .pdf format, off the official website:
http://www.a-league.com.au/site/_content/document/00001133-source.pdf

The 27-round regular season kicks off on August 6 and wraps up on February 14. There's a finals series, 0f course, culminating in the Grand Final (Adelaide United v TBA) on March 20.

Here's a few things that I can gather from a quick scan of the document:

Adelaide play 14 home games. Unfortunately, I'll miss 5 of them (including the only home games against North Queensland and Melbourne) because I'll be overseas. First home game is against Perth on August 7.

The finals series has gotten even more ridiculous. There are now 6 teams in the finals - i.e., over half the league - with a convoluted system that seems specifically designed to befuddle (so that's why they hired Ben Buckley from the AFL):

Lots of clubs seem to be moving home games around - Sydney are playing a match at the SCG (blergh) and a match at Parramatta (woohoo!); Perth are playing a match at Subiaco (double blergh); Wellington are playing a game in Christchurch and one in Palmerston North. Central Coast's fixtures at home to Adelaide and Perth are listed as 'TBC', which could mean anything but is probably Coffs Harbour or something. Interestingly, Adelaide doesn't look to be repeating the Adelaide Oval experiment this year, but other clubs seem intent on becoming travelling roadshows.

Thanks to the greater number of games and longer season, there are more midweek matches. Adelaide's home fixtures include a Tuesday night match against Perth. Bizarrely, Adelaide plays 11 home games on Friday night - it suits me fine, but surely a bit of variety wouldn't go astray?

Thankfully, there is no Pre Season Cup. Clubs are free to play whatever friendlies they want leading up to the start of the season, without the burden of having to compete for a trophy that might as well be a Mickey Mouse figurine spraypainted silver.

I have my reservations about a few aspects of the draw, but I'm looking forward to a longer and more varied season thanks to the two new teams. A 6-team finals series is just ridiculous though. In my humble opinion, they should scrap it altogether and start up a proper FFA Cup. Enough of this madness!

I'm definitely starting to get excited about the new season, even though it's still three and a half months away. Join me, will you, in this rousing rendition of Rolling Along:

http://www.fanchants.com/football-songs/adelaide-united-chants/and-united-is-rolling-along/

Come on boys, make some noise, we’re a team of class and poise, and our Adelaide is rolling along... etc

Naoki Imaya's Football Vision

2009-04-16T09:40:00.004+09:30

In my last post, I railed bitterly against the tendency in modern football to treat young players as expendable commodities, to be bought in bulk by large clubs and dispensed with if they prove surplus to requirements.

Thankfully, not everybody is taking that approach. There's a great article on the FourFourTwo website highlighting the work of former New Zealand Knights player Naoki Imaya. Having played in Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Germany, Imaya is a strong believer in the power of football in bridging cultural gaps and fostering understanding and cooperation between people of different backgrounds.

Back in Tokyo, Imaya has set up an English-language school that teaches football to Japanese juniors and adults. Through football, the students mix and interact with people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

In the FourFourTwo interview, Imaya is clear about the objectives of his school: "Aiming to be a world class player would be on anybody's mind who have tried to pursue a career in this beautiful game, but I think it is more important to aim to be a first class human being."

Imaya's vision also involves a sharing of football knowledge between Japan and Australia. "I hope in the future I can help the youth from Australia and Japan in some kind of an exchange program where they could learn each others' football style and build a better relationship between the countries as well."

Maybe I shouldn't be too cynical about the modern game. Imaya's football school is an example of the fact that there are still people and organisations around that see football as more than just a business and young players as people rather than robots. Here's hoping that there are people in Australia that are willing to take a similar approach.

If you can read Japanese (I certainly can't), you can find more information about Naoki Imaya's school at http://www.naocastle.com/blog/.

This is the modern world

2009-04-14T09:09:00.004+09:30

Football can be a very positive social force. In modern western societies, people's identities have become increasingly attached to ephemeral and transitory things: income, occupation, social status, possessions. Following a local football club, and especially one that reflects an identifiable set of values, is an extremely important mechanism for a lot of men to experience identity as part of a community - a reprieve from the often-alienating demands of life in a society where getting ahead as an individual is everything.

Like the black and white cookie in the Seinfeld episode, football is a great leveller. It connects people across countries, cultures, religions, political beliefs, social classes, and income levels. Supporters bond to one another over a shared love of the game or the club. You can always strike up a meaningful conversation with a fellow fan, whether he's a university professor or a cleaner of public toilets.

Playing football, and sport in general, is obviously also important for kids' development into well-rounded adults. Values of teamwork, sportsmanship, humility in victory and grace in defeat are vital to counter the prevailing forces that encourage individual success - academically, socially, and as an adult monetarily.

At the highest levels of football, though, these values have been utterly perverted. The English Premier League has been disconnected from reality to the point where, especially for the top clubs, success is simply a question of purchasing power. England goalkeeper David James has written a very thought-provoking article for the Guardian highlighting the questionable ethics employed by EPL clubs (bravely including his own club, Portsmouth) in casting their nets wide and buying up huge numbers of promising junior players. This is usually a preemptive move designed to ensure that the players do not end up at rival clubs.

The effects of this are quite significant. It means that 'youth development' becomes a numbers game rather than a meaningful exercise in providing juniors with a solid football education. In the example of Portsmouth, the club has 180 under-nines on the books. Of these, maybe one will end up playing senior first-team football. The rest get loaned out to lower leagues in England and abroad, and end up being discarded when they are proven to be sub-standard.

These kids grow up believing that they are special, that they will become superstars, the next Wayne Rooney or Cristiano Ronaldo. Their well-meaning parents contribute to these pressures, as do the forces of society through things like reality television and a celebrity culture that fosters the notion that fame and fortune are quickly and easily obtained. Psychologically, it must be devastating when these young players finally realise that they will never 'make it'.

And, of course, the hegemony of the big clubs in the big leagues is reinforced by this practice. Buy up all the best young players and success is pretty much guaranteed. Actual youth development and the promotion of the club as a community focal point takes a back seat.

Leagues like the A-League, outside the top European tier, suffer in terms of their football development. The wealth of big European clubs, as well as the status of playing in Europe, is a huge carrot for young Australians. There are hundreds currently playing overseas, with only a few of them playing at a level higher than what they could experience in Australia.

Meanwhile, the big clubs are now little more than brands for fans to attach themselves to. Teenagers in Sydney or Singapore will declare their undying loyalty to Manchester United, Liverpool or Real Madrid, clubs from cities that they have never been to and to which they have no connection, on the basis of a well-marketed concept of the 'history' and 'traditions' of the club.

It's not hard to see how this sort of attitude to football as a branded commodity undermines its significance as a force for community identity. Success and image is everything (witness how many people jump off the bandwagon as soon as a club starts doing poorly - Sydney FC is a prime example). It must be slightly depressing for a lifelong supporter of an English side to see what has become of their club during the big-money Premier League era.

I don't really know what can be done to fix these trends in the long term, but I think Sepp Blatter's '6 + 5' rule, limiting the number of foreign players that a club can sign, is a good start. A cap on the total number of players a club can have on its books would also put an end to some of the extreme practices highlighted in David James' article. Ultimately, a salary cap of some sort would be a good thing for European football, but as long as the big clubs call the shots I can't see that happening.

Anyway, I guess the point of my rant is that here in Australia we have the opportunity to make sure that the mistakes of European football (mostly stemming from unregulated greed by the clubs) are not repeated. Frankly, I don't care if the A-League continues to leak its best players to Europe and Asia - as long as Adelaide United continues to represent the city, develops and gives opportunities to young local players, and provides an outlet for me to go and yell my lungs out every second weekend during the season, I'll be happy.

New A-League kits

2009-04-09T14:06:00.003+09:30

Click to enlarge. These are leaked images of A-League shirts for next season. Interestingly, no sign of Queensland (Brisbane?) Roar or Gold Coast United just yet.

I must say, I am a fan of the black away shirt for Adelaide, although I did like the white with red sleeves. All up these are very nice and it's good to see a bit of diversity in the designs. Both of Wellington's shirts are great, and I think Perth and North Queensland will be pretty much on the money.

Also, it seems that these will be 'alternate' strips instead of strictly 'away' shirts. A good move by the league.

Nearly there ... Australia 2-0 Uzbekistan

2009-04-03T10:05:00.006+10:30

This one was a classic game of two halves. From an Australian point of view the first period was generally underwhelming and frustrating - Uzbekistan showed a fair bit of intent while the Socceroos were seemingly unable to get out of second gear.

The second half was a different story, though. After the break (and no doubt a rocket or two from Pim), Australia started to take control of the match. In the 66th minute a fluid and well-constructed attacking move got the end product it deserved when Marco Bresciano received the ball wide on the right and whipped a pinpoint cross into the area. Super-sub Josh Kennedy connected well with the header, directing it low to the keeper's left.

Seven minutes later the referee called a penalty (admittedly, slightly dubious) on Richard Garcia. Harry Kewell stepped up and converted. Two nil. I feel a little for the Uzbeks: playing away from home and with very little preparation time they gave the Socceroos a decent run for their money. There's no room for sentiment in World Cup qualification, though. And Australia are just about there, barring a string of highly unlikely events.

There are better analysts than me that could talk about Verbeek's tactics. There is the ongoing issue of results versus style - the Socceroos under Pim certainly aren't playing with the same panache that Hiddink had, but our record (especially defensively) is not to be sniffed at. Ultimately qualification is by far the most important objective; it would be nice to do it while playing beautifully but that may not be realistic.

What is interesting, though, is the atmosphere around the country in comparison to four years ago. In the leadup to the Uruguay matches, the second leg in particular, there was a real feeling that Australia was on the cusp of doing something special. This time around, everyone's a bit more blase about the whole thing. It's almost as though qualification is a given, rather than a special achievement.

To a point that's an understandable attitude. Australia is obviously one of the strongest national sides in Asia, but we need to be careful that we don't become arrogant. Once we get to South Africa it will be a different kettle of fish - the Socceroos will need to be very much on top of their game to do well again. The way Australia have played at some points during qualification would be punished mercilessly by better teams.

One thing that has changed for the good over the past four years is the general profile of football in Australia. Wednesday night was another example of this - Australia v Uzbekistan set a pay-TV viewership record with a peak audience of 508,000, not including those watching in public areas.

Pack your bags for South Africa - the good times are rolling on.

Johnnies v Mehmets

2009-03-24T11:05:00.005+10:30

While we're still on the subject of Asia Minor, the FFA has just announced annual fixtures between Australia and Turkey, coinciding with Turkish Independence Day on April 23 and ANZAC Day on April 25. The matches will be played in Turkey and Australia on alternating years, and the teams taking part will be agreed by both countries based on their calendar of commitments. This year it's the mens' Under 16 teams that will battle it out in Turkey - in future years it would be nice to see the senior national teams in action.

It's a good initiative and one that should further bolster the relationship of mutual respect between the two countries. The intersection of our nations' histories at Gallipoli in 1915 means that these games will have a symbolic weight far greater than normal international friendlies. In fact, it would be interesting to see whether a joint Australia-New Zealand side could be a possibility for these matches in future.

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours... you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well."
- Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), 1934

Australia's young Turks

2009-03-23T08:54:00.008+10:30

Jedinak scores for Genclerbirligi

The World Game website is currently running an article about the young Australian players at Turkish club Genclerbirligi and the culture shock that they have had to face when settling in to their new environment in Ankara. The ritual slaughter of a goat to bring luck at the start of the season (and a second one when the luck wasn't forthcoming), the muezzins' call to prayer five times a day from countless mosques around the city, the food, the traffic.

Currently there are three Australians at Gencler: Bruce Djite , James Troisi, and Mile Jedinak. Like 1. FC Nuremberg a few years ago, Genclerbirligi has emerged as a 'home away from home' for Aussies abroad, with Nick Carle and Josip Skoko also having played there.

Other than football, there really aren't many other sports that offer players such varied cultural experiences. Ben Somerford's excellent 'Euroos' blog includes a pretty comprehensive-looking list of the Australian players plying their trade overseas. What's striking is not just the number of players making a living outside Australia, but the diversity of destinations - from Australia's footballing 'homelands' of England and Scotland to countries on the periphery of Europe like Romania and Turkey, to Asian countries like China, South Korea and Indonesia, to the United States. If and when these players are called up to represent their country, or return to play in the A-League, or turn to careers in coaching, administration or punditry, their experiences with tactically diverse football cultures and their contacts overseas can only help to enrich football in this country.

In line with our history as a nation of migrants, Australian football has through the years become a melting pot of disparate styles and mentalities. Waves of new arrivals - first from the British Isles, then from Greece, Italy, the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe, and now from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, have helped inform the football we play. Add to this the vital experiences being gained by Australians playing in tough leagues overseas and the concerted push by the FFA to add Dutch coaching, technical and tactical knowledge to the mix.

The young guys playing overseas, like the trio at Genclerbirligi, are the next generation of Socceroos. The trick for Australia will be to effectively harness the positive aspects of all of the diverse structural, cultural and technical viewpoints feeding into our football culture. Vive le difference.

Newcastle Debts

2009-03-20T11:07:00.004+10:30

In general, A-League clubs have been lauded for demonstrating a professionalism in their business operations that was sadly lacking in domestic football during the NSL years. Every generalisation has an exception, though, and at the moment that exception is the Newcastle Jets. A while back I wrote an article highlighting the contempt that Jets owner Con Constantine seems to have for fans, players, and sound business ethics.

Most recently, this has manifested itself in the Professional Footballers Association alleging that the club owes unpaid superannuation and bonuses to its entire playing staff. Keeper Ante Covic has left the club to sign for Elfsborg in Sweden, citing unpaid super as one of his many gripes with the club. Con's take on the matter is that Covic used the pay dispute as an excuse, running to the PFA "like a little boy to his mother." The PFA holds that this sort of disrespect regarding player payment and contracts is more or less par for the course at the Jets, with Constantine guilty throughout his history with football clubs of rather lax ethical standards in his dealings with players. How this turns out is anyone's guess, but it must be a source of endless frustration for Jets fans.

Sorry, I'm a lazy sod.

2009-03-17T09:31:00.008+10:30

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. There's a few reasons for this: busy at work, post-season football hangover, general laziness. We've also had friends over from Melbourne for the Fringe & WOMADelaide. WOMAD was awesome. If you ever get the chance to see the Bedouin Jerrycan Band or Paprika Balkanicus, I suggest you take it.

Anyway, here's a short recap of some things that have happened in Australian football since my last post:

- Newcastle Jets are rubbish. Lost 2-0 away to Beijing in the ACL, with Joel and Ryan Griffiths inflicting some of the damage. Seriously, who loans their best player to a club that they're about to play?

- Central Coast are rubbish. Drew 0-0 at home to Pohang Steelers, in one of the most godawful matches I've ever had the misfortune to attempt to stream over the internet.

- The A-League based Socceroos are rubbish. Lost 0-1 to Kuwait in Canberra. I didn't watch the game but it sounds like the players and Pim Verbeek should all give each other dead legs as punishment for their sheer crapness. I don't get how they can be so bad: on an individual basis these players are all good enough to be playing at a reasonable level in Europe (maybe League 1 or Championship in England, Dutch 2nd Division, etc), and they are doing well for their clubs in the A-League. Put them all on the pitch together, though, and they have forgotten how to pass, control the ball, and carry out the basic functions expected of a professional footballer.

Very strange. Mind you, even the European-based Socceroos big boys generally play like crud against Asian opposition. If you don't believe me, merely cast your mind back to the 2007 Asian Cup....

- It looks like Scott Chipperfield is staying in Europe for another season, after all. Booo.

- Matt McKay has joined the exodus of A-League players going to China. We need to get some of that traffic coming the other way as well: more Shengqing Qus, Yuning Zhangs, Leilei Gaos in the A-League. Well, maybe not Yuning Zhang.

-Michael Petrillo has resigned as AUFC Director of Football, replaced by Michael Valkanis. I don't know whether this is a cost-saving mechanism, or piss ant politics, or what: if the former, maybe it's a good thing that the club is pulling funding from its administrative/management arms before cutting spending on players. Who knows, though. Hopefully United can get back to stability soon enough.

- The FFA has officially submitted its bid for Australia to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup.

- An extremely wealthy Dubai-based sheik is reportedly interested in providing financial backing for Tasmania's bid for an A-League club licence. The mystery man is apparently the Saudi Arabian/Ethiopian Sheik Mohammed Hussein Ali Al Amoudi, the 43rd-richest man in the world. This guy has a net worth of $13.7 billion, and apparently once wrote a blank cheque for the Ethiopian government to build a 30,000 seat football stadium. A sugar daddy of this magnitude - he makes Clive Palmer look like small fry - would, needless to say, be brilliant for our little league. Lets hope there's something substantial to the rumours.

Red cards overturned

2009-03-04T08:41:00.002+10:30

Well, well. The FFA has finally done what we've been waiting years for: admitted that their match officials are fallible. Following the dramas of the Grand Final, the FFA match review panel have overruled Matthew Breeze (and his assistant referee Matthew Cream) and determined that Cristiano and Allsopp did not deserve to be sent off. The red cards have been stricken from the players' records.

As an Adelaide fan this news provokes mixed emotions. We can feel validated in our grievances about the way the game panned out - the match did not take place on a level playing field, and therefore the final result was not necessarily the correct outcome. But, of course, it's too late now. The trophy has been presented, the horse has bolted. All we can do is vent our frustrations at the circumstances that allowed this to happen.

It's not the first time officials have destroyed a game with their errors - last season's grand final was marred by the referee Shields missing a penalty call for a Newcastle handball in the box, then sending off Central Coast keeper Danny Vukovic (that was a fair call, but his ridiculous suspension afterwards certainly wasn't).

This season Cristiano should have been penalised for an outrageous dive, Muscat should have seen red for stomps on Agostino and Mullen (at least - this is only the Adelaide games that I'm thinking about), Fabiano should have received a far more lenient sentence than a nine-game ban for a loogie that didn't connect, Tiatto should have been sent off for any number of heinously dangerous two-footed challenges, et cetera, et cetera.

My wish list for A-League officiating in the future is as follows:

That the referees are employed full-time, and provided with high level training and development from the FFA;
That referees are randomly chosen for league matches. It's ridiculous that Breeze has held court in the past 5 Adelaide-Melbourne games;
That finals go to those referees whose form during the season deserves it. Srebre Delovski has been far and away the league's best this season, yet Breeze's seniority saw him get the grand final;
That the FFA look to import referees from abroad if the standards of Australian refs is not up to scratch; and
That the match review panel holds referees accountable for their actions, and has the cajones to overrule poor decisions. I don't want to see the panel keep hiding behind the old 'the referee saw the incident and took action, therefore it is out of our jurisdiction' argument. This week has seen the first departure from this line of thought - let's hope it continues.

A-League Grand Final: Melbourne 1-0 Adelaide

2009-03-02T16:46:00.008+10:30

Man, writing that title hurts. It eats me up inside, even three days later. Watching your team lose a grand final to their arch-enemies is not a pleasant experience.

It's not the same feeling as it was after the 6-0 drubbing two years ago, though - that was completely shattering. That day Adelaide were outplayed by a witheringly effective Melbourne, and the team fell apart in dramatic fashion on the pitch (and off the pitch, after the match). There was nothing positive to come out of that performance, no redeeming qualities at all. Just pain for the supporters.

This time around, the bitterness is tinged with some more positive emotions. Adelaide can take a lot out of the narrow loss, which, any other day, might have panned out very differently.

As I'm sure everyone is by now very well aware, this grand final was dominated by the decisions of the referee, a certain Mr M. Breeze. He sent off two players unfairly, was unable to keep control of the heightened tensions of such an important match, and let players, the crowd and the gravity of the occasion get to him.

I was going to go off on an abusive rant against Breeze but everything that needs to be said about his performance has already been covered by commentators that are more neutral in their allegiances than me (see: Fox Sports commentary team, The World Game panelists on SBS, ABC's Offsiders, and any number of print & internet journos) - the general consensus is that he stuffed up big time.

The first of his errors, and the one with the greatest bearing on the match, was the send off of Cristiano after ten minutes for a stray elbow that connected with Roddy Vargas' head. The two players went up for a header, both had eyes on the ball and arms raised, Vargas ended up on the ground with blood covering his face. Breeze's first instinct was to give a yellow; Kevin Muscat got in his ear, he saw the blood, he went to confer with the linesman, he produced a red card.

It was not a reckless challenge, the elbow wasn't swung at his opponent - in leaping for the ball it was a completely natural movement. Vargas was unlucky that he got a nasty bump out of it - a referee with more common sense may have just taken Cristiano aside and warned him to be more careful. But no - straight red.

Needless to say, Adelaide were disadvantaged from that point on. The Reds had Melbourne on the back foot in the first ten minutes, but once they were a man down it was largely backs to the wall for the rest of the first half.

After the break, Vidmar reshuffled his team to try to regain some impetus, with Jamieson playing a more advanced role in midfield. Lacking a true striker in the absence of Cristiano, Pantelis and Dodd sat higher up the park. Salley, Reid and Barbiero worked well together, nullifying Melbourne's midfield and creating attacking opportunities for the Reds.

Even a man down, Adelaide began to take control of the game, and had several good chances - the most memorable being a shot in the box from Jamieson, kept out miraculously by Theoklitos' foot (I'm not sure he knew too much about it), and a jinking run by Travis Dodd, who beat a number of defenders before firing straight at the keeper.

Then, almost inevitably, Melbourne scored. Pondeljak took the ball outside the box, at a diagonal angle from goals, and swung his foot at it. Somehow avoiding a sea of legs in the penalty box, the ball made its way into the bottom corner of the net. Galekovic, who may have been unsighted until very late, could do little but watch it as it crossed the line. The massive crowd of over 53,000 at the Dome went wild. A goal and a man up, the result looked to be in the bag.

There was only one thing missing from the second half: our good friend Matthew Breeze. Just as it looked like the football was going to steal the show, the man with the whistle decided to force his way back into the limelight. A melee in the penalty box - the usual big-game argy-bargy - descended into high farce as Breeze picked out Danny Allsopp and sent him off. The crime? Who knows. Apparently there was an alleged headbutt on Cornthwaite - it doesn't look like much at all on any replay, but once again players got in Breeze's ear and he produced a red card. Currently, the Victory are quite rightly appealing this decision.

If it was a square-up for the unfair dismissal of Cristiano, it was sixty minutes too late. The damage had already been done. With the sides at ten men each Adelaide once again had all the attacking play, but at a goal up Melbourne could afford to sit deep and defend (oh, but I thought it was only Adelaide who tried to close down a 1-0 lead?????)

After all the stoppages of play in the second half, numerous substitutions, and the fracas that saw Allsopp take an early shower, there should probably have been five minutes of time added on at the end of the half. But no - only three minutes. During injury time, Berger took a nasty knock and required attention on the pitch, all of which chewed up another couple of minutes. Did the ref add these on at the end? No, he did not. At the stroke of 93 minutes - as Celeski committed an awful foul on an Adelaide player (Barbiero?) just outside the box, right in front of Breeze - see the second video at the 9 minute mark - the clown blew full time. Melbourne Victory, 08-09 champions, blah blah blah.

Well done to them, they seized their opportunity. Unfortunately for Melbourne fans, the win is somewhat tainted - the refereeing robbed them of the ability to say that they won this championship fair and square. There will always be a question mark. For this reason, I think the Melbourne fans have every right to be as angry at Breeze's performance as Adelaide fans.

This is what I'm talking about when I say that Adelaide's loss is one of mixed emotions. As Adelaide fans, we can be extremely proud of the way the Reds played and kept fighting, against a team that has had the wood on us all season, even when unfairly disadvantaged due to poor officiating. We can take heart in the fact that, when the team numbers were even, Adelaide had the run of play. Who knows what would have happened if the game took place on a level playing field. Losing the way we did, we can quite rightly feel that the game may have gone the other way had Cristiano stayed on the pitch.

Anyway, what's done is done, Adelaide have just finished their most successful season ever. I could not be more proud to be a pissant. Next season, after all the dramas of off-season recruitment are out of the way, we will have a real chance to go one better. And, immediately after that, another Champions League campaign. As long as we can look forward with hope and optimism, we're in a good place.

Shalom, noble Ants.

The first half.

The second half. Youtubes courtesy as always of JayFCAK47.

Miller's Tale

2009-02-27T11:52:00.006+10:30

Australian football's favourite porky Scotsman, Charlie Miller, is still a very respected man in his native Glasgow. That's why an article like this one, published on the Glasgow Herald website, is such a good advertisement for the A-League.

In the article, Miller compares the league's standard with that of the Scottish Premier League, and says that the openness of the competition makes it a challenging place to play football. He is obviously enjoying the lifestyle and the football here. The article also hints that current Rangers & Scotland captain Barry Ferguson may soon follow Miller, Craig Moore and Ian Ferguson to the A-League. Here's hoping.

Soccer sucks

2009-02-26T11:07:00.002+10:30

In my surfings of the world wide net, I came across this great blog on the Guardian site, cataloguing the attitudes of various American soccerphobes to our beautiful game (the article is over a month old now but, meh, I have yoghurt older than that in my fridge). Many of those viewpoints are instantly recognizable in an Australian context - it's especially interesting to see that fans in the US face the same problems with an entrenched anti-soccer sports media that we face here. If anything, I would imagine that it's even more ingrained over there.

Anyway, that blog links to a website that's too good not to share: http://www.soccersucks.net, whose aim is to save the world from the perversions and depravities of the round ball game. It's clearly a pisstake but it's very, very funny.

dontmentionthegrandfinal

2009-02-25T21:37:00.011+10:30

In an effort to avoid thinking about the Grand Final, I've decided instead to focus on things of an international nature.

There's some interesting stuff going on at the moment with regards to the bids for the 2018/2022 World Cups. The FFA have announced the establishment of a FIFA World Cup Bid Team, chaired by Frank Lowy and led by Ben Buckley, as a business unit within its overall governance structure. Within a few months, there will be up to 15 staff working full time on the World Cup bid. An offshoot of this process is the formation of another bid team, headed by Rob Abernathy, working on Australia's submission to host the 2015 Asian Cup.

The A-League Head of Operations post, which was held by Abernathy, will be filled by the (now ex-) St Kilda Football Club CEO Archie Fraser. Despite his status in the world of eggpunching, Fraser is a round ball man at heart, having played professionally for Greenock Morton FC in Scotland (aye, the Pride of Clyde, the very same*) before moving to Australia in 1980 to play for the Queensland Premier League. Ben Buckley is obviously using his AFL connections well.

Meanwhile, our favourite national team coach Pim Verbeek has taken time out from sheeing the shexy girls at the coffee shop to pick a squad for the upcoming Asian Cup qualifier against Kuwait, to be played in Canberra on March 5. There are plenty of Reds boys in there:

Danny Allsopp (Melbourne), Fabian Barbiero (Adelaide United), Billy Celeski (Melbourne), Shannon Cole (Sydney FC), Robert Cornthwaite (Adelaide United), Tarek Elrich (Newcastle), Eugene Galekovic (Adelaide United), Dean Heffernan (Central Coast), Scott Jamieson (Adelaide United), Ben Kantarovski (Newcastle), Matthew McKay (Queensland), Craig Moore (Queensland), Daniel Mullen (Adelaide United), Mitch Nichols (Queensland), Tom Pondeljak (Melbourne), Paul Reid (Adelaide United), Matt Simon (Central Coast), Michael Theoklitos (Melbourne), Archie Thompson (Melbourne), Matthew Thompson (Newcastle), Nikolai Topor-Stanley (Newcastle), Rodrigo Vargas (Melbourne), Danny Vukovic (Central Coast), Michael Zullo (Queensland).

Making their first appearances in a 'Roos squad are Fabian Barbiero, Daniel Mullen, Queensland's Mitch Nicholls and Newcastle's impressive centre back, 17 year old Ben Kantarovski. I'm not going to try to predict a starting lineup, but we need to see more creativity out wide. Dodd was overlooked again for the squad - his form hasn't been great, but he's still the best pure right wing option in the A-League.

Anyway, I think that, on home turf, we will see a far better showing from the A-League Socceroos than was the case against Indonesia. Do it.

*Not that I'd ever heard of them, of course.

Adelaide 1-0 Queensland

2009-02-23T08:55:00.010+10:30

After the humiliation at the hands of Melbourne, a loss to Queensland seemed inevitable. The players looked sluggish and defeated, and Vidmar's outburst could easily have served as a warrant for hanging by those wielding power at the club.

Who knows what transpired behind closed doors in the aftermath of that infamous press conference. What matters is that club management gave their support to their embattled coach (in public, at least), allowing Viddie to focus on the task at hand. Recapturing team spirit and morale, essential ingredients for any successful team, was the first step, and to that end Vidmar took his players out for dinner and a few drinks to brush away the cobwebs. From the looks of things, it worked.

On the pitch, Adelaide went back to basics. The line-up against Queensland was very similar to that which was so effective in the Asian Champions League and in the first two-thirds of the A-League season: a 4-5-1, or 4-2-3-1 (whatever you want to call it) with two deep midfielders in front of a back four, and wingers pushing high up the park. In terms of personnel, the big change was the inclusion of Jonas Salley in midfield.

Salley had probably the best game I've ever seen him play. He was everywhere: breaking up attacks with steely discipline, and demonstrating an often-overlooked creative, attacking side to his game. At one point he had a snapshot volley from outside the box that, had it gone in, would have rivalled Barbiero's missile. It didn't miss by much. Salley's performance was outstanding, and the crowd gave him a well-deserved standing ovation when he came off for Griffiths late in the game.His efforts raise a few questions: why are Adelaide are letting him go, and why he has been overlooked so often this season? I wish I knew, but I'll be sad to see him leave.

From the outset, Adelaide played with purpose and confidence that had been so lacking in the matches against Melbourne. The midfield converted defence to attack well, pushing up to support Cristiano far more effectively than has been the case at times. Adelaide were noticeably more mobile this match, moving into space and passing the ball well.

The match started pretty evenly, with both sides launching decent attacks. In the 25th minute, though, a moment of magic turned the game on its head. Galekovic pumped a long ball forward, to which Craig Moore got a head on under pressure from Cristiano. Unfortunately for Moore, he managed to nod the ball into the path of Fabian Barbiero, steaming forward toward goal. Barbiero took a touch to control on the run, then smacked the skin off the ball from 25m out. Top corner, probably the most spectacular strike in Adelaide United's short history. And I missed it thanks to a compelling urge to urinate and purchase beer. Goddammit.

From then on, Adelaide had the game well under control. Vidmar's defence locked the door and threw away the key. It's not hard to see how Zoran Matic's tutelege at Adelaide City has influenced Viddie's modern-day catenaccio. Queensland dominated possession in the second half, but of course stats never tell the whole story. The Oranje were reduced to taking low-percentage shots from outside the box, and, with the exception of Nicholls, who found a fair bit of space, were contained intelligently by the men in red.

Vidmar's defensive tactics are often a bone of contention for those around the league. Michael Zullo's sour grapes after the loss are a case in point: he thinks that Adelaide's style of play is a poor advertisement for our league, and whines that Queensland's exciting style should have been rewarded with a grand final berth. A win for Adelaide over Melbourne will be a 'great shame'. To which the obvious reply is: tough titties, that's football. You win games by scoring more goals than your opponents. Complaining that Adelaide were playing to defend a lead is a ridiculously stupid thing to say. Queensland failed to take their chances. Farina claimeded after the match that Queensland were 'the better side' - I beg to differ.

If anything, Adelaide showed Queensland to be tactically naive. Their mobility and pace on the wings works wonders against most clubs, but they have always struggled against Adelaide's excellent full-backs and the tall timber of Ognenovski and Cornthwaite. Much like Adelaide's problems when playing Melbourne, Queensland were unable to change their game to put pressure on the home side.

I do feel for Queensland, though. It's difficult to comprehend that, for all their obvious quality, they haven't ever managed to bring it all together at the end of the season. They have fantastic young players, though: if I were a Roar fan (and had I not moved to Adelaide prior to the start of the A-League, I probably would be) I'd be very optimistic about next season. A nice touch at the end of the game was Sasa Ognenovski going over to applaud his old team's fans for making the trip and supporting all the way. Well done Sasa.

And here we are, about to play in our second major final of the season. We have a chance to finally put one over Melbourne in a big game (oh, how I wish I could be there). I'm not going to try to presuppose how that game will pan out, but I would like to see Vidmar start with the same team again, bringing Cassio on reasonably early if Pantelis is having a quiet match. Needless to say, Mustang Salley must play. He's the only Adelaide player with the potential to nullify Hernandez.

Perhaps even more important than making the Grand Final, this match secured our qualification for the Asian Champions League for the third time in four attempts. There's no reason why we can't have just as good a run in that competition again. Asia, here here we come.

The only negative point of the night was the crowd - a mere 8,500 showed up, influenced no doubt by the raised ticket prices as well as Adelaide's poor efforts in the past two games. Still, it was a pissant effort. Understandable for those who genuinely couldn't afford it, but shame on the fairweather fans who didn't show up when the team needed all the support it can get. The home end was in good voice to make up for the missing numbers, though: I particularly liked the 'We all live in a pissant colony' chant.

So, in anticipation of the big one against Melbourne:
COME ON YOU REDS!!!!!!!!!

The small but vocal crowd

What better place to celebrate a win against the Oranje than the German Club...

Journalistic integrity

2009-02-17T11:25:00.003+10:30

Or lack thereof. Check this out:

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25065773-12428,00.html

It's absolutely unbelievable that our city's leading football journalist is willing to put his name to such a petty and personal attack. Here is Val Migliaccio 'interpreting' Vidmar's outburst (i.e. putting words in his mouth and leaping to conclusions). The full text below:

---

What Vidmar said .. and what he meant
VAL MIGLIACCIO
February 17, 2009 12:30am

ADELAIDE United coach Aurelio Vidmar's outburst at his post-match press conference interpreted.

VIDMAR SAID: "It's a disgrace.
"We owe the world an apology. A performance like that was a disgrace."
HE MEANT: "I'm totally embarrassed by this performance."
VIDMAR SAID: "Politics, that's what I put it down to.
"There's too many people in this club with hidden agendas. That's the problem. That 4-0 result tonight was politics, nothing else."
HE MEANT: "I've lost control of the players' group. I tried to change it but it didn't work."
VIDMAR SAID: "Whether you're involved directly or indirectly, you have an effect.
"It has an effect on everyone."
HE MEANT: "I'm not at fault here, outside influences have cost us the game."
VIDMAR SAID: "Because of a pissant town, this club will never win anything until you get rid of that crap."
HE MEANT: "Adelaide's small-town mentality and factions are dividing the club."
VIDMAR SAID: "You should know, you can name them. You name them, you should know.
"Everyone's involved, mate, everyone. It's a disgrace.
"And you know, because you're (The Advertiser) involved as well."
HE MEANT: "How did you get the starting XI and the formation right in the first leg against Melbourne Victory."
VIDMAR SAID: "Things change very quickly.
"Someone's not happy with something they'll do anything they can to fracture it.
"Jealousy, whatever it is, whether it's ego, it smacks of all that at our club at this time.
"It's the underlying things around the club.
"I'm not going to name names."
HE MEANT: "People are trying to undermine me."
VIDMAR SAID: "I could not give a damn.
"I want to be the coach, yes, to work in a happy environment."
HE MEANT: "I still want to be the coach despite this outburst."
VIDMAR SAID: "You can't tell me that they've forgotten how to play football overnight.
"There's a lot of shit in your mind. You can't play football, you can't do anything."
HE MEANT: "They've forgotten how to win."
VIDMAR SAID: "It's going to be a massive heart-to-heart (with the players) on Monday morning."
HE MEANT: "Hopefully, I can win back the respect of the players' group."

---

This is just unbelievable, and to my mind crosses the line between opinion piece and personal attack. Val Migliaccio's credibility has taken a huge hit with this sort of thing. Here's a response that I submitted as a comment on the Advertiser website:

Val, one of the most disappointing things to come out of this whole mess is that you seem to be using it as an excuse to gain revenge for your own personal grievances with Vidmar. If Viddie was out of line when he said at the press conference that you were part of the problem, your articles since then haven't exactly done much to dispel the notion. As an outsider it certainly looks like you've got your own agendas in terms of how the club should function - not really an ideal situation, given that as a journalist you're supposed to be an unbiased observer. Please, the people of Adelaide aren't idiots - we deserve a bit more impartiality from the football media.

It was Costanzo... with the lead pipe... in the conservatory!

2009-02-16T10:13:00.010+10:30

And so the recriminations begin.

Who's at fault for Adelaide United's implosion? Vidmar? Stubbins? Bianco? Patzwald? The senior players like Costanzo and Valkanis? Everyone seems to have an opinion on the matter, not least the Badvertiser's very own Val Migliaccio. In this article, published on page 4 of today's paper, he takes extraordinary liberties with the notion of unbiased journalism in his reprisal for the shot Viddie fired at him during the post-match press conference..

The whole thing ends up looking like a hatchet job on Vidmar's character. It's a self-serving rant. Perhaps Viddie was wrong for having a go at him personally, but nobody can claim that Val hasn't been prone in the past to editorializing in his articles about AUFC and Vidmar. It's one thing for people within the club to play politics and pit their egos against one another, but its a whole other kettle of fish when journalists start doing it, especially as Val is pretty much it when it comes to the 'football media' in Adelaide.

This Fox Sports article suggests that the recent problems stem largely from a dressing-room rift caused by the axing of Costanzo, Salley and Diego. The other Brazilians, Cassio, Cristiano and Alemao, are also apparently unhappy. Four Four Two has run a similar story, reporting that two players in particular (no names, unfortunately) are behind the whole thing, with a source claiming that they are the same two players who were causing trouble 'a few years ago'. That would narrow it down significantly: Valkanis, Beltrame, Costanzo, Dodd and Pantelis are the only players I can think of that have been at the club more than a couple of years. That article also states that Cassio could be on his way out soon - I'll be very upset if that is the case.

Meanwhile, the SMH has run an article quoting a certain ex-captain of the club (let's call him 'Ross'), backing up the notion that there are certain senior players that are not getting a game (well, that rules out Dodd and Pants), were involved in Kosmina's downfall, and seem to be part of the current rot. Furthermore, according to 'Ross', there is at least one Board member actively trying to bring down Vidmar.

It's unfortunate having to watch all of this finger-pointing and infighting again. It's also very hard to know what or who to believe, because everyone involved naturally has their own agendas and biases. All we can hope is that it all gets resolved quickly so the club can concentrate on the future. There will be some good young players stepping up into the first team next year; I just hope that Adelaide United has regained some stability and direction by that point.

In the meantime, there's the game against Queensland this weekend. Win that and we're in the ACL again, and we've got a chance (slim as it may seem) of winning the Championship. Lose and, well, there's always next year. I'll be supporting either way.

Melbourne 4-0 Benny Hill Select XI

2009-02-14T22:11:00.005+10:30

Something very strange happened to me during the course of this match. After the first couple of goals I wanted Melbourne to really thrust in the knife and keep twisting. I wanted no quarter. In a fit of masochistic bloodlust I was urging Melbourne on, watching in delighted horror as they, once more, ritualistically put Adelaide to the sword.

I'm a bit concerned about the perverse pleasure that I gained watching the slaughter orchestrated by Carlos Hernandez, Archie Thompson, Danny Allsopp and co. It was just like watching that terrible grand final again. The same utter capitulation in the Reds midfield, the same magnificent performance by the home team, the same beautiful balls played through to their strikers by the man in the hole. Only difference was, this time we waited until later in the match before one of our players got sent off. And the (aggregate) score of the loss? 6-0.

So, why did I want to see Adelaide fail? I think I can justify my feelings like this: The greater the loss tonight, the more likely they will also fail against Queensland next week and not have to play Melbourne again in a grand final. Better to get the humiliation over and done with. Let's start thinking about next season, and let Melbourne and Queensland battle it out for the championship. At least that is likely to be a competitive game.

The funny thing is, I'm not really put off by this result. I'm not going to boycott the match next week. I'll get my membership next year, same as always, even if we make it to the grand final and lose 10-0. I've come to terms with the fact that Adelaide are Melbourne's whipping boys, it's starting to feel like that's just the natural order of things. In the same way that night follows day and death follows life, Adelaide will cop a hiding whenever we play Melbourne. It's inevitable.

There's all sorts of things I could say about individual performances, but I don't think it's necessary. Pretty much 'fail' marks across the board. As for Vidmar, here's what he had to say after the match:

"It was an absolute disgrace... We owe the world an apology. Politics is what I put it down to. There's too many people at this club with hidden agendas... This club will never win anything until you get rid of that crap."

See this Fox Sports article for more... and here's a link to the interview audio.

Apparently, he also referred to Adelaide as a 'piss ant town'. I'm thinking he'll be on very very thin ice after this outburst - not being privy to the machinations inside the club it's hard to know what he's on about and whether he has reason to say these sorts of things. If it's just the sound of a man under pressure finally exploding then perhaps it's best for the future if Adelaide look to another coach, but if his criticism of the club is merited then the problem is deeper than the coach and the players.

Anyway, more on this when we know more about it... stay tuned kids.

I'll sign off on a positive note: well done to the Adelaide United fans that made the trip over. Well done for supporting until the end, and, especially, well done for the messages of support and solidarity for the victims of the bushfire disaster. You've done your club proud.

Highlights of the game.

Congratulations

2009-02-13T08:46:00.006+10:30

Well done to the five Adelaide United players, plus Viddie, named in the A-League All-Star team chosen by the FFA. I'd probably have them lining up in a 3-5-2 formation, something like this (it's hard trying to fit in 3 wide lefties):

--------------------Galekovic-----------------------
---------Moore-----Ognenovski ----Jamieson
----------------Jedinak---------Cassio----------------
Dodd----------------Hernandez-----------------Zullo
----------------Smeltz--------Rukavytsya-------------

Coach: Vidmar

This is quite an interesting selection - the players chosen demonstrate just how dominant Adelaide's defensive line has been this season. It's also interesting because, despite all the whinging from Adelaide fans and calls for Viddie's head (bearing in mind that Melbourne only won the league from us by one measly goal, having finished equal on points), the Reds are getting recognition for all the good things they've done this year. Finishing second in the league is an exceptional result, considering that we also made the Asian Champions League final and, thanks to that competition and the Club World Cup, had a far heavier workload than any other A-League side.

I'm not saying that the 'All-Star' team selected is perfect - I would have chosen Sergio van Dijk ahead of Nikita Rukavytsya, and players like Charlie Miller, Tarek Elrich, Archie Thompson and Roddy Vargas would also have a fair argument for inclusion. But it's interesting thinking about just what Adelaide could have achieved this season with a more potent attack....

Japan 0-0 Australia

2009-02-12T12:19:00.008+10:30

I missed this game (too much football, too little time) but my mate Nunny watched it at the pub and had the following to say:

It was a fairly good performance by both teams. Australia held strong with solid and decisive defending and excellent man marking. Japan's excellent playmaking midfield skinned us repeatedly, but struggled to find openings going forwards. Japan had 5 good chances during the game and a few missed free kicks....

1. A run down the right and a perfectly weighted pass towards the side of the goal close to the goal line, a player ran on and kicked it first time towards the goal... Lucas Neill with a sliding deflection which put the ball into the side netting.

2. The only penetrating through ball of the game, a Japanese player running on cut the ball back dangerously. Luke Wilkshire used his body well to defended the ball from a player coming through to smack it home. The ball spilled wide to nobody.

3. Some Japanese dude won a header from a cross. Missed the goal though.

4. Some Japanese dude teed up Endo on top of the box. Luckily for us he banged it straight at Schwarzer's head - safely palmed over the bar. (geez he kicked it hard)

5. Three minutes from time the ball spilled out after a corner and fell to a Japanese player on the corner of the six yard box. His shot across goal would have gone in but bounced off his own player in the heavily populated goal mouth - just wide of the near post.

We had two chances, one of them good. The bad one first: someone kicked the ball forward to Cahill with two to beat, and excellent first touch beat one defender....then he appeared to trip himself up and pushed the ball too far ahead of himself...suck. The good: Kennedy came on with 10 mintues left to replace Cahill, he won the ball in the center circle and passed it out to the wing -you could see him then calling for the cross in the middle. The cross was perfect and he got a touch on a strongly contested header right in front of the goal. Well done boys. In the wise words of Pim Verbeek: "We don't need to win this game, Japan do, so the pressure is on them."

Oh, I almost forgot: Some Japan guy went up for a header just outside the box and we booted him in the shin. Yellow card. The whole pub was like "Ohhh what was that for"... the commentator even said it "was a harsh call for an obvious attempt at the ball" I laughed a bit inside and wondered if they were serious... it was ugly...we were nowhere near the ball and kicked the crap out of the poor guy. Luckily their shot went into the wall. Card well won.
---
As I said, I didn't watch the game, but two chances all match? I know a draw was a very good result away to Japan, but the Socceroos are starting to remind me of Adelaide United. It would be nice to be able to support at least one team that plays exciting football. I might have to dig up my old Barcelona shirt.

I take back everything...

2009-02-11T09:06:00.003+10:30

...that I said about the A-League kit redesigns being a good thing. Behold, Newcastle's Asian Champions League shirt:

So, this is the fetching outfit in which our androgynous heroes the Jets Space Command 3000 will take to the battledrome to protect our planet against the marauding alien hordes.

Joel Griffiths should punch himself in the dick just for wearing it.

Adelaide 0-2 Melbourne

2009-02-07T21:31:00.007+10:30

I've just gotten home from the match. In this post, therefore, you may catch an elusive glimpse of that rarest of creatures, Angry Salmon. Keep your eyes peeled!

To say that I am disappointed with the way Adelaide played would be a gross understatement. Spineless. Once again, we soiled ourselves as soon as we saw that big 'V' on the opposition shirts. It's frustrating watching our defenders cowering in abject terror whenever the ball falls at Archie Thompson's feet.

The refereeing was craptastic, but I'm not going to try to blame the result on that corrupt blind sonofabitch in the middle, even though he's (in my completely objective and well-considered opinion) completely unfit to officiate a wet T-shirt contest, let alone a football match. Even if it were a wet T-shirt contest, he'd probably still give it to Muscat.

The personnel choices were suitably bizarre - Cristiano on the bench until the 70th minute? Valkanis desperately shuffling around in the backline watching Thompson and Allsopp, and even Tubs Hernandez, breeze past him at will? Ridiculous. Marrone was a deer in the headlights, as was Mullen. Alemao gave the ball away at every opportunity. Pantelis' first touch was diabolical. Barbiero, Dodd and Agostino were mostly invisible. I feel for Ago especially - how many times were balls hoofed up for him to flick on to nobody? BALLS TO FEET, Vidmar you bum.

I think I've worked out the root of the problem, though. Nothing to do with tactics, refereeing, or anything else: simply, Adelaide United literally forgot how to play football during their two weeks off. You know, the basics: pass to teammate rather than opposition; play the ball, not the man; object of game = score goals while keeping opponent's goals out....

Galekovic/Ognenovski/Sarkies/Jamieson/Reid: Hold your heads up - you deserved better for your efforts. Everyone else & Vidmar: Go back to football school and learn how to play the game. Take some notes this time. Good work, you lazy, uncoordinated schmucks. You spoiled my night.

But, we're only halfway, there's still another leg yadayadayada. Sorry, but 3 goals in Tardistan just ain't gonna happen. If we get to the Grand Final we'll have to do it the hard way.

Let's get ready to RRRRRRRUMBLE!!!!!

2009-02-06T10:39:00.004+10:30

http://www.theage.com.au/news/sport/soccer/lets-get-ready-to-rumble/2009/02/05/1233423406384.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

It's very true. Melbourne versus Adelaide is, I think, turning into our young league's biggest rivalry. Tomorrow night will be fantastic: Hindmarsh packed to the rafters on a balmy summer evening, a large contingent of travelling Melbourne fans providing plenty of banter, and hopefully a typically feisty effort on the pitch. Bring it on.

I, for one, can't wait to see what sort of shenanigans the Melbourne fans will get up to this time: will they light a flare inside the Governor Hindmarsh? Will they scrawl 'MELBOURNE ULTRAZZZZZZ [insert Serbian cross]' on to a commercial premises on Manton Street? Will they, inspired by Italian fan clips on youtube, wrap their faces in scarves and run amok through the streets, frightening schoolchildren and the elderly with their unpredictable behaviour and ribald chanting? Time will tell (actually, all the Melbourne fans I've met have been pretty decent types, but there's always a few bad and/or borderline mentally retarded apples in every barrel)...

Silly me..

2009-02-05T10:37:00.005+10:30

.... I forgot to mention Sydney FC's replacement of John Kosmina with former Sparta Prague coach Vitezslav Lavicka. Let's hope they haven't signed a Czech their ass can't cash (you'd better start getting used to the corny headlines).

This SMH article talks about the details of the signing... and also refers to another possible new catch to put in the Adelaide United esky - Thai midfielder Datsakorn Thonglao, currently plying his trade in Vietnam with Hoang Anh Gia Lai. According to his Wikipedia profile he looks a pretty handy player, but then again, that could have been written by his mum. Could he be the answer to Diego's departure?

White lines.... runnin' through my mind

2009-02-04T22:46:00.011+10:30

It's been another massive week of news for football in this wide brown land of ours...

Most significantly from a red-shirted point of view, Rostyn Griffiths has signed with Adelaide on a four-week deal. It seems we cunning Reds have exploited the A-League's injury-cover rules to obtain the 20-year-old Blackburn reservist as a replacement for North Queensland-bound Jason Spagnuolo, instead of calling up a National Youth League player. I disagree with this in principle, but in practice... high five, mofos. Especially if he does well and Adelaide take up the option to sign up the Welsh-Aussie midfielder on a two season contract.

The Newcastle Jets, having read and pondered on my previous post about how crap they are, have decided to finally do something about it and start rebuilding their decimated squad ahead of their Asian Champions League campaign. According to their official site, they've sealed the deal with AUFC folk hero and all-round legend Angelo Costanzo, gun-for-hire Sasho Petrovski (the whore with a shirt of gold - currently giving Damian Mori a run for his money for the title of 'A-League's most money-hungry mercenary bastard ever'), and Dutch striker with typically awesome name Donny de Groot. On top of this, they've added ex-Sydney FC and Sydney United coach (and Jason's dad) Branko Culina to their staff as football director. Oh, the oedipal conflicts that will arise when the Jets & Gold Coast collide...

The biggest surprise for Newcastle, though, is their signing of ex-Socceroo and current employee of Ricky Diaco's family's garden shop, Ljubo Milicevic. It's great to see that the Ljub-mobile has regained the hunger to keep playing at a high level - recent interviews paint a picture of Ljubo as an intelligent and articulate guy who doesn't quite fit the mould of a stereotypical football player.

He's fought battles with his own and other peoples' expectations of him and has had a long journey struggling to cope with depression, even when leading his team into battle in the European Champions League. If he can get back into a good place he's certainly got the talent to make a big impact in the A-League. If there is any justice in the world he will be back in the Socceroos squad for the 2010 World Cup, after the disappointments of 2006.

Undoubtedly, though, the biggest news of the week has been the North Queensland Fury snaring the signature of Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler. In his prime he was one of the most dangerous goal poachers in the world, and he's still only 33 years old. It'll be interesting to see whether North Queensland can provide the service to make the most of the ageing tap-in merchant's abilities - although Jason Spagnuolo was able to put a goal on a platter for Romario at Hindmarsh, so there's certainly hope.

Worryingly, God's manifestation in Townsville has been the catalyst for The Times Online writing an article entitled 'Sport's top ten biggest bellies'. Fowler was never known for his trim physique, however, and history is littered with plenty of examples of fat bastards playing excellent football (think Diego Maradona, or closer to home Charlie Miller). There's not much else I can add to the myriad of existing articles about this signing, other than to say that I hope it goes well, so for now I shall leave you with a picture of the great man that has captured an exquisite moment of athleticism, passion, and heroic dedication to the cause...

Plundering the Great Southern Land

2009-02-04T08:52:00.009+10:30

Here' s a rather interesting story from from United Arab Emirates paper 'The National', that I uncovered through my usual techniques of in-depth and thorough research (i.e. I clicked the Google news bar at the top of this page):
3+1 adding up to be a big winner

The article discusses the AFC's new '3+1' rule, wherein teams competing in the Champions League from this year onwards will be allowed to field three non-Asian foreigners plus one player from an AFC member nation. This has big implications for Australia:

It is Australia ... where the biggest bargains can be found. The A-League is still in its infancy and with a salary cap that is just under $2million for an entire squad, it is not surprising that some of the biggest stars down under are being tempted by relative riches abroad. Concerns are growing that the increasing exodus could do serious damage to the fledgling league.

The article goes on to cite the examples of Sasa Ognenovski and Jade North, who have both accepted lucrative deals in Korea. The situation is a bit of a headache for the FFA - it's unfortunate that our league will lose the talents of some of its best players, but these players are of course entitled to go elsewhere to sell their services for full market value. The money coming in from such transfers is important, as well, for clubs' finances.

So, where to now? I think it's a bit of a balancing act: with more money flowing into the league through such transfers it will become more viable for the FFA to increase clubs' salary caps. In turn, this will give A-League clubs more purchasing power and should, theoretically, increase the ability for clubs to retain their best Australian players in future.

The A-League will always lose its brightest stars to richer and more prestigious overseas leagues. But that's not necessarily a problem, as long as there is a production line churning out high quality young players to fill their place. Plenty of foreign leagues operate like this - the best Brazilian, Dutch, Argentine and Portuguese players (for example) end up in the 'Big 4' European leagues, but the high quality of the young local players in these countries ensures that the standard of play remains at a very high level.

We're already seeing young players from the National Youth League and the state leagues successfully step up into the A-League. The potential is there to ensure that every Djite, Jedinak or Ognenovski that heads overseas is replaced by a youngster of equal quality. As junior coaching and talent identification gets better, this will become less of an issue. The final piece of the puzzle will be ongoing increases in the salary cap, allowing the A-League clubs to retain their stars for longer and lure better foreigners and returning Australian players.

A sign of things to come

2009-02-02T18:44:00.005+10:30

"Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty." Mariners captain Alex Wilkinson and new signing Shane Huke model their fetching new strips.

One of the issues that has raised the ire of A-League supporters over the years has been the FFA's insistence on using cookie-cutter shirt templates as a cost-saving mechanism. The patterns used by Reebok in the past have been rather unimaginative: no stripes, hoops, bands, sashes or anything else straying from the generic. In their third season Melbourne were allowed to adopt the big 'V' as part of their home and away kits, but this was an exception to the general trend.

The FFA has also, until now, been reluctutant to budge from its 'whites only' away shirt policy. Perhaps this wasn't such a bad idea given such eyeball-sodomising possibilities as the bright purple Glory coming up against the fluoro-orange-and-maroon Roar, but in any event this era of away-shirt apartheid seems now to be over.

The first inhabitants of the A-League's new rainbow nation are the Central Coast Mariners. For their upcoming Asian jaunt they will be sporting a navy-and-yellow striped home shirt, with a simple all yellow for away matches. It seems they'll also be wearing these shirts (or something similar) in the next A-League season. Good - they look, in my humble opinion, pretty schmicko.

There's something about these clean, simple designs that really appeals to me. If the shorts were shorter and the hair and muttonchops longer, they would look like they could be contesting the 1974 FA Cup or something. It'll look different with sponsors all over it of course, but still, the Mariners are a team with retro style. Even their logo looks like the cover of a 70's surf flick.

Word has it that the sea gypsies won't be the only team in stripes next season, either, with perhaps Newcastle and Wellington also to take that option. As for Adelaide, I think we can expect our home strip to remain as sexy as always in solid red, but the away kit may be a different story, with the club seemingly opting for a colour as far away from the current white as is possible. Ah, rumours, rumours...

Indonesia 0-0 Australia

2009-01-31T20:04:00.007+10:30

On Wednesday night Australia took their first tentative steps towards Asian Cup qualification, holding Indonesia to a nil-nil draw in Jakarta. This was no ordinary Socceroos lineup, though: Pim Verbeek used this match as an opportunity to see what the A-League players were capable of.

The short answer to this question is 'not much'. But there's a lot more to it than that. Yes, the game was slightly insipid (after a pretty good start, it must be said), but there were plenty of reasons for the lack of champagne football. Only a few of the squad members had been previously capped, with Craig Moore and Archie Thompson by far the most experienced players chosen. There was very little preparation time for the team - a couple of days at most for some of the players - and the oppressive humidity and bumpy tropical pitch was a far cry from what most would be used to. And, of course, it was an away game in front of a very large and hostile crowd.

The team chosen by Pim was quite conservative, as well - workhorses like Dean Heffernan and Matt Thompson started the match at the expense of more exciting, attack-minded players like Michael Zullo or Tarek Elrich. A couple of players who could also have provided some much-needed spark, Travis Dodd and Adrian Caceres, were not even chosen in the extended squad.

Three Reds players made it onto the pitch, and all gave a reasonably good account of themselves. Galekovic was solid and composed in goals, and Paul Reid provided plenty of energy, although I think he and Matt McKay may be slightly too similar in their style of play to be paired up in midfield. Scott Jamieson was rather more subdued than usual, preferring to sit back rather than sprinting up the left wing in attack. Whether that was nerves, the conditions, or Verbeek's instructions I'm not sure - but this game certainly wasn't indicative of what he's capable of as a footballer.

For their part, Indonesia seemed happy to park most of their players in their defensive half, launching counter-attacks whenever the opportunity arose. Papuan forward Boaz Solossa was a handful, but in general Indonesia struggled to break down a well-disciplined Australian defence, with the centre back pairing of Craig Moore and Rodrigo Vargas particularly solid. At the other end of the park, Indonesia defended in numbers and effectively prevented the midfield from creating much for Archie Thompson and Danny Allsopp to work with.

The result could have been better, but any away point is a good one and there's certainly no need to write off the A-League players for future matches like this. The team's performance, with no preparation time, in unfamiliar conditions and on a horrible pitch, was still better than plenty of 'first string' Socceroos matches that I've seen (the last Asian Cup comes to mind). Australia really needs to make the most of its home games, though - I'm looking forward to a much better match when the Socceroos play Kuwait in Canberra on March 5.

Con Air going down in flames

2009-01-30T00:16:00.004+10:30

Not too long ago, the Newcastle Jets were actually a good team. Last season, in fact, they were so good that they won the championship despite having Mario Jardel on the pitch for most of the season. Even though they'd lost their best player, the gifted Nicky Carle, to England. Gary van Egmond was the new golden boy of Australian coaches, overseeing his band of freewheeling youngsters as they scampered around the field, gleefully embarrassing oppositions with swashbuckling attacks and intricate passing moves.

Now, fast forward to January 2009. Newcastle, usually one of the more consistent sides in the league, have unravelled faster than the overpriced Ben Sherman cardigan I bought last year. They have finished the season in last place, on 18 points and with a goal difference of -18. Their best players (with the honourable exception of Joel Griffiths, at least for now) are abandoning Newcastle like rats from a sinking ship, even as the club prepares for its first ever Asian Champions League.

The situation on the pitch would be unacceptable for any club's supporters. Newcastle are playing like a team of human-shaped sea sponges. But that's not even the worst of it - their current dismal performances (the ridiculously poor 4-0 loss to Sydney on the weekend being the cherry on the cake) seem to be merely a symptom of a much deeper malaise. There is clearly something rotten at the Jets - even when they were playing well some of the club's business decisions seemed extremely poor. Trying to lure Stan Collymore, or signing Mario Jardel and forcing the coach to play him against his better judgement, for example.

Gary van Egmond's honeymoon seems now to be well and truly over. His team has dropped from best in the land to worst, over the past year. And he hasn't handled it very well, taking every opportunity to shift the blame for his team's woes onto his players, with Patafta, Zura and Hakansson all feeling the pointy end of the stick at various times. But the real highlight of van Egmond's season, for me, was dragging Pinto - a young player on his first senior team call up, who came on as a second-half substitute - off the pitch again in the last ten minutes against Adelaide. He defended the move by stating (incorrectly, in my opinion) that Pinto was "the worst player out there". Way to go, Dutchie. He should be a motivational speaker.

As they say, though, the fish rots from the head. In this case, that rotten fish head is local entrepreneur Con Constantine. Constantine has an undoubted love of football - he's pumped millions of dollars of his own money into keeping the game afloat in the Hunter region during the lean times. But he also has a reputation as somewhat of a megalomaniac, keeping a strong guiding hand on all aspects of the club. He's renowned for being extremely tight-fisted when it comes to money matters - you could probably fill an entire matchday squad with past players and staff that have locked horns with Con, often in courts of law, over pay disputes.

You don't become a multi-millionaire without being a bit of a prick, though. These sorts of things are often par for the course when wealthy businessmen own football clubs. One incident occurred recently that went well beyond acceptable behaviour, however, even for an autocratic football club owner. To cut a long story short, Constantine subjected a group of representatives from Newcastle's supporter groups to a lengthy, abusive tirade during which he threatened to throw one of them off a balcony. Their crime? Protesting against club management for Newcastle's diabolically bad season, during a match. Upside down banners, chants, that sort of thing. You can read a thread on the Jets supporter forum about the whole matter here.

Con's rant, during which he labelled the supporters 'worthless' and 'nobodies' and threatened to ban one for life for being a disloyal troublemaker, says a lot about the culture of the club. There seems to be an atmosphere of deep distrust between management, staff, and fans. And that's not a good situation. If you could do a TAFE course on managing a football club, the first thing they would teach you on the first day would be 'Respect the fans'. Healthy support is the lifeblood of a healthy club. I recently got FIFA 09 on my Wii (top game it is, too), and when you play in manager mode you get brownie points for saying nice things to the fans. Choose the 'throw them off the balcony' option and you don't do so well.

You have to feel for the Newcastle supporters, watching helplessly as their beloved Jets crash spectacularly back to earth. As I'm sure Otis Redding would have said had he not perished in a plane crash of his own, all they're asking for is a little respect from the men at the top.

Central Coast 0-1 Adelaide

2009-01-26T10:31:00.009+10:30

So close! To win the Premiership, Adelaide needed to win this match by two goals. One goal would secure second spot, and a draw or a loss would put Adelaide in third spot after Melbourne and Queensland. As it turned out, the Reds won 1-0 from a Cristiano tap-in, but there were certainly enough chances to have wrapped up the title. Ago and Dodd could have both scored a couple. Here's what the final table looks like:

The match was also noteworthy because we saw the A-League debut of Youth League player Michael Marrone, filling in at right back for the injured Mullen. He had a great match, marauding forward with plenty of intent.

I thought I'd interview a couple of the country's leading football analysts - Kristina's dad Nino (ex- Sydney Croatia, Croatian Old Boys over 35's & Hallett Cove over 35's) and brother Marko (ex-Raiders junior and star signing for Adelaide Uni Blacks amateur league div. 5's) to get their thoughts on the game and Adelaide's season in general.

Spawning Salmon: So, what did you think of the game last night?

Nino: It was one of the better games that I saw this year. Both teams played well, attacking the whole game and defending quite well. That's what the game needs: good attacking football!

Marko: It was an exciting game, there were plenty of missed opportunities. I thought the squad that was announced was poor.

SS: What was poor about it?

M: Paul Agostino started! That guy is rubbish.

SS: So, how do you think they should have lined up?

M: Younis, Cristiano and Dodd up front in a 4-3-3. Put it all on the line, it's the last game of the season! I think Viddie played Ago because it was maybe his last match, out of sympathy. You need to play your best team every time.

N: I think the lineup was fine, defence was pretty steady. Midfield without Diego was passable, not too bad. Wasn't the best, Barbiero, Sarkies and Reid - I've seen them playing better, they had a lot of help from the defence. What surprised me was Marrone at right back - I've never seen him play before, he was attacking whenever he got the chance, taking on players, the same as Jamieson on the left - delivering crosses from both sides, it was good to see. Pantelis and Dodd had good games, as usual.

SS: What about Cristiano, do you think Viddie left it too late?

N: He should have been on from the start in my opinion, but he still got half an hour or so. Agostino should have been on the bench because he was out of match practice. The chances Ago had, Cristiano would have put at least one away!

M: Poor by Vidmar. Should have played more than one up front. Younis played well when he came on, took on players and set up Cristiano.

SS: What do you think about Adelaide's season? Are you happy with the result, coming second in the ACL and the league?

M: Happy with the ACL, but not with the league! We were hot and cold at the end of the season, should have won a few more of those games. Adelaide aren't managing the players to the best of their abilities, there are a lot of players out as well - Diego, Cassio.

N: We didn't need Cassio last night, they did well without him.

M: Adelaide did well this season in the ACL and the Club World Cup so I'm still proud. I hope Vidmar recruits well in the off season though. I'll get a season ticket next year though, for sure! It always sucks to lose to Melbourne though.

N: It's been good, considering. You couldn't ask for more, there was only one goal in it at the end of the league. They have to get the right players to build up for next year.

SS: Who would be the ideal player, if you were Vidmar, to sign for next year? As a marquee player?

N: Josip Skoko, to control the midfield. He's still only 32 or something, he's playing for Hajduk Split.

M: Kaka.

N: Kaka, bullshit. You have to be realistic you dickhead.

M: I would probably sign one of Gamba's midfielders... not Endo because we couldn't afford him, but the Japanese players would be great. Use our links to Asia to recruit..

N: I would like Cristiano to stay another year. He would be great with better players around him.

M: That means Vidmar would have to play 4-4-2, I don't think that's going to happen! All in all, with Gold Coast & North Queensland coming in things are going to keep improving. I want to see more of the youth team players in the first team - Malik, Marrone - give them a shot. I would like to see Matt Simon from Central Coast in a red shirt. He'd fit in well with the team I reckon.

N: Use the youth league players first, then buy whichever players you need. You need to give the young players a chance first.

SS: If Adelaide host the Grand Final, where should it be held?

M: Hindmarsh Stadium. It's a fortress!

N: It can't be Hindmarsh, not enough seats. Adelaide Oval.

M: Add a couple of extra stands, like they did at the Olympics.

N: There wasn't any extra seats? Where?

M: Temporary stands, there were like another 7,000 seats.

N: 7,000 seats my arse. You have to play at Adelaide Oval.

M: If Hindmarsh is good enough for the Champions League Final, it's good enough for the A-League.

Conversation descends into petty argument

SS: Thanks. Let's eat some watermelon.

Nino and Marko

Wellington 1-1 Adelaide

2009-01-21T20:53:00.003+10:30

I only watched the second half of this game, so I can't really say too much about it other than that Adelaide haven't really gotten any less awful over the past few weeks. Needless to say it was a very different game to the last time these two sides played each other.

Adelaide played two up front, but it doesn't really matter what formation you play if your midfield is getting owned. Towards the end the Nux were down to ten men, as well. One round to go and Adelaide is holding on to the slimmest of leads over Melbourne (equal on points, +1 goal difference), and two points ahead of Queensland. So, anything can happen, but the way Adelaide are playing I don't feel too confident about top spot.

Oh, and Ago's back. Score us a goal, you bum.

Around the Grounds

2009-01-17T19:08:00.014+10:30

There's been a few big stories around the league this week.

For a start, it sounds as though the FFA are seriously considering implementing a proper knockout cup competition, akin to the English FA Cup, within the next couple of years. It's been on the backburner for a while but I never thought we'd see it happen this quickly. I'll write more about it some other time but, for now, I'll just say that I think it will be brilliant to have this mechanism for state league and lower level clubs to be able to play competitive matches against the A-League sides. Eventually, we may see the final rounds of the Cup take the place of the A-League finals series, which would be a big change - feasible once there are a few more clubs in the league.

Gold Coast United

The A-League's new boys are looking ominously good. In a press conference, the Toolies' (yes I'm trying to make this nickname stick) owner Clive Palmer officially announced that current Socceroo and PSV Eindhoven midfielder Jason Culina would be the club's inaugural marquee player. Well done.

Palmer, who is not renowned for his in-depth knowledge of the intricacies of the beautiful game, also stated that the Gold Coast is aiming to go undefeated through its first season. Oh dear. But they'll definitely be a force to reckon with: as well as Culina, their squad will include Shane Smeltz, Joel Porter, Tahj Minniecon, Adam Griffiths, Michael Thwaite, Jesse Vanstratten, several Brazilians that I've never heard of before and a Dutchman named Bas van der Brink. Sterjovski is probably staying at Derby, though.

Gold Coast United also used this press conference to unveil their colours (blue, yellow and white) and their badge:

The font used and general look of the badge are a graphic designer's worst nightmare - it's generic, garish and gaudy. Suits the Gold Coast to a T, I'd say. But at least it's relevant - the logo features a ribbon of blue (for the sea), a strip of yellow (for the sand), and.... wait a second... are those buildings FLIPPING THE BIRD????

Sydney FC

This week hasn't been a good one for the boys in baby blue. Reports have come out that, following the win over Wellington last weekend, two Sydney 'fans' assaulted Robbie Middleby in the stadium carpark. The reason? Seabiscuit, as he is affectionately known by supporters, is leaving the Blingers at the end of the season after signing with North Queensland. This is a guy who has been with Sydney FC since their inception, and has always put in a hundred percent for the club, who is moving on for the sake of his career. Those two morons should be given life bans from all forms of football, and castrated to boot.

As I write, Sydney have just lost 3-1 to Queensland, killing off their season for good. It was a great match, too - both teams played some nice football and Sergio van Dijk boosted fantasy league scores around the country with a hat-trick. Kosmina's career is looking a little shaky, one would think - but I think he deserves another season for the sake of stability.

Queensland Roar

The Oranje women have taken out the W-League title with a 2-0 win over Canberra United in the Grand Final, thanks to strikes from Lana Harch and Tameka Butt. The crowd at Ballymore was a very healthy 4,500 - women's football is definitely on the rise.

This may not be the only silverware to end up in Brisbane this season, either: the Roar are currently one game and a couple of fortuitous other results away from an A-League Premiership this season, and their form suggests that a Championship would be eminently achievable. Especially with the fat Scotsman Miller back on deck and SVD really starting to bang them in...

Perth Glory

One of the league's impressive youngsters, Nikita Rukavytsya, seems likely to leave Perth after securing trials with FC Twente in Holland. No matter: Perth have a likely replacement lined up in Zimbabwean striker Glen Salmon. Obviously I support this signing wholeheartedly, on the basis of his name alone.

Also, Eugene Dadi has signed on for another year, which is great news for the A-League: despite his aging body he's got plenty of class.

Melbourne Victory

The enigmatic Ljubo Milicevic has spoken out about his ill-fated time with Melbourne Victory, and the period of depression and soul-searching that he underwent after leaving the club:

'How Victory Turned Me Into An Angry Buddhist Porn Fiend'

I think he'd be the ideal replacement for Ognenovski in the centre of Adelaide's defence. Sounds like he wants to leave professional football behind though - a pity because of his talents, but you can't blame the guy for doing what's best for himself.

Adelaide United

Back on home turf, there's a couple of big stories out of Radelaide. Significantly, Dario Fontanarosa has stepped down as United chairman, to be replaced by Mel Patzwald (of Airport Travel Company - he did a great job organising my tickets to Osaka, so he gets my seal of approval). Hopefully Fontanarosa is taking a back seat in order to finalise his plans for the awesome new Estadio Dario:

I'm not holding my breath though.

Sadly, it also seems very likely now that Angelo Costanzo is out the door at Hindmarsh at the end of the current season. Obviously Vidmar and the AUFC management have not been reading this blog. I think he's still got a lot to offer the team, but he's unlikely to be a first team player at Adelaide and could therefore command a lot more money elsewhere. It's a pity because I always pictured him retiring in his home city. It's upsetting but I'm not about to hunt him down in the Hindmarsh carpark after a game because of it...

Adelaide 0-0 Queensland

2009-01-15T13:33:00.004+10:30

The following are the TV shows that I could have watched last night instead of going to the football:

The 7.30 Report; My Family; The Omid Djalili Show; Star Stories; Air Crash Investigations: Fire Fight - Air Canada 797; Las Vegas; 10 To One; The New Adventures of Old Christine; CSI:Miami; The Simpsons; Rules of Engagement; House; Food Safari; Tales From The Palaces: The Detectives; Long Way Down: Shashemene, Ethiopia To Laisamis, Kenya.
Long Way Down would have been good, I think. Not too long ago I read Paul Theroux' Dark Star Safari, in which he visits Shashemene, in Ethiopia. The land that the town is built on was granted by Emperor Haile Selassie I to the Ethiopian World Federation, and during the 60s Rastafarian settlers began to 'repatriate' to Shashemene from Jamaica. Pretty interesting little snippet of history.

I did catch some of House when I got home (it was a double episode) - it was the one where there's the kid who's having weird visions of alien abduction, probes, etc. Turns out it's just some problem in his brain - House was having to run an electric current through his cerebral cortex or somthing to induce the hallucinations and work out what was going wrong.

Maybe the Adelaide United players need some of that treatment - they're clearly suffering terribly from delusions and psychological traumas of their own. Barbiero, Reid and Pantelis seemed to be under the impression that they're midfielders, despite demonstrating absolutely no evidence in support of this hypothesis. Cassio at one point had a particular bizarre episode in which he appeared to honestly believe that he could cross the ball with his right foot.

Younis' strange and as yet un-named psychological condition manifested itself in a complete lack of simple motor skills and a hyper-sensitivity to touch, resulting in significant time spent lying prone on the turf. Cristiano may have indeed been in some sort of semi-conscious dream state for his entire spell on the pitch. And poor Ognenovski's brain was having difficulty differentiating between 'present' and 'future' realities - all his clearances seemed to be aimed at South Korea.

Now for the players unaffected by these horrible affliction: Jamieson as always appeared as though he had drunk a six pack of Red Bull before the game, tearing up and down the sidelines and generally making life very difficult for Queensland's much-vaunted Minniecon and Zullo. Alemao played solidly, if unspectacularly, at right back. And Galekovic played solidly AND spectacularly, with a brilliant save keeping Adelaide in the game.

I'm starting to see why Vidmar is averse to playing two up front - all our strikers are rubbish. Also, we can't even hold the ball with five in midfield, so removing one player would be suicide against a team like Queensland. I think our formation is about right for the players we have - two up front would be nice, but we need the cattle to do it effectively. This is what we need for next season:

1. Costanzo to stay. Failing that, a proper ball playing defender.
2. Diego to stay. Failing that, a proper ball playing centre mid. I think it's no coincidence that problems with structure & moving the ball about have arisen since these two players have been out of the team.
3. A good striker. Even better, two good strikers.

Anyway, we're top of the league, so maybe we shouldn't dwell on Adelaide's shortcomings - suffice to say, I hope there's a much better performance in the remaining two matches. Although our away form hasn't exactly been stellar.

To end on a positive note - 14,500 people in attendance! Carlsberg on tap at Hindmarsh! Great work, people of Adelaide. Great work, Matchday Sponsor.

Taking stock of Australian football's modern history

2009-01-12T21:33:00.016+10:30

Australian football is definitely in for a big year in 2009: before the year is over we will see the culmination of the current hotly-contested A-League season; a string of crucial international matches that will determine the Socceroos' entry to the 2010 World Cup, a new pair of Australian clubs taking on the challenge of the Asian Champions League, the start of a new expanded A-League competition featuring two new challengers in North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United, and no doubt plenty of emotion, controversy, speculation, joy, and all the other things that make football so great.

We should stop for a moment, though, and take stock of the progress that football has made in Australia in little more than half a decade. Australian football has been on a steep upward trajectory since 2003, when the Crawford Report into the sport's governance was published. The recommendations of this paper led to a complete overhaul of the structure of the sport: Soccer Australia was succeeded by a new entity, the Australian Soccer Association, which in January 2005 became Football Federation Australia.

The Rebirth of Domestic Football

The A-League was launched in mid-2005 to great hype and fanfare: this was the 'new football' that was to replace the 'old soccer' of the NSL. The NSL, although home to a number of community-based clubs with long, proud histories and the breeding ground for a lot of great players, suffered from a chronic lack of 'mainstream' interest and a lack of professionalism. Moreover, the NSL fought an ongoing battle against perceptions that it was riven with corruption, ethnic nationalism, violence, and hooliganism (these perceptions were in some cases well founded, but it certainly wasn't the battleground that it's sometimes made out to be).

In one fell swoop, the FFA relegated South Melbourne, Marconi, Melbourne Knights et al to the bumpy suburban pitches of the state leagues, replacing them with shiny new family-friendly franchises boasting crisp colour schemes and snappy names concocted by sharp-suited marketing men in boardrooms. Whether or not you think this is a good thing, it certainly made an impact: the new league got off to a flyer. Big crowds of football fans and curious folks wondering what the fuss was all about witnessed a great first season, lit up by the abilities of the superstar Dwight Yorke and the fantastic skills of young Australians like Carle and Carney. A rampant Adelaide took out the league, but Sydney's class shone through in the grand final.

"Aloisi, for a spot in the World Cup..."

There's one date that will go down forever as the day Australian football came of age (if you will pardon the cliche): November 16, 2005. In front of 80,000 at the Olympic stadium in Sydney, Australia beat Uruguay in a penalty shootout to qualify for its first world cup since 1974. I don't think anyone who witnessed it will ever forget the emotion of the evening: Bresciano's first half goal, Schwarzer's massive penalty saves and Aloisi's historic kick (and the subsequent shirtless run up the sidelines, accompanied by Craig Foster's hysterical commentary - 'JOHNNY WARREN!!!! JOHNNY WARREN!!!!!). I got so excited I broke a lamp shade. There was such an incredible outpouring of emotion around the country - that night, more than any other, cemented football in the Australian psyche.

And then on to the tournament itself. After the buildup there was always the threat that the Socceroos would have a disappointing time of it at Germany '06. We all know how it unfolded, but let's indulge our nostalgia once more. There was the stirring comeback in the 3-1 win against Japan, with Cahill scoring our nation's first (and second) World Cup goal. Next was a respectable 2-0 loss to Brazil; then (to my mind) the pinnacle of the tournament - the momentous game against Croatia that saw Moore's penalty, Kalac's goalkeeping howler, Kewell's equaliser, red cards (including Graham Poll's bizarre and belated send off of Josip Simunic on a third yellow), and of course the final whistle, which amongst the chaos on the pitch signified that Australia had made it out of the group phase. The next match proved to be the Socceroos' last of the tournament - after holding the eventual winners (admittedly down to ten men) for most of the match Neill conceded an injury-time penalty, and the rest was history.

After Germany: the New World Order

Less than two months after the Socceroos' qualification for the Cup, Australian football passed another vitally important milestone. On January 1, 2006, Australia officially became a member of the Asian Football Confederation. This has enormous implications: at a national level Australia now competes against other powerful AFC countries for a berth in future world cups, rather than in a series of hugely uneven qualifiers against tiny Oceanian island nations culminating in one big playoff against the likes of Iran or Uruguay. We can play in the Asian Cup, and there's a very good chance that we will host one in the not-too-distant future.

The move to Asia is also a massive step forward for Australian domestic football, in that A-League clubs now compete in the Asian Champions League against the best clubs from powerful Asian nations like Japan, China, South Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. So far Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide have played and acquitted themselves well in the ACL, with Adelaide's fantastic winning streak seeing them into the final of the most recent competition. This year it will be Newcastle and Central Coast representing Australia on Asia's biggest stage.

A-League - Onward and Upward

Australian football was given a huge boost by the Socceroos' World Cup campaign, and this new wave of confidence in the game was reflected in big crowds and growing interest in the A-League in its second and third seasons. Melbourne dominated the league in 2006-07, playing excellent football in front of record crowds at their new home in the Telstra Dome. Their Premiership was backed up by a Grand Final win, in which a rampant Victory lived up to their name with a 6-0 demolition of the outclassed and overwhelmed Reds in front of 50,000 fans.

The 2007-08 season was a much more close-run affair, with the eventual Premiers Central Coast fighting tooth and nail until the end of the season for their title. They came up against Newcastle in the Championship match, and the Novocastrians took home the toilet seat after scoring the only goal of the game.

Crowds were well up across the board in 2007-08, but they have come back to earth a little this season. Signs are good coming into the business end of proceedings, though, with most clubs' attendences picking up again, which looks good for the future. The quality on the pitch this season has been of a pretty good standard; teams have been getting better at recruiting foreign players and identifying youth talent, and there's been some great football played.

Philip Micallef wrote a great little article, entitled 'How we're winning the battle for respect', on The World Game site recently. In it, he recaps some of the major achievements of Australian football during 2008, including among other things the expansion of the A-League, the inception of the National Youth League and the W-League, and the success of the Socceroos and Adelaide United.

As Micallef identifies, though, the greatest progress that football in Australia has made is in its ongoing quest for mainstream acceptance and respect. The profile of football has never been better; here in Adelaide it seems that the image of the game has really turned a corner. United are just as legitimate a topic for water-cooler conversations as are the Crows or the Australian cricket team - it seems to me that support for the game is here to stay. Fans have been 'rusted on', as it were - no longer do people come to games as a curious novelty, but instead because they are genuine supporters of the club.

The Crawford Report was published a mere six years ago, but the changes that the game has gone through since then are extraordinary. It's been a great ride, but it's far from over yet. One of the best things about being a football fan in Australia is that we have no idea what's around the corner. But keep it coming.

Long live the revolution!

Adelaide 2-0 Newcastle

2009-01-10T23:49:00.005+10:30

Magic from Barbiero and Pantelis, as always courtesy of JayFCAK47

The great thing about this game wasn't the scoreline, although getting the win and three points is vital now at the pointy end of the season. What really impressed me was the way United went about the win. Despite having only three days to recover from the disappointing loss against Melbourne, United came out with good intent. All night they looked comfortable on the ball, and were prepared to patiently knock it around in search for an opening.

And the opening came, soon enough - Fabian Barbiero received the ball outside the box and made a beautiful diagonal run towards the byline, deftly skipping past two defenders and then a third with an instinctive drop of the shoulder. From an impossible angle he let loose with his left foot, smashing the ball past Covic at his near post and into the back of the net. One of the goals of the season, for sure.

The icing on the cake came late in the second half, with Pantelis (a surprising starter for this game, given his lengthy injury layoff) running on to a diagonal ball from Barbiero and hitting a first time shot on his unfavoured right foot. In off the post - 2-0. Game over.

In this game I think Adelaide played their best football since the 1-0 loss to Gamba. Some might say that this was helped along by the fact that the Jest were a complete rabble, but then again, so were Sydney and United certainly didn't play convincingly against them at Adelaide Oval. There were some real positives to come out of this game - a good performance by Younis as the target man in a 4-5-1 formation, great running and movement from Reid, Barbiero and Pantelis in midfield, and most of all a willingness and ability to pass the ball around and properly construct attacking moves. On a more negative note, Cornthwaite was shaky at times in defence, and unfortunately Mullen came off at half time with a knee injury.

Mullen's injury, however, paved the way for a good 45-minute spell for retiring legend Michael Valkanis - this game was billed as his testimonial match, and he didn't disappoint, with a solid and assured display. We'll miss you Micky! After the game he did a lap of honour with his two kids, it was nice to be able to give him a good send-off. But with Mullen out he may yet see more game time this season.

One more thing that I should mention is the crowd. It was a very decent 13,500 (and in fact looked larger than that), and there was a great festive atmosphere throughout the match. This was helped by a big group of African guys standing in the north end and drumming all game - it was fantastic to hear a bit of rhythm at Hindmarsh (no offence, of course, to the usual north end drummers). Keep it up, lads!

So, bring on Wednesday and hopefully another big crowd at the Marsh - this game against Queensland will be enormous for both teams and the way the Clogs have been playing lately it should be very exciting.

Oh, I almost forgot - Gary Van Egmond gets the inaugural 'schmuck of the month' award, for putting on a young kid (Jesse Pinto) as a sub, then subbing him off again 15 minutes later for no apparent reason, then slagging off his performance. Great work, Dutchie, no wonder none of your players want to stay at the club. Worst. Title. Defence. Ever.

More wild transfer speculation

2009-01-07T21:17:00.005+10:30

So, here's a bit of juice:

Gold Coast United is very close to signing PSV's Jason Culina as its marquee player for next season. Plan B? Mile Sterjovski from Derby County. It would be fantastic if either of those two - World Cup players and current Socceroos - came back to Australia. Or both. I can actually see Sydney making a play for the Sterj if Culina goes to the Coast - they have new owners that hopefully have a bit of ambition, and goddammit Sydney need some good players. As for Culina, he'd tear this league apart. We know what a good playmaker can do for a team: see Juninho or Corica at Sydney, Fred or Hernandez at Melbourne, Miller at Queensland, Amaral at Perth, Carle at Newcastle.... the list goes on... Sarkies at Adelaide (thanks, you've been a great crowd)....

Adelaide is reportedly interested in Carlos Hernandez as a replacement for Diego. That would require paying a hefty transfer fee to his Costa Rican side (he's on loan to Melbourne). But apparently there's also plenty of interest from South Korean and Qatari clubs, as well as Melbourne themselves. Me, I think Hernandez would be worthy of our marquee spot. One of the best players in the league, a current international, with a great football brain, in a spot we need to strengthen. Yes please.

Also, Sydney FC are making the sort of noises that would suggest that John Aloisi will be out the door very soon. And Adelaide are sniffing around. Hmmm. Could be OK if he regained his Central Coast form. Or it could be the worst decision ever made since Archduke Ferdinand decided it would be nice to see Sarajevo in June. Probably won't happen anyway, but it's fun to speculate.

Melbourne 1-0 Adelaide

2009-01-07T19:52:00.004+10:30

The dagger through Adelaide's hearts

There were question marks over Adelaide's performance on the weekend, but the Reds did what was necessary to get across the line against Sydney, an increasingly dysfunctional rabble lurching through their worst ever season. Given the resilience that Adelaide have shown this season, and their ability to step up in big matches, I thought that they would be able to step up a notch in their next game, the midweek catchup match against Melbourne Victory.

Melbourne are a very different team to Sydney, though. Facing up to their nemeses in front of 27,000 in the Tardistan National Stadium was always going to be a tough ask for Adelaide. It's no secret that Melbourne have had the wood on Adelaide since that fateful Grand Final thumping; playing them gives our boys the heebie jeebies at the best of times. This season, despite leading the league going into this game, United had already lost twice to the Tards.

And last night was no different. Adelaide started the game off looking sluggish, disjointed and afraid to meaningfully commit to attacking. And, of course, Melbourne took advantage, launching waves of attack into the Reds' half. Adelaide responded negatively, sitting deep in defence to try and nullify the always-dangerous Allsopp and Thompson and attempting to man-mark Hernandez out of the game. The porky Costa Rican is way too clever for that - he still managed to play some great passes and got past his man with nice tight ball control on occasion. Having Reid trying to mark (and kick) Hernandez out of the game effectively left Adelaide short of attacking options in midfield - we are severely missing the positional sense, poise and vision of Diego Walsh. Reid, Barbiero, Sarkies - none of them are playmakers in the same class.

At the break we were told that Viddie put a rocket up them at half time. To no avail, really, because the team came out playing the same dross that was served up in the first half. Bad touches, bad passes, players misreading each other, long balls to an isolated Cristiano (how many times do we have to say it?) But, of course, this is only half the story. Melbourne were very. very good. Their fullbacks (especially Kemp) had the out-of-sorts Cassio and Dodd in their pockets all game. Vargas and Muscat owned the backline. The midfield were full of endeavour - Celeski had a great game - and linked well with the forward line.

So, inevitably, Melbourne got a goal. An unmarked Ward with a confident header off an outswinging Hernandez corner. And, inevitably, Adelaide started playing football, finally finding a bit of attacking spark, but their play was in the end far too predictable for such a well-organised defence. Vidmar may have taken too negative an approach to formation and tactics, but the Reds have played well in the past with a very similar-looking lineup. More than anything, the players just looked mentally and physically shagged, not at all up to the challenge of taking on their biggest rivals in a match that may end up determining this year's Premiers. Exceptions to this were Galekovic and Ognenovski, both of whom had fantastic games. And both of whom will most likely not be at the club next season. Dang.

So, where to now? Melbourne are looking sharp and full of confidence; to get back to the top of the table and clinch the Premiership and ACL spot Adelaide will really need to make the most of their game in hand. Next up - Newcastle at Hindmarsh, which should really be points in the bag but I'm not really all that confident going by last night's showing. Buck up, lads.

Adelaide 2-0 Sydney

2009-01-04T15:12:00.007+10:30

A balmy summer evening at Adelaide Oval. Lovely.

In what seems to now be an annual event, the Reds hosted Sydney FC at a ground known more for its association with summer whites and willow bats than football - the picturesque Adelaide Oval. All up 23,002 people made their way through the gates, took up positions in the stands or on the grassy hills, bought a beer or three, and settled down to watch the match.

The first thing that should be said about the match is that I didn't see it very well. As the picture above indicates, I was a fair way away from the pitch and watching from a pretty shallow angle, so most of the time I had a bit of trouble working out what the figures dancing around in the middle of the oval were actually doing. Adelaide Oval, for all its charm, convenience to the city, and ability to hold more people than Hindmarsh, is patently not a football ground.

As such, I can't really give much of an actual analysis of the game, other than that the distant blurry figures in red scored twice, through Cassio and Alemao, and the distant blurry figures in blue and white failed to score, despite getting on top of the game in the second half (until Alemao's goal, anyway). I think that the result was due more to the fact that Sydney are complete and utter pants, as opposed to any sort of quality from Adelaide. Our defence generally did well, though, aside from an out-of-sorts Jamieson.

I don't really want to whinge after a two goal win, but is it too much to ask for us to play two up front? I thought Cristiano was having a pretty decent game until his substitution for Younis, who was a little ineffective. Surely he could have stayed on the pitch - those two haven't had much game time together and I would like to see what they could have done. On a brighter note, it looked like the ex-Dead Ball Specialist TM had another good game, just to prove me wrong - maybe he is worth holding on to for next season. Perhaps being relieved of his free kick duties by Paul Reid has taken a bit of pressure off, who knows.

Generally the atmosphere around the ground was pretty lacklustre (or so it seemed from where I was sitting - apparently there was a bit more noise and energy up at the scoreboard end ), and this wasn't helped much by the shades of beige being dished up from both sides on the pitch. Things got much better towards the end of the game though, there was a bit of chanting that the whole crowd got into, and a Mexican wave started up that got a bit more noise going. Purists may scoff at the Mexican wave in a football context, but I don't think there's anything wrong with something that gets the crowd making noise and involving themselves in the game and the spectacle - no different to any other organised show of support, really, when you think about it. All up it was a pretty good night out. Definitely nothing on Hindmarsh in terms of view, atmosphere and pitch quality, but everyone (bar the small knot of Sydney fans) left happy with the result and in good spirits.

An enthusiastic Reds fan celebrates the win in Rundle Mall

Adelaide Oval - pros

Location, location, location

Proximity to post-match eating and drinking venues
Non-football fans know where it is and how to get there

Big capacity

Lovely grassy hills to sit on and sip beer

It really is a beautiful ground

Cons

It's a cricket ground

The pitch is too far from the crowd

The viewing angle is too shallow

Very low-key atmosphere

The number of non-football-savvy people that are just there to drink and yell at the 'umpire'

The pitch might be a batsman's paradise, and provide decent bounce for the quicks, but it's shit for football

It's not Hindmarsh - we lose some of our home-ground advantage

Changing venues is potentially disruptive to the team

Needless to say I much prefer to watch AUFC play at Hindmarsh. Adelaide fans are spoiled by the fact that we get to watch our team play in probably the best football stadium in Australia - just about every seat has a good view, and you're very close to the action. But as occasional events I think these Adelaide Oval matches are a good thing. People come that don't normally go to Reds matches, and the team gets a nice little publicity boost leading up to the game. It's a bit off a trade-off but I think it helps to keep football in the front of peoples' minds. Big crowds are good financially and they also keep the stadium debate on the boil.

If anything, comparing the Hindmarsh and Adelaide Oval experiences really drives home the need for football-friendly stadiums. Let's hope that if a new stadium is built in this city, it's designed with football in mind.

Cassio & Alemao ending Sydney's season

New Years' Wish List

2009-01-01T21:01:00.007+10:30

Happy 2009, everyone. Well, the Middle East might be on the path to self-destruction and the world economy is going down quicker than a hooker on the Titanic, but, on the upside, Adelaide United are doing pretty well and the A-League is heating up on the run in to the finals. But, there's always room for improvement. So, here's a list of all the things I would like to see in Australian football in 2009:

1. Adelaide romp in the A-League premiership, then crush Melbourne 6-0 in front of a capacity crowd at Hindmarsh to take the Championship (I know this is wishful thinking: if Adelaide win the rights to host the Grand Final it would probably be held at Footy Park). They therefore qualify for entry into the 2010 Asian Champions League.

2. Central Coast Mariners have a good run in the ACL, including beating Newcastle in the quarter final in the biggest match the F3 derby has ever seen. Sasho Petrovski and Joel Griffiths are both red carded for simultaneously kicking each other in the testicles.

3. The State Government agree to go halvsies with Adelaide United in a 30,000 capacity rectangular stadium on the North Terrace railyards, able to expand to 50,000 should Australia win the 2018/2022 World Cup bid. The design of the stadium is lauded as a truly iconic and revolutionary building (OK now I've really lost the plot, time to get back to reality Bill!)

4. Gold Coast and North Queensland debut in the A-League with healthy crowds and plenty of excitement. North Queensland defy the odds by not sitting in stone motherless last spot at the end of the year, while Gold Coast make headlines by hosting the inaugural 'XXXX Gold Annual Beach Soccer XXXXtreme SuperBattle' during Schoolies - an invite-only beach football tournament also featuring LA Galaxy, Sydney FC, and cameos from a host of washed-up ex players, TV personalities, celebrities and boy band members. Paris Hilton puts in a decent showing and is signed by Sydney on a guest contract.

5. Several Australian players return from Europe to finish their career in the A-League. Mark Viduka signs for Adelaide after carefully weighing up an offer from Melbourne Victory. At their next home game, Melbourne fans conduct a protest by standing up in silence with their backs turned and unfurling a giant banner stating "Merrick Out!" Unfortunately the banner does not have the desired effect as it is facing the wrong way; Merrick signs a new 10-year deal with the club, who also pick up young Botswanan striker !Tuo Kcirrem on loan.

6. The Socceroos do well in their Asian Cup and World Cup qualifiers. Adelaide representatives like Ognenovski, Jamieson and Dodd feature heavily in the A-League based squads.

7. Crowds and TV ratings go up to such an extent that the NRL, ARU and AFL join forces in an attempt to defeat the scourge of the round ball. A new hybrid game, RealAussieProEggball, is quickly developed and forced into school curricula. It takes off around the world as well, with over two billion registered participants in South Africa, Ireland and the Federated Republic of Micronesia alone. The Toyota Collingwood Sharkies are crowned as the inaugural RAPE champions after a thrilling game that sees them upset the Queensland Bundy Bears by a score of 13 1/2 (103) for 16 to 23.12 4/5 for a gallon. The crowd goes wild when Troy Fackwit nails a last-minute minor convulsion.

More tidbits

2008-12-31T19:24:00.004+10:30

- ex-Central Coast Mariners keeper Matthew Nash has been signed on a 4-week contract as injury cover for Mark Birighitti.

- Sasa Ognenovski has reportedly agreed to terms with a K-League side, but Adelaide United is holding out as they are unhappy with the transfer fee that has been offered. Oggy is also apparently on the radar as a potential Macedonian national team player - time for Pim Verbeek to lock in the big fella for an Asian Cup qualifier, I think.

- Angelo Costanzo is very close to signing with Newcastle Jets, and is unhappy with being dropped from AUFC's first team. He refused to play for the Youth League team last weekend, which is not really the right sort of message for a senior player to be giving. My advice - suck it up, Ange, start showing what you can do again because the team needs you.

- Travis Dodd, Diego and Eugene Galekovic are also being bandied about as potential targets for foreign (particularly Asian) clubs. Let's see what happens. Any of these would be disappointing losses but, hey, money talks.

Anyway, I'm off to get hideously drunk now, so see you in the new year!

Final whistle for Ago

2008-12-31T18:21:00.008+10:30

Another day, another Reds retirement. Paul Agostino, Adelaide's marquee player over the past two seasons, has declared that he will hang up his boots at the end of this A-League campaign.

Based on his history of injuries and limited game time in a red shirt, a more cynical man than me might say "Agostin-who? Don't let the door hit your arse and fracture your lower spine on the way out". This is understandable, to an extent: Ago joins a long and ignoble list of high-profile signings that have flopped in the A-League, from Zdrilic to the Other Wrong Aloisi (in his Sydney days at least) to Jardel to Zura to Milicevic. This sort of characterisation is very unfair to the man known to the blue half of Munich as 'Fussballgott', though - when fit, he is an extremely good player and a great asset to Adelaide's forward line. He obviously has a great passion for playing and wears the AUFC shirt with pride.

Unfortunately, of course, and through no fault of his own, Ago hasn't been fit very often at all during his time with Adelaide. His body is telling him that it's time to go, and he has chosen to leave the game on his own terms, with the grace and professionalism that has marked his time on the pitch. We didn't see the best of him at Adelaide, but he has had an illustrious playing career including stints at West Adelaide in the NSL, Young Boys and Yverdon in Switzerland, Bristol City in England, and ten years in the German Bundesliga 1 and 2 with 1860 Munich, where he became a fan favourite, before coming home to South Australia. In his prime he was a regular Socceroo, with twenty appearances and nine goals for the national team.

Australian football will lose a true gentleman of the game when Agostino retires - we can only hope that he is able to get back on the park to bang in a few more for the Reds before the curtain falls on his career.

Valkanis to retire; rumours from Rossco

2008-12-27T17:44:00.005+10:30

The end of this season will mark the end of the road for Adelaide United stalwart Michael Valkanis. It's been coming for a while - this season he's been behind Ognenovski, Cornthwaite and Costanzo in the centreback pecking order, and most of his gametime has been in the Youth League - but that doesn't make his impending retirement any less sad. He's an ex-captain of the club, and is the last player remaining from United's sole NSL season. So, here's to you Micky V, thanks for the memories of what was a great career. Like Carl Veart before him he'll still have a presence at United, though, carrying out duties in some sort of coaching role. I hope that he's able to take the field in another A-League match this season - it would be nice to be able to farewell him properly at Hindmarsh.

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Last night, Ross Aloisi hinted, implied and clumsily alluded to a couple of interesting things during his commentary in the Perth-Adelaide game:
- Ognenovski will move to an Asian club, and not a Japanese one.
- Adelaide will sign a German defender to take his place.
Let's see whether the Wrong Aloisi (a misleading title these days) is on the money, or whether he's on a bizarre cocktail of booze, drugs and readily available household chemicals instead.

Here are some other non-Aloisi-inspired rumours for your titillation, as well:
-Ange Costanzo to Newcastle Jets.
-ex-Red Fred Agius to North Queensland.
This will be a very interesting off-season indeed.

Perth 0-1 Adelaide

2008-12-27T11:01:00.006+10:30

This was probably not a match for the purists, but it was definitely entertaining. There was plenty of running and attacking from both sides in an end-to-end encounter in front of Perth's largest crowd since the first season of the A-League.

Perth's fans have had a lot to get excited about this season, with Dadi and Rukavytsya providing an excellent strike partnership with creative support from the likes of Pellegrino, Trinidad and the now-injured Amaral in midfield. This game also saw the debut of former Dutch international Viktor Sikora, who showed enough in half an hour to suggest that he'll be a very important player for the purple shirted ones in the run in to the finals.

The night was one of missed opportunities for the Glory, with Dadi particularly wasteful of some good chances. Adelaide, who moved to a 4-3-3 with Younis and Dodd supporting Cristiano up front and Cassio at left back once Jamieson came off injured, got the only goal of the night when Sarkies latched on to a poor Perth clearance after some neat buildup play from Adelaide. In fact Kristian Sarkies, despite my merciless rubbishing of his form a little while ago, was a standout performer throughout the whole game. He actually ran at defenders, passed well, and played with some purpose - I had heard rumours that the kid could play football but until this match I never believed them.

The goal:

The other high point in Adelaide's showing was a superb save in the last minute of injury time from Eugene Galekovic. Harnwell, only a couple of metres out from goal, nodded down a cross and for a moment it looked like a certain goal - but Gene Genie reacted immediately and dived down low to his left, dragging the ball from the goal line onto the post and to safety. Probably the best A-League save I've ever seen. You can see it towards the end of this Fox Sports match report video.

A neutral supporter would have been slightly disappointed with this game, because on the balance of play Perth certainly deserved at least a point from it, especially in front of such an impressive crowd. But I'm not a neutral supporter, so Perth can get knotted for all I care. A great way to cap off the year for Adelaide, and a win that holds us in good stead for the Adelaide Oval match against Sydney next weekend. As for winning the A-League premiership... we can dare to dream.

Happy Festivus

2008-12-24T20:23:00.009+10:30

...the holiday for the rest of us!

There's beautiful weather here in Adelaide, I've finished work for the year, and there's a great round of A-League matches upon us this weekend:

Newcastle v Central Coast - The now-traditional 'airing of the grievances' in the F3 Derby sees bottom-placed Jets try to regain some respectability.

Perth v Adelaide -Two sides in excellent form contend in 'feats of strength', with Adelaide aiming to consolidate top spot and Perth staking a claim for their first A-League finals appearance.

Melbourne v Sydney - A clash of the big city clubs at the Dome, but Melbourne's form has taken a recent dive and Sydney are downright dire. If the Sky Blues can recover to make anything of their season from here, it will truly be a Festivus miracle.

Wellington v Queensland - Yellow Fever give every Nix home game a Festivus atmosphere, but this one should be another great game, with both sides in some pretty decent form.

Here is the table as it currently stands:

Top of the league, bitches.

So gather around the Festivus pole, pour yourself a celebratory balloon of cognac, and put your feet up safe in the knowledge that all is right in the world.

Marquee Mark for Jets

2008-12-24T15:35:00.012+10:30

Mark Milligan is not a bad player at all. As Olyroos captain he was integral to Australia's Olympics qualification, and he was outstanding in his first year at Sydney FC. He has great talent at an A-League level, no doubt. But is he a 'marquee' player? In his own mind, he might well be. His playing career seems to have stalled, though: after leaving Sydney FC he jetted off to Europe to try his luck, trialled with several clubs, and failed to win a contract. He also played (poorly) in the ill-fated Asian Cup and Olympics tournaments, finally returning to Australia with his tail between his legs to take a playing contract with Newcastle Jets.

Milligan's behaviour has not exactly been marquee-worthy, either, with the young defender at times missing training sessions for the Olyroos and Sydney, and eventually going AWOL from his club.

So, the news that Milligan has signed on as Newcastle's marquee player for the rest of the season, filling the position vacated by Ecuadorian striker Edmundo Zura, comes as a little bit of a surprise. Surely a young guy who has played a few games for the Socceroos, admittedly a decent player but apparently with somewhat of an attitude problem, is not quite what the FFA had in mind when they designed the 'marquee' concept. A marquee player is supposed to be well known, marketable, and charismatic. Like Dwight Yorke or Juninho, he's supposed to be the sort of player whose exceptional skill and presence put 'bums on seats', as they say in the classics.

Mark Milligan is not this person. Neither is Jade North, who signed a contract to be North Queensland's inaugural marquee but has since accepted another offer to play in Korea. You can't really blame the clubs for making these sorts of moves, though - it is an opportunity to exempt one good player from the salary cap and therefore keep them in the side. In Newcastle's case, it is a way to keep Milligan on this season after the expiry of his seven-game guest stint. In North Queensland's case, Jade North was seen as an important element to the club's attempt to engage Indigenous people in the region.

The problem is that there is a discrepancy between the FFA's archetypical conception of a marquee player, and the reality, which sees marquee status applied to fringe Socceroos, overweight has-beens (yes, Jardel, I'm talking about you), and South Americans signed from DVDs. And it is the FFA that make the final call.

There are a few ways that this could be fixed. The first option is for the FFA to get far more stringent about who is afforded marquee status. This would mean that only top-quality, highly marketable players would make the cut. The problem with this is that some of the more successful of the league's marquee players (like Archie Thompson or Shengqing Qu) would not qualify, and that there would still be failures along the lines of John Aloisi at Sydney.

Another way forward would be to change the concept to one of simply a 'cap-exempt player' - someone who, for whatever reason and at the discretion of the club, is paid outside the salary cap. This would give clubs the freedom to carve out their own approach, and decide whether their money is better spent on an expensive, flashy Juninho or a reliable, relatively cheap North or Milligan. I like this approach because it puts the onus on the clubs, rather than the federation, to get things right - I've written before about the need for the FFA to decentralise and divest some of their powers to individual clubs.

Other options could involve adding a second marquee spot, abandoning the marquee concept altogether and significantly increasing the salary cap, or scrapping the salary cap and allowing clubs free reign over their spending. There are definitely good arguments for each, but in a newly-formed league with public interest in each club fluctuating so much relative to results I think it's essential that some sort of mechanism remains to keep clubs on a reasonably even keel.

Regardless of how it's done, though, I do think that clubs need to be a bit more adventurous when recruiting marquees. We go to the football to see players that inspire, that have a bit of panache and flair, not slightly-above-average defenders with a good positional sense (of course these players can be just as important, but you know what I mean). Anyway, good luck to Milligan at Newcastle - even though the club is clearly taking the piss with regards to the idea of a 'marquee' player, the odds are good that he'll be the best one they've ever had.

Al Ahly 1-0 Adelaide

2008-12-20T14:45:00.005+10:30

Cristiano's million dollar strike

This game was only televised after SBS' last-minute backflip, which came as a result of a flood of complaints by fans irate at the network's initial refusal to show it due to other programming commitments. As it was, it was only shown on the HD channel, meaning I had to watch it at my girlfriend's parents' place and missed out on the first ten minutes (which were, from all accounts, by far the best ten minutes of the game from an Adelaide perspective). Disgraceful from the network that calls itself the 'home of football' and was once lovingly referred to as 'Sex Before Soccer'. Well, they were going to shaft us on the soccer, and the naughty foreign movies aren't even as good as they used to be.

Anyway, onto the football. This match was a long, long way from being a classic. Adelaide started off brightly and Cristiano scored an absolute cracker from long range in the seventh minute, but for most of the game the Reds' performance was extremely ordinary. The real shift in the match occurred midway through the first half, when Salley came on for the injured Diego - from that point on, Al Ahly had control of the midfield. Fullbacks Jamieson and Mullen were ordinary, and Alemao played at a pedestrian pace, showing very little of the creativity that he is capable of. Younis played the whole match and provided some muscle up front, but generally didn't do all that much to convince me of his credentials as a first-choice striker.

But the negative picture I've painted so far is, of course, not the full story. The fact remains that little Adelaide United knocked off the six-time African champions, who have won the Egyptian league 33 times, to clinch fifth spot in the Club World Cup. And they did this with a matchday squad missing three of their first-choice players, Cassio, Dodd and Barbiero, and with the equally important Diego limping off the pitch after 24 minutes. Two of the substitutes were Michael Marrone and Osama Malik, Youth Leaguers who have never even taken the field in the A-League.

So, Adelaide can be proud of their against-the-odds victory, and they will come back to Australia having declared themselves to the world after two wins and a very respectable loss. And even after all their travels in the ACL and CWC, they are leading the A-League with a game in hand.

Hats off, boys.

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Gamba Osaka 3-5 Manchester United

The second game shown by SBS on Thursday evening was the semi final between Adelaide's Asian nemesis, Gamba Osaka, and the world's richest and most famous club, Manchester United.

Gamba were very, very impressive. They pressed well, held their structure and played much better football through the midfield than the Mancs. Their passing and movement off the ball was an absolute pleasure to watch. Manchester United's tactics mostly involved pumping long diagonal balls to the best player in the world, C. Ronaldo (and why not!).

United were generally better than Gamba man for man (unsurprisingly, given that they are rich enough to buy basically whoever they want), and Gamba's back line struggled against the quality of Man U's set pieces and the skills of Ronaldo and two-goal super sub Rooney, but I thought that the Osakans were tactically the better side and played some beautiful attacking football, despite going down 5-3 in the end.

Endo was man of the match, for mine. He pulled all the strings for Gamba, and would not look out of place in the midfield at a top-level Italian or Spanish club.

In a way, I'm kind of glad that Adelaide missed out on playing this match. We would have parked the team bus in front of our goal and still let in four or five, without getting anywhere near scoring ourselves. After watching the way Gamba and other J.League sides play (Urawa v Gamba in the ACL semi-final was one of the best matches I've seen), this is what I want Australian football to be aiming for. And the J.League teams, unlike the big European sides, are mostly made up of home-grown players, products of local youth academies. It will take a long time, but if Australia ever gets to the standard of player development and domestic league quality that we are seeing from Japan, I'll be very happy.

Australia cracks top 30

2008-12-18T16:21:00.003+10:30

No, this is not a reference to the fact that Gabriella Cilmi's 'Warm This Winter' has debuted at number 21 on the UK singles charts. Though it might well be, because that is certainly the case, if you were wondering. What I'm talking about, though, is the Socceroo's surge nine spots up the FIFA world ranking to 28, their highest-ever position:

The FIFA rankings are flawed in many ways. But they do highlight the significance of moving into the Asian Football Confederation, probably the greatest single step that Australian football has made recently. Rather than flogging a succession of tiny island nations 10-0 then losing to Uruguay or Iran, we now have a real World Cup qualifying campaign that involves a succession of tough matches against proper opposition, which is reflected in our ranking. And Australian club teams are now able to mix it with the best in Asia through involvement in the Asian Champions League. Well done Roos, and long may our involvement with Asia continue.

Centre of Excellence for Stinky Seamen

2008-12-17T19:49:00.010+10:30

The jewel in Gosford's crown.. their three-sided stadium.

The Central Coast Mariners, in a joint venture with the Wyong RSL, have decided to build a $40 million football complex, including training pitches, a 'boutique' stadium for National Youth League and women's W-League matches, an 120-room accommodation block, offices, a gymnasium, aquatic centre, conference venue and a sports science block.

Not content with being the league leaders in junior development and local community involvement, these fishy bastards are once again showing the rest of the league how to run a football club. Here's a link to the Marinators fan forum, where there's a bit more information about what exactly this project will involve.

Once again the Mariners are thinking outside the square and pushing the envelope, engaging their stakeholders and maximising their key deliverables, or something like that. It's good to see an A-League club looking into the future and thinking: 'Ooh yes, that'd be nice', then doing something in an effort to achieve that vision - unlike the Sydney FC or Newcastle Jets method, which appears to involve sacking people one by one and then desperately rolling the dice on unfit 'stars' until the team starts winning.

This development is able to take place as a result of investment by the Mariners Trust, a newly formed entity controlled by Lyall Gorman, Peter Turnbull and Sheffield United owner Kevin McCabe that holds a controlling stake in the club. It looks like these guys are putting their money on the line and developing a real long-term vision for Mariners. Good on them, and I hope it works out well - they're the best in the league off the park, and on the park they're actually starting to play some very good football. Good for the league and good for their standing in the community.

Spagnuolo to North Queensland

2008-12-16T11:48:00.006+10:30

Well, it seems The Flying Mullet will continue to fly in the A-League next year, with the new Townsville-based North Queensland Fury securing his signature. The poor lad will have to cope with, among other things:

-Playing in the sapping heat and humidity of the wet season in the tropics;

-Being coached by Ian Ferguson; and

-Living in a town known more for its box jellyfish than its culture.

Good luck to him, and if there's anywhere that he can really stake a claim for a spot in the starting 11, it's NQ.

Gamba Osaka 1-0 Adelaide

2008-12-16T11:10:00.003+10:30

Match highlights

Well, it was a loss, but definitely a noble one in comparison to the meek capitulation away to Gamba in the first leg of the ACL final. Adelaide played very well from the outset, and in fact, despite the eventual result, it was some of the best football I've ever seen from Adelaide. Despite the fact that Diego and Cassio were still obviously far from 100%.

Viddie went back to the formation that Adelaide used so effectively against the Phoenix, and got Adelaide playing exactly how they should, given the players at theur disposal. Endo got on the end of a swift counterattacking move to get the only goal of the game, but Adelaide definitely had their chances, most of which belonged to Dodd: a shot just wide after a surging run on the counter, a looping header that hit the underside of the crossbar, and a glancing header just wide with 30 seconds left in the match. Cassio also had a near miss with a goalmouth scramble, and subs Younis had a decent long-range pop at goal near the death.

There were plenty of positives, including Jamieson's performance (once again) and the general hunger that the team showed, which was a vast improvement from the game against Waitakere. Our centre midfield of Diego, Reid and Barbiero were a little off their game, though, and failed to really contain Gamba's obvious class in this part of the park.

The only real criticism I have of Vidmar's performance is that Hitman Younis should have come on much earlier than he did. Although he hasn't had much time on the field he's been starting to show a bit of what he can do. In this match he injected a presence and hunger into the forward line that was sadly missing from Cristiano.

The substitution of Osama Malik at the expense of Cassio was an interesting one. Interesting, because it speaks volumes that Viddie was willing to take a punt on an 18-year-old that hasn't even played an A-League game, putting him on in a high-pressure environment in front of 40,000 mostly hostile fans rather than going for the more experienced Spagnuolo or Sarkies. And Malik held his own well enough with a couple of forward runs, a long-range crack at goal and no mistakes. Sarkies is goneski at the end of this season, one would think.

So, no game against Manchester United, which is a bit of a disappointment (THAT would have been huge), but a great performance and one that the players can be proud of. Next up: Egypt's own Red Devils, Al Ahly, in the fifth-place playoff.

The immovable brick wall of stupidity

2008-12-14T18:26:00.011+10:30

Gustave Flaubert once said: "Stupidity is something immovable; you can't try to attack it without being broken by it." This is sound advice. This week, Rebecca Wilson came out with yet another anti-football article, this time bleating about the $45-odd million the Federal Government has pumped into the World Cup bid. There are, of course, plenty of sensible arguments against spending such a large amount of money on a sporting event. The problem with Wilson's article is that her arguments demonstrate a (deliberate?) ignorance of the issues at play, and stem instead from an emotional reaction informed by her own obvious dislike of football, the "terrible A-League", and its "fanatical fans".

Thus, I will not get angry - I will yield like a reed in a rapidly-flowing stream, recognising the immovable stupidity of trying to compare a bid for the World Cup with sports like swimming and Rugby League. The difference, of course, is that the World Cup cash promise is not just 'sports funding' - it's a well-thought-out political move to bring the biggest event in the world to Australia. It's our country flexing its muscles in the same way that it did when bidding for the 2000 Olympics. It's an exercise designed to increase Australia's international soft power standings, whether successful or not, and the economy will receive a huge boost if we actually host it. It's a win for the FFA and a considered gamble by the Federal Government. In all likelihood, if this $45 million was not going towards the World Cup bid, it probably wouldn't be spent on sport at all. It's not an either/or proposition.

I'm not angered by the fact that she is complaining about football's relative gains when other sports are missing out on the gravy train. Why? Because, to put it simply, it's an idiotic argument. Football is the most popular participation sport in Australia, by far, and is played by males and females of all ages and backgrounds. For years it has been the ugly sister, missing out while millions have been ploughed into the more fashionable cricket, Aussie Rules, and the Rugbies, as well as Olympic sports like swimming and rowing. Now it's time for a bit of equity, bitches. Why shouldn't football get more than other sports?

I can sense some righteous outrage building in my liver at the moment so I will move onto another point: her decrying of the fact that money will be spent on schmoozing FIFA bosses and other football bigwigs. Well, how else are we going to get the frigging thing? As if Australia didn't do exactly the same thing when bidding for the Sydney Games (and in fact a lot more than that: the words 'Olympics', 'Sydney', 'IOC' and 'corruption' make for an interesting Google search). Does Wilson complain about money being spent on the Olympics? Of course not. Would she rather see the World Cup bid money be put into Rugby League, a sport that is more or less unknown outside NSW and Queensland, the bulk of whose income is sourced from the wallets of pensioners and single mothers through poker machines, and whose 'World Cup' final failed to attract enough interest to fill Suncorp Stadium? Obviously, yes. Maybe I'm being unfair to Rugby League, though: its 'Rapists of Tomorrow' program for juniors has clearly been a successful initiative.

----

At this point I feel like I'm angrily beating my head against the immovable brick wall of stupidity, so I'll stop talking about Rebecca Wilson. Let's turn our attention to Geoff Roach's column in yesterday's Advertiser, shall we:

What the hell has Australian soccer done to deserve a $45 million handout from
Santa Rudd's Federal Government?

That one's easy, we've covered that: a) it's decided to bid for the world's biggest sporting event; and b) it's the most popular participant sport in Australia, bar none. Next.

voluminous stomachs of the conga line of lobbyists and power brokers

zzzzzz. Once again, show me another way to get anything done anywhere without anyone powerful getting a free lunch out of it. C'est impossible.

How does the AFL, the SANFL and the other Australian football codes feel about
such booty being thrown to foreigners, marketers, PR companies and other
assorted leeches rather than Australian kids playing the unique Australian game?

Well, if Mr Roach is representative of their opinions, pretty bitchy and borderline xenophobic, I'd say. An interesting exercise would be to count how many times Roach uses the word 'Australian' in the article. A cynical person might think that the use of the term is a deliberate device to paint football as an immoral foreign pastime indulged in by shady foreigners (probably black ones, too!) as opposed to our pure Australian game played by Australian kids. In Australia. Not that I'm accusing Roach of this: he's just a proud Aussie worried about Pies v Hawks having to be played elsewhere when the MCG's playing surface is invaded by a bunch of diving longhaired pansies and the stands are filled with hooligans that would stab you with a sharpened boat flare as soon as look at you.

It's fair to say that I got a bit angry reading Geoff Roach's article, as well. But there are little touches of stupidity in there alongside the fearmongering and implied racism. Calling the Football Federation of Australia 'FA', for example. It's FFA. FFS. If you're going to write something nasty about an organisation, and it's going to get published in a major newspaper, at least do the minimum amount of research to make sure you don't come off looking like an ignorant fool (like, you know, finding out the name of the organisation in question).

I'm not angry about what these people write. They're biased and ignorant, and they're clutching at straws in an effort to undo all the progress that our sport has made. I'm angry that so many people will get to read their stupid articles. And now I'm angry at myself for having spent the past two hours writing about those stupid assholes. Time for a cup of tea I think.

Adelaide 2-1 Waitakere

2008-12-12T18:37:00.007+10:30

Waitakare United, a bunch of part-timers from West Auckland, weren't given a chance against Adelaide prior to their opening Club World Cup match in Tokyo. Not surprisingly. They were put to the sword 7-0 by Wellington Phoenix, the team that Adelaide humiliated 6-1 last Friday.

As soon as the match kicked off,though, you could tell it was going to be a strange night for Adelaide. The boys in red looked nervy, and when they weren't looking nervy they were just trudging around the pitch with blank expressions on their face. Waitakare, as could probably be expected, parked their whole team in their defensive half, aiming to smother Adelaide and catch them on the break.

Given the unavailability of Cassio, Diego and Ognenovski, Vidmar had toyed a bit with the starting formation. Rather than the 4-3-3 that worked so well against Phoenix, with Cassio and Dodd acting as wide forwards, it was back to the usual conservative 4-2-3-1, with our very own Dead Ball Specialist TM Kristian Sarkies slotting into the midfield in front of Reid and Barbiero, and Spagnuolo taking Cassio's usual spot on the left wing.

It could have worked if the midfield were a bit more willing to show some endeavour and creativity and work to break down the defense, but no - Adelaide ended up just knocking the ball around a lot, owning possession, then getting impatient and lumping it up to an extremely isolated Cristiano. Or streaming down the wings to put a cross into the box. Both options were dealt with, in general, pretty well by the Waitakere backline, featuring 37 year old ex- NZ Knight, Neil Emblen.

We dominated the match, definitely - the corner count at the end was 19-1, and we had plenty of balls into the box. But, still, the Kiwis scored first, with Paul Seaman knocking it in after Galekovic failed to gather a high ball. Rubbish shit fuck shit. Pretty much straight afterwards Mullen equalised with a nice header off a corner, and Trav got the winner with about 10 minutes to go with a glancing header off a Reid free kick. In Dodd We Trust.

This game, on paper, should have been much easier than this. Complete tripe, really, against a bunch of semi-pros. Waitakere actually had some handy young players - Roy Krishna and Dane Vincent in particular - and an equaliser was definitely not outside the realm of possibility.

Adelaide hung on, but just about every player on the pitch (with the notable exceptions of Jamieson and Mullen) were below average. And I never want to see the Dead Ball Specialist TM in a red shirt ever again. It was ACL away-leg-final-esque, except Waitakere just didn't have the ability and experience to punish us like Gamba did.

Hopefully this game provides enough of a kick in the arse for Adelaide to play well in the next match (Gamba Osaka again, of course) and set up a date with Man U. If we get turned over by those Osaka bastards again, I will weep.

Lowy18 - Yes We Can!

2008-12-10T18:09:00.011+10:30

Frank Lowy, like most people in influential positions, splits opinions. You may admire his business acumen, his passion for football and his tendency to throw sacks of his own money into the game. Or you may be wary of his slightly less-than-spotless business history, which includes the odd allegation of corruption, and the conflict of interest that came in his dual role as FFA Chairman and owner of Sydney FC. Or, you could be a raving anti-Semite that thinks that Lowy, like all Jews with money, is behind September 11, the credit crunch, climate change, and teenage pregnancy.

One thing that can't be denied is Lowy's huge influence on the resurgence of Australian football post-Crawford Report. It's hard to imagine that the A-League would have had such an impact were it not for Lowy's vision, investment and guiding hand. Likewise, his presence as a key FFA figure lends enormous weight to Australia's dealings with the wider football world. He's not the richest man in Australia for nothing: he knows how to schmooze and how to cut a good deal.

News came through this week that Frank Lowy has sold his majority stake in Sydney FC to Russian billionaire David Traktovenko, ex-owner of Zenit St. Petersburg, and healthcare magnate Paul Ramsay. Lowy claims that this is an ideal scenario - under Sydney's new ownership they will remain financially secure, Traktovenko and Ramsay will be able to inject new life into the club, and Uncle Frank will be able to devote his time and considerable influence to his other roles within Australian football. Goodbye conflict of interest, hello shady Russian billionaire sugar daddy (now that's not entirely fair: I'm just assuming he's shady by virtue of being a Russian billionaire).

Lowy's a wily old fox, though. What, we were supposed to just think he would slip away from Sydney and just quietly go about his business with the FFA? Of course not. There was something big in the pipeline.

And today, that big thing in the pipeline exposed itself: the Federal Government announced a $46 million commitment to Australia's bid for the 2018 World Cup. Yep, now we're cooking with gas. It's definitely an uphill struggle - we'll be smack in the middle of a new-Cold War wrangle between superpowers like the US, Russia, China and England - but, whatever, Johnny Warren told us so, and who am I to argue with the great man's ghost.

What this pledge means is that the Government really does recognise the importance of football as a political tool and a means through which Australia can project its image to the world. The World Cup is huge, and hosting it would be the biggest thing that has happened in Australia since Donald Bradman came home from Gallipoli and built the Opera House.

Let's hope that this news spurs the SA Government into getting its head out of the sand: $100 million for a few corporate boxes is not going to turn Footy Park into a World Cup-worthy venue. Screw the SANFL (they've been screwing everyone else for years) - Adelaide needs an up-to-date stadium with a rectangular configuration, close to the city, that's worthy of big football matches.

AUFC Chairman Dario Fontanarosa has been talking about the need for a new stadium for a while now. There are rumours that, indeed, the majority of the corporate backing needed for Estadio Dario has been secured. In an ideal world, Adelaide United would be able to build its own 25-30,000 capacity stadium under its own steam, with the Federal & State Governments kicking in the funds to increase it to necessary size for World Cup group matches, should Australia's bid be successful. I'm not holding my breath, but stranger things have happened.

Sick Reds & the Mysterious Mr Tahara

2008-12-09T18:46:00.014+10:30

Adelaide United are now in Japan for the Club World Cup and, according to this article, getting sick. Apparently Ognenovski, Cassio and now Jamieson have caught a nasty virus (although I dispute the assertion that Oggy would just 'catch' a virus: he probably gave it a sporting headstart before chasing the bastard down).

The most interesting part of this article, though, is the fact that Adelaide are having a long hard look at Kyoto Sanga FC and former Japan U-21 striker Yutaka Tahara.

All that can be gleaned from this guy's profile on Wikipedia is that he is tall, hairy, scores a goal every four games or so, and plays for the world's second-most awesome team. They're my favourites in the J.League because some old guys in an izakaya in Kyoto gave me free whisky and beer and told me they were good; plus they wear a rather fetching purple strip. Needless to say, a striker would be a pretty handy addition to the team, so I hope he's decent and Adelaide can lure him with the sort of incentives that he couldn't get at a Japanese club, like pie floaters and a laissez-faire attitude to work.

According to MTT82 on the AdelaideReds forum,

His coach Hisashi Kato refused to play him in summer because he said that Tahara
was addicted to sugary drinks (like Powerade) and he could only get one half of
football out of him. No joke.

That leaves me feeling quite optimistic. Powerade has certainly been known to give people the Energy Edge TM . And a half of football is still a half of football more than we have really ever managed to get out of Ago this season.

Oh, and Adelaide's CWC matches will be shown live on SBS - how good is that? Waitakere on Thursday night should be awesome... Adelaide have a taste for Kiwi blood. Game on mofos.

Adelaide 6-1 Wellington

2008-12-07T12:20:00.003+10:30

Hoo-ah! Goals thanks to JayFCAK47

This game was supposed to be a stern test for Adelaide. The Boots were the A-League's in-form side, coming off a 2-1 win over Melbourne last weekend. Their attack, featuring the league's most lethal goal poacher in Shane Smeltz, and Fred, the hero of Victory's Championship-winning season, were expected to wreak a certain amount of havoc against United, who struggled for a draw against the Jets last week. United was also without the ever-dependable Costanzo in defense, with a certain Mr Flakes taking the Angry Ponytail's spot at centre back.

As the title of this post suggests, it didn't exactly pan out that way. The crowd in the north end were in good spirits at the start of the match, waving an inflatable sheep around and singing some amusing, mainly sheep-oriented, songs: 'Dirty deeds, DONE WITH SHEEP!' was one of the tamer ones. 'We're Going To Win Sux-Nil' also got a work out - at that stage, nobody could have guessed how close that prediction would be.

The game actually started off pretty evenly, with the Nux launching some enterprising attacks via Fred, Smeltz and Leo Bertos. It wasn't long though before United's defense got the measure of the visitors though, with Ognenovski winning every ball that came near and Jamieson and Mullen turning defense into attack beautifully on the wings.

The first goal came from a corner that pinged around the box for a while before the Ogmonster swung a leg at the ball and bludgeoned it into the back of the net. Third goal in three games for the big Maco. Charlie 'Cristiano' Runkle added a second when his big bald Brazilian scone steered a lovely Reid corner into the net. Half time and Adelaide was looking pretty good for the win.

After the break the Nux looked to have regrouped a little, and they were rewarded when Fred poked home after a goalmouth scramble. 2-1 and Ricki Herbert sent the message: "That's enough football for tonight boys, now let's just run around the pitch thinking about what we'll do for the rest of the weekend. How about we go to Crazy Horse after the match, bourbons on me."

Cassio then did to sub keeper Glen Moss what any self-respecting NZ farmer would have done when encountering a frightened sheep stuck between two posts: scored. A beautiful left foot pile driver from an acute angle. Then, just in case anyone missed it, he did it again. Pretty much exactly the same goal, from the same spot, into the same corner of the net, leaving Moss wondering how much razor blades retail for in $AUD. 4-1 to AUFC at this point. It may have been somewhere around this point that Ferrante smacked the crossbar for Welly with a sweet curling shot from outside the box - points for style, no goal.

Adelaide's fifth goal came from Runkle again, when Cassio attempted what would have been the greatest hat-trick in the history of the world by trying to beat Moss again with a strike identical to his previous two. This time he didn't hit it as sweetly, Moss got a hand to it and knocked it into Cristiano's path.

Viddie brought Sarkies on, in the knowledge that the boy can generally only score when his team is up five goals at the end of a match, but he did pretty much zilch except blow a free kick into the stands. Into extra time and Dodd put a cherry on top of the match with a sixth goal, which came as a result of some hilarious Wellington 'defending' (i.e. pass back to the attacking player).

Party time in the stands. All in all it was a stirling performance for most of the team. Barbiero and Mullen, who haven't exactly been regulars, were outstanding, and Jammo/Cassio owned the left side as usual.

Great match and a good send off for the Club World Cup next week.

Where's the crowds at?

2008-12-03T18:45:00.007+10:30

There's a lot being said at the moment about A-League crowds. More specifically, about the fact that they are shrinking. It's true: attendences have slipped throughout the league this season, as this table (sourced from that fine research tool, Wikipedia) can attest:

Average attendance of A-League games excluding finals

After the giddy heights of last season, every single club has experienced a downturn in home crowds. True, attendances usually pick up at the business end of the season, but even so numbers are sitting lower at this point of the year than usual. So, what's the reason for the apparent drop in interest?

The standard of football is dropping.

Bollocks, it's much better now than it was when the A-League started. No more New Zealand Knights, for a start. Perhaps it's not quite Barcelona v Arsenal just yet, but it's only been a few years. Patience, my children.

Boring tactics.

This I agree with, partly. With only 8 sides, the same teams play each other three times a year, plus pre-season and finals matches. Teams know each other inside out, and the short season gives coaches little incentive to tinker with formations and tactics.

Over-control by the FFA.

The FFA have done great things for football in Australia, no question. But, while the highly centralised approach they have taken to the management of A-League clubs is exactly what was needed at the start of the league, it's actually becoming counter-productive to ongoing growth.

The FFA need to relinquish some control to the clubs themselves and allow them to build their own identities organically. Fans want their clubs to have some character; we want to feel like we are part of something that represents us, rather than being a 'target demographic' for a cookie cutter franchise.

One part of this is allowing clubs to take control of their own image with regard to advertising, kit design, merchandise, website design, and so on. It's also important that clubs have more say over dealings with their own supporters, rather than the FFA attempting to implement a one size fits all approach, as is the case with the ill-conceived 'Home End Membership' system.

Oh, and don't get me started on those awful phony CGI ads. The robots were better, and that's saying something. 90 minutes, 90 crappy mocked-up crowd scenes.

Crap refereeing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the refereeing in this league could certainly improve, but show me a league where this is not the case. I think it's not too bad, on the whole. Who'd be a ref.

There's a whole host of other issues I could touch on: the global economic downturn, ongoing lack of free to air TV coverage (although Fox Sports ratings are up for the league), dire form of Sydney FC, Queensland Roar's Suncorp curse, World Cup-mania drying up, retirement of Richie Alagich, et cetera - there is no single reason for the drop-off in crowds this year.

Basically, the A-League is going through the same flat spell that other start-up leagues like the J.League and MLS have gone through after their first few years, before continuing on their upward trajectory. Football is very well positioned in Australia, and the introduction of North Queensland and Gold Coast next season, and two further teams the season after, will counteract some of the apparent staleness that has crept into the league. The future's still looking good.

Newcastle 1-1 Adelaide

2008-12-01T18:55:00.004+10:30

Well I missed watching this one, but it really doesn't sound like I missed much aside from some comical defending from The Angry Ponytail, timid Vidmar tactics and a whole lot of thrusting without much penetration. Ooh er. Ognenovski rescued the team for the second time in 2 weeks. Who needs strikers anyway.

Spagnuolo to Leave

2008-11-26T17:52:00.004+10:30

The big news this week for Adelaide United is that the Flying Mullet, Jason Spagnuolo, is set to leave the club after this season in search of more game time elsewhere.

Good luck to the young fella, he was great to watch in full flight tearing opponents apart on the wing, but it's clear that form has eluded him of late and he needs to do whatever he can to get his career back on track.

His run to set up Romario's only goal in an Adelaide shirt will be etched into my memory for a long time. It will be sad to see him go.

OK that's it from me for now, I'm off to Melbourne (which is, incidentally, a rumoured destination for Spags), back on Monday.

Go, Diego, Go?

2008-11-25T09:20:00.011+10:30

Diego's future with the Reds is looking a little shaky at the moment, according to this article from FourFourTwo. Despite interest in his services from other clubs in the A-League and Asia, AUFC management is yet to offer the midfielder a new contract for the 2009-10 season.

Diego brings a lot to the team: he's comfortable on the ball and has great awareness, vision and range of passing. When he has the ball you know he's not going to give it away cheaply. He's one of the A-League's true playmakers, and when he's playing well the team generally plays well. If there is a criticism that can be levelled at Diego, it's that he blows hot and cold - his excellent form throughout the Champions League campaign, for example, has been followed by a period of relative ineffectiveness.

Obviously, if the price is right, Diego will go elsewhere. And fair enough - he has to look after his career. The question is whether Adelaide can adequately replace him if this eventuates. Kristian Sarkies does not have the presence to command the midfield. Paul Reid is a real box-to-box player who can make things happen, but perhaps lacks Diego's composure and awareness. Fabian Barbiero is starting to show some real signs of quality, and may be able to step into the Brazilian's boots in controlling the midfield, but needs more time to show off his abilities. Unless Adelaide have lined up another classy and experienced playmaker to fill his position, I think it would be negligent to get rid of Diego. Make the man an offer, AUFC.

Adelaide 2-0 Sydney

2008-11-23T10:38:00.007+10:30

Goals thanks to JayFCAK47

Last night AUFC finally made their way back into the winners' circle thanks to goals from Ognenovski and Dodd, but it was a bit of a strange match. Adelaide started off looking pretty out of sorts and disinterested - not helped by the fact that there was no recognized striker on the field, with Dodd leading the line and Diego sitting behind him. The crowd (a disappointing 9,500 ish) was similarly sluggish, with Hindmarsh cold as a flat white from the Bean Bar on Gawler Place (yes I have issues) due to a nasty wind coming straight off the arctic tundra of the western suburbs.

Sydney actually had the best of the play for the first part of the match, with a nice little piece of interplay passing between Corica and Aloisi being a standout in my memory. This all changed on the stroke of half time though - Adelaide won a free deep on the right hand side of the pitch, the much-maligned Sarkies stepped up and delivered a beautiful cross to Oggy's big ugly head, which directed the ball into the back of the net. Lovely.

After the break Adelaide came out firing on all cylinders. Sydney's game took another turn for the worse when McFlynn was sent off for (apparently) abusing the ref. No doubt it will be seen as another reffing 'controversy' - mostly because it was Sydney on the receiving end, but it looked fair enough to me. This is what I saw:

McFlynn goes down in a tackle.
He hobbles off the pitch to get some treatment. His knee is quite clearly fucked, he can't walk, there's no way he can continue playing (although he would probably still be fit enough to win a contract as Adelaide Utd's new marquee player).
Play continues.
Hold on a second, who's that dickhead lying on the pitch behind play in a Sydney shirt? Surely not McFlynn?
Ref walks up to him, has a few words, shows the red card. From a replay I saw later, it looks like McFlynn either calls the ref "fucking shit" or a "fucking cheat".
Kosmina develops a stomach ulcer.

What a fucking cynical thing to do, coming back onto the pitch and having a nice lie down when it's obvious that you're unable to play any more. Abusing the ref is never a sensible decision, either.

Anyway, after Sydney went down to ten men Adelaide stepped up another gear: Cassio came on for Sarkies, and we started dominating the left wing. Jamieson is a much, much better player when he has the Pocket Calculator to play off. Aussie Gyawe replaced Diego, who had a decent enough game but lacked the urgency that we needed to really punish the boys in baby blue. Cristiano came on for Alemao a little later, and immediately made a huge difference (an actual striker on the park! Imagine that!)

By this stage AUFC were pretty much toying with Sydney: the second goal came when the Spawning Salmon himself took advantage of Beau Busch's demonstration of 'how not to play in your defensive box' and poked the ball home - the contest was all over. All that was left to do was for Jamieson and Cassio to keep on destroying Shannon Cole's confidence for a little while, then for the ref to blow the final whistle and send the fans home windburned, hypothermic but happy.

Rebecca Wilson Bites Back

2008-11-22T10:53:00.003+10:30

Here is today's column in the Daily Telegraph, in which she refers to (almost) universally-respected commentator and pundit Simon Hill as a 'feral soccer fan', and questions his abilities as a journalist. I'm not quite sure why she singles out Hill, though, because her column has been pretty much derided from most corners of the sports media.

To be fair to Wilson, she has copped a huge amount of abuse over the past week in responses posted on mainstream news sites and football fan forums, ranging from people taking a dig at her journalistic credentials to inexcusably misogynistic and degrading comments about her gender and physical appearance. Even SBS's own Godfather of Football, Les Murray, wrote a scathing blog on The World Game site in which he made reference to Wilson's 'leathery skin' and 'ironed-on hair'. The offending paragraph now has been amended, but it was stupid and juvenile for Uncle Laszlo (who, to be quite honest, has been slipping for a while now) to stoop to such a personal level. I don't want to know the sort of personal hate mail that Wilson's email inbox would have been flooded with.

Rebecca Wilson stands by her original article. Which is fair enough: she meant what she wrote. Although, funnily enough, she makes absolutely no effort to back up her wild claims in light of all the eminently sensible counter arguments that have been flung her way. All I can say is that rumours of Australian football's death have been greatly exaggerated - of course, we'll have to wait and see whether her confident predictions of the ignoble demise of football in this country actually comes to pass. Somehow, I doubt it.

EDIT:
Here is a fantastic response to Wilson's article, by Kevin Airs on the FourFourTwo site: http://au.fourfourtwo.com/blogs.aspx?CIaBID=21

Better pathways needed for Indigenous footballers

2008-11-21T12:12:00.003+10:30

For decades, Aboriginal players have been making a huge impact in Aussie Rules and Rugby League. According to the commonly held view, they possess skill, creativity and reflex far surpassing the levels of their non-Indigenous counterparts. This is often patronizingly referred to as 'black magic', an innate, instinctive ability characteristic of their race. To my mind, though, it is more likely that these skills flourish in some Indigenous kids, particularly those growing up in regional and remote communities, due to an upbringing which focuses strongly on sport, outdoors activity and the development of high levels of physical coordination from a very early age.

Whatever the reason, Aboriginal players are strongly represented within the stocks of Australia's major football codes, with the notable exception of the round ball game. Why is this? Surely the speed, agility and exceptional technical skill levels demonstrated by Aboriginal athletes, as well as their relatively slight frames, would suit round ball football perfectly? Certainly there are a few currently plying their trade in the A-League - Jade North, Tahj Minniecon and our own fearless leader Travis Dodd - as well as the European-based David Williams and Kasey Wehrmann - but the traditionally urban focus of football in Australia has made it difficult for promising kids in remote areas to get noticed.

Recognizing this, Mark Wakeling, the Director of Football for Alice Springs, has flagged the idea of National Youth League teams playing exhibition matches against teams made up of Indigenous youth players (see FourFourTwo's article A-League Needs A Red Centre for more information). I think this is an excellent idea, and one which ties in well with the new North Queensland team's stated aim to promote and develop football among the large Indigenous population of the region.

A logical extension of Wakeling's proposal would be the inception of a Territory-based Indigenous side actually playing within the National Youth League competition. I have no idea as to whether the talent exists for this side to be competitive, but given the NYL's specific mandate as a development tool for young players, it's something that would be brilliant for the game. Australia is a big country, and football needs to continue to bring its message to as many people as possible.

Fyfe a Red?

2008-11-20T14:07:00.002+10:30

The Advertiser is reporting today that Sydney FC defender Iain Fyfe is on his way to Adelaide United , although no official announcement is likely until next week. Despite attracting criticism for the occasional game-changing defensive brain fart, Fyfe is generally regarded as a versatile and solid player at centre back or right fullback. In other words, he's the Cornflakes of the Harbour City.

This is bad news for Sydney's back line, which is also having to deal with the retirement of Tony Popovic and North Queensland's signing of Jacob Timpano for next year, but definitely a positive move for Adelaide. With Valkanis unlikely to play on, Costanzo looking slower and older by the minute and Ognenovski the subject of ongoing enquiries from cashed-up Japanese clubs, a new defender is required post-haste. And who fits the bill better than Fyfe:

He's a local boy, and used to call Hindmarsh home (not literally of course, but he played home games there with Adelaide City)
His rugged good looks make the laydeeeez crazy, and it's always good to get laydeeeez involved in the game
He's skilful enough to hold down an A-League starting berth
He's not skilful enough to demand huge wages

So, welcome home, Iain.
Also, please let in a few goals on Saturday night.

Rebecca Wilson v Football

2008-11-19T21:05:00.002+10:30

Last Saturday, following Adelaide United's midweek loss to Gamba Osaka in the Asian Champions League final, Daily Telegraph columnist Rebecca Wilson delivered an article that can only be described as a hatchet job on Australian football. According to Wilson, Adelaide's "embarrassing performance" shows that there are deep cracks emerging in soccer's "carefully constructed masquerade".

She goes on to claim that the Australian game is stodgy and slow in comparison to the fast, skilful style played everywhere else, and paints a dismal picture of Australia as a third-rate football backwater, with ignorant fans oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world is decades ahead in terms of youth development, style, and technique.

Of course, she has a point, to a certain extent: the quality of play in the A-League and lower levels of domestic football is not as good as it is in many parts of the world, and Australia doesn't exactly churn out players like Argentina or Spain. As though we're not already aware of the difference between Lionel Messi and Ruben Zadkovic (hairstyle, for starters).

What's missing in her article is any sort of context. She makes direct comparisons between Australia and the Netherlands, a European footballing power that has been at the very forefront of tactical and technical development for four decades, without acknowledging the fact that Australian football has made huge strides forward in the past five years or so. She complains about the standard of the A-League, which has been in existence since 2005, compared to the Japanese J.League, which was formed in the early 1990s and is composed of clubs with huge financial resources to spend on players, coaches and youth development. In short, she takes a big swing at Australian football without bothering to look at the bigger picture.

At best, Rebecca Wilson's article is clumsy journalism; at worst it's a thinly disguised ambush on the round ball game, a swift and opportunistic kick in the guts following the code's 'slip-up' in failing to conquer Asia at the last hurdle. Nothing new, of course - Australian football fans are used to articles of this type appearing every now and then (see the excellent Das Libero for other examples of 'soccerphobia'). It keeps us on our toes, ever vigilant to the fact that although we have pushed our way into the sporting mainstream there are still some who find our presence unwelcome.

An Inspirational Moment

2008-11-19T20:15:00.000+10:30

Thank you, Andy Harper, for this memorable piece of commentary.

Seriously, that call is going to go down in history.

What a magical night though.

Welcome to The Spawning Ground

2008-11-19T14:03:00.000+10:30

Welcome one and all to my little place on the web. Here I hope to regale you with stories, observations and other interesting tidbits relating to the second greatest football club in all of Asia, and the best club in the A-League that wears a red shirt, Adelaide United FC!