Adelaide 0-0 Queensland

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.