The dirt from Down Under

Western Sydney can't complete their fairytale, as Central Coast end Grand Final jinx

Guest Writer — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:42:00 GMT

Australian sports writer Kieran Pender on the thrilling climax to the A-League season, as unfancied newboys Western Sydney Wanderers face perennial bridesmaids Central Coast Mariners...

Insert awful 'everything is upside down in Australia' gag here...

Regardless of the result, Sunday’s A-League Grand Final was destined to be a clash of fairytale endings.

On one side stood Western Sydney Wanderers, established barely a year ago, who had conquered overwhelming odds to claim the Premiership and were eager to complete their incredible debut season. On the other was a Central Coast Mariners side that had seen three Grand Final victories slip from their grasp, most harrowingly when they lost despite holding a two goal lead in the final minutes of extra time.

It pitted the original fairytale club, a small team without serious financial muscle who had gambled on youth, against the newcomers, a side that only came into existent on April 4 last year.

After waiting more than a decade for a team, Western Sydney was suddenly thrust into the spotlight, lacking a manager, players or an established supporter base. Although one followed the other, they entered their first season only six months later, led by an inexperienced coach with a hastily assembled squad and a relatively little-known marquee signing in the form of former Japanese international Shinji Ono.

Early favourites to finish last, the Wanderers initially struggled, failing to score until their fourth game. Yet supported by the exuberant Red and Black Bloc, former Crystal Palace player Tony Popovic soon found his feet and led his charges to the A-League Premiership on the back of a 12 game winning streak.

It was the ultimate sporting story; from nothing to A-League title holders in little over a year. And it was beamed around the world, receiving a mention in the New York Times and even featuring heavily in Australia’s somewhat anti-football press.

But fairytales alone don’t win football games, let alone Grand Finals, and Western Sydney ultimately faltered in their most important clash yet. Despite fighting valiantly in an entertaining first half on Sunday, the Wanderers suffered a cruel blow when veteran Dutch defender Patrick Zwaanswijk nodded Central Coast into the lead minutes before the break.

Patrick Zwaanswijk opens the scoring for Central Coast

In front of a packed Sydney Football Stadium, seemingly willed on by an incredible mass of Red and Black, the A-League debutants attempted to reassert themselves in the opening stages of the second half. Yet despite several promising forays, Western Sydney was ultimately left wanting at the back. And with little over 20 minutes remaining, German import Jerome Polenz handled the ball in the box to gift Mariners striker Daniel McBreen an easily converted penalty.

The rest, as they say, is history. Try as they might, the Wanderers couldn't pierce Central Coast’s defensive line, and were unable to repeat Brisbane’s last minute two goal heroics of 2011.

Western Sydney kept opposition boss Graham Arnold sweating until the end, ever wary that his nightmare could be repeated, but the impressive defence he had marshalled so often in training remained firm.

Finally, in their fourth Grand Final in eight seasons, Central Coast returned triumphant. The small side with too few resources and too many financial problems had secured the Grand Final trophy, eloquently known as the Toilet Seat, in front of a near-capacity crowd.

Victory for the Mariners means everything. Although you may need to lose some to win some, multiple losses on the A-League’s biggest day have caused serious soul searching at the club. They certainly didn’t appreciate being labelled Central Coast Chokers, and will be glad to have lose that tag.

Victory at last: Central Coast celebrate Grand Final glory

But more importantly, the victory is a fitting send-off, marking the end of an era for the Gosford-based side as their youthful talent finally matures into Europe-ready footballers. Goalkeeper Mat Ryan is almost certainly departing, after impressing during trials at Tottenham and West Bromwich Albion, while Bernie Ibini-Isei and Trent Sainsbury are also being pursued by overseas suitors.

Having finally completed his task, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Arnold take up a position elsewhere, and several older players might look for one final payday in Asia or the Middle East. Although the Mariners pride themselves on an excellent youth academy, and other talented starlets are waiting in the ranks, it seems certain some rebuilding will inevitably occur next season.

Elsewhere, this season saw the arrival of marquee megastars Alessandro Del Piero and Emile Heskey at Sydney FC and Newcastle Jets respectively. Both players were gladly welcomed by a league still finding its feet, and both impressed on the pitch.

With the campaign now over, eyes will slowly turn to the transfer market as talented youngsters are lured abroad and fans salivate at the prospect of even more exciting marquee signings. Visits from Manchester United and Liverpool will also keep the faithful occupied, as will important World Cup Qualifiers.

Eventually, Popovic will return to his office at the Blacktown International Sports Park to ponder the season just gone. He will no doubt reflect on his incredible achievements, but also contemplate what could have been.

After guiding the side from wooden spoon favourites to A-League Premiers and Grand Final runners-up, Popovic will be hard pressed to top his first season at the Wanderers. Yet having had success replaced by the bittersweet taste of defeat in a matter of weeks, Western Sydney will be desperate to go one better next year.

And after the amazing achievements of Popovic and company this campaign, it would take a brave soul to bet against them completing that fairytale ending next time around.

Kieran Pender is an Australian sports writer, former deputy editor of GGArmy.com and a regular contributor to the Football Ramble. Follow him on Twitter.

Sydney derby to make history as A-League begins to flourish

Guest Writer — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:50:00 GMT

Australian sports writer Kieran Pender explains how a decade on from a major crisis, Australian football is finally on the up

In 2002, Australian football was suffering through a crisis. Having lost to Uruguay in a qualification play-off, the Socceroos would not be heading to the first ever World Cup held in Asia. To make matters worse, the National Soccer League was in decline, with TV rights in jeopardy and attendances dropping. Even the game’s governing body Soccer Australia was floundering, and would be reborn a year later.

Amidst the panic, Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) produced a level-headed report into the establishment of a new football league in the country, dubbed the Australian Premier League (APL). The report used a mass of empirical data to set out a detailed strategic plan for the new competition.

One of the report’s key findings was the need for at least two, if not three teams based in Sydney. Clubs based in the north, south and west of the city would be vital for the APL, given Sydney’s large population and relative interest in football.

This weekend, almost a decade since the PFA first made these claims, two teams from the New South Wales capital will meet in the A-League for the first time. Foundation club Sydney FC will finally meet a team from the western suburbs in the aptly named Sydney derby.

Already sold out, a rare occurrence in Australian football, the derby will represent a huge milestone for Sydney’s new club – Western Sydney Wanderers. Only just six months since the team was officially announced, they will take to the pitch having built a club and squad essentially from scratch. 

Having been ignored during the inauguration of the A-League, much to the PFA’s displeasure, Western Sydney was finally given the green light in 2009. However the new franchise failed to get off the ground, and was canned a year before they were due to compete in the league.

Finally, on the 11th of April this year, Federal Government funding was used to secure a team in the area. To be initially owned by Football Federation Australia, the competition was at last getting a team in its ‘heartland’.

As PFA boss at the time Brendan Schwab noted, “The PFA is delighted to finally see Western Sydney… represented in the A-League. It is something we have felt passionately about since the establishment of a new national competition was first mooted a decade ago, and we are delighted to see it come to fruition. Everyone in the game is deeply committed to the success of the club.”

Two men likely to feature heavily in the derby are not local boys, however, but top quality foreign imports Alessandro Del Piero and Shinji Ono. The marquee signings have been a huge boost to the league, with Del Piero in particular a coup for Sydney FC, especially given he reportedly turned down Liverpool in joining the club.

While Ono may have a lower profile, especially in Australia and Europe, the 33-year-old Japanese star is a legend in his home country, where he is nicknamed ‘Genius’.

Ono’s presence in the middle of the park could be key for a Western Sydney team that has started well, with their solitary point from two games belying a positive start to the season. While a hard fought draw in the opening round may have been dampened by Adelaide United’s late winner last weekend, the team have certainly performed above expectations.

The more established Sydney FC, on the other hand, currently sit joint-bottom of the table having lost their opening encounters. Defeats at the hands of Wellington Phoenix and Newcastle Jets are hardly shameful, but the Sky Blues will be desperate to lift themselves up the table with a good showing at Parramatta Stadium on Saturday.

Elsewhere this weekend Emile Heskey’s Newcastle Jets host local rivals Central Coast Mariners for the always-fierce F3 Derby. Although the former England front man has started his stint at Newcastle well, scoring in their victory over Sydney FC last Saturday, he may face a sterner test against an impressive Mariners outfit.

With the A-League beginning to flourish thanks to strong local talent and several big name imports, history will be made on Saturday when Sydney FC take on Western Sydney. A decade too late, the encounter could mark the day Australian football changed for the better.

Kieran Pender is an Australian sports writer, deputy editor of GGArmy.com and a contributor to the Football Ramble. Follow him on Twitter.

It's Big and it's Wednesday...

Paul Winslow — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:05:00 GMT

Five back-to-back A League matches make for an interesting scheduling experience, says Aussie-based Anglo journo Paul Winslow

The post-Christmas apocalypse in the UK is easier to bear for football fans. Matches come thick and fast and there's plenty to do in that time between taking the tinsel down and realising that you were never going to give up booze for a whole month anyway. And crazy scheduling means there are matches on most night to keep you interested. The world may be cold and miserable, the bank balance may be alarming, but football can ease you through.

In Australia there's no such requirement for entertainment. Summer's here and Australians don't so much retreat into their shelters for January as cavort around like new-born lambs in spring time. Christmas isn't the end of the year, it's the start of the summer. Most people take the week after Christmas off and even then the Australia Day holiday on January 26 is on the horizon, helping to make the return to work more palatable.

So there's no need for sport, but God there's an overload of it in case you want to hide from the sunshine (and the locals are prone to it, considering one Aussie advert states “there's nothing healthy about a tan”). As well as waking up on most mornings to find Foxtel has recorded a new batch of Premier League games, Australia are going toe-to-toe with India in a Test match cricket series. Shane Warne has returned to grace the domestic Twenty20 Big Bash competition. And then there's, erm, Big Wednesday.

Big Wednesday is Fox Sports' equivalent of Super Sunday. Its moniker may not be quite as catchy (seriously boys and girls... 'Big' Wednesday? What's wrong with Wicked Wednesday, Wild Wednesday, Wacky Wednesday...) but they have something that Sky doesn't. Because the teams are geographically remote – Wellington must travel 3,266 miles to play a domestic game against Perth – many of them are in different time zones.

That means that even if everyone kicked off their game at 7pm local time, matches would actually be stretched over several hours in real time. And that means that if you're a bit clever and use some jiggery-pokery on the schedule you can actually arrange five back-to-back matches – a full round of league fixtures – without involving the weird kick-off times that La Liga often indulges in.

In truth, Big Wednesday – designed to mark the halfway point of the season – got a bit swallowed up in the sporting morass and a Wednesday was always going to be a tough day to make any real impression, but it was a novel concept. And the best part of it was watching the guys in the studio as Wednesday turned into Thursday and they got their heads round watching 450 minutes of football back-to-back.

I feel bad for what I'm about to say. I know I shouldn't. I know it's a serious problem. But I don't remember anything about the football, I just remember one single thought. As the panel chatted after the final game and discussed how they had managed to stay awake, I looked at Mark Bosnich and thought to myself that in the old days he had a surefire, self-admitted 10-gram-a-day way of doing that.

I'm sorry Mark, you're actually relatively good as TV pundits go and you didn't deserve my unconscious disparagement. But let's face it, people everywhere must have been thinking the same... whatever timezone they were in.

Heart is where the home is for an Anglo in Oz

Paul Winslow — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:20:00 GMT

When you follow a sport in a new country, eventually you have to nail your colours to the mast and start supporting a team. After all, half the fun of watching sport is that innate desire for one arbitrarily-chosen bunch of people to score more goals, runs, tries, points or baskets than the other.

Picking a team has its problems. The number of UK-based Aussies recently supporting the likes of Chelsea is typical of the glory-hunting that can often come as a result of being able to pick a team through choice, rather than through where you were born or who your Dad supports. You could just choose the team that your mates from your new country support, but where's the fun in that? Better surely to support their biggest rivals. And anyway, none of my mates really has a football team.

To be fair, many of the lads in the team I play for over here have eschewed any kind of glory-hunting in their choice of UK teams: there's a Derby fan, a Cardiff fan and a Newcastle supporter in there. With this in mind I was determined to choose a team that was something of an underdog.

That immediately ruled out Brisbane Roar who, at my time of choosing, were on an unbeaten run that had become the longest by any club in Australian sporting history. The fact that that run has since been broken by Brett Emerton's Sydney United is neither here nor there: they are the dominant force in Australian football and as such I couldn't support them.

Living in Melbourne I looked closer to home, but the major team here, Victory, didn't appeal. They have name players like Archie Thompson (the guy who scored 13 in a game for Australia against American Samoa), and besides, Harry Kewell has signed for them.

I could have been completely obtuse and gone for Wellington Phoenix, who have a couple of names I know: Keeper Tony Warner has been around a bit, while Chris Greenacre ingrained himself on my consciousness merely because I used to play with another Greenacre so I noticed his name on the vidiprinter. However, supporting a team in a different country seemed a bit silly.

So I decided to make my choice simple: I looked at the bottom of the league and thought I'd start with the worst team around. The first week I did that, Adelaide United were at the bottom, and I had tickets to go and see them in the near future, so this was perhaps the way to go. Still, I couldn't get excited about the idea.

And then Melbourne Heart came to my rescue. The very next week, as if knowing I was looking for a place to plant my flag, they sank to the bottom of the league. This was ideal: a team from the city I was living in; a team that was doing dreadfully. Not only that, but they boast similar colours to my chosen AFL team, the Sydney Swans. I determined there and then that I would become a Heart fan.

And I must be a lucky charm, because since then they've won three out of four games – which a league of 10 teams means they've stormed up the table to sixth. Gloriously, they now sit one place above Kewell's mob, who were sidetracked by a rather ridiculous friendly with Beckham, Keane & Co. as the LA Galaxy roadshow rolled into town. This was less a football match than a eulogy for Beckham whose every touch was fawned over to a ridiculous extent.

But I didn't care – my Heart boys were keeping themselves fresh for the big weekend clash against top-of-the-league Brisbane Roar. Could they do what Sydney did last week? With my support, why not?

STOP PRESS: Ed's note: Why not indeed? On Fri 9 Dec at just before 9pm local time, the final whistle sounded at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane – and Melbourne Heart celebrated a 2-1 win over the champions to go within five points of the league leaders. Followers of unsuccessful teams may wish to beg Paul's allegiance at http://www.thewinslowboy.com.au/

Kewell's net-dodgers prepare to face free-scoring Roar

Guest Writer — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:45:00 GMT

Aussie-based British journalist Paul Winslow on the latest action from down under...

There's a rule in football whereby if the media spot a trend, run or record and everyone starts talking about it, you can pretty much guarantee it will end at the first opportunity.

If someone works out that Team A hasn't scored away for 343 minutes, you can almost guarantee they'll score early in the next game. If it's noted that Striker X hasn't scored from open play in seven millennia, then you know that in his next game he will score, usually via a deflection from his backside.

So it was inevitable that, having seen Melbourne Victory fail to score in their first three games and deciding to wait one more week before writing about it, they would ruin the story by ending the drought in their next game, a fairly underwhelming 2-1 victory against Wellington Phoenix.

Harry Kewell's team fails to score in opening three matches is a story. Harry Kewell's team win one, draw two of opening four games is, erm, not. That's why I waited a week as early season trends are too easily jumped upon before they have chance to unravel, and it now means I can write about the real stars of this league, the Brisbane Roar.

While Harry's boys have struggled to find the net, the Roar have made it ripple seven times. In one game. They've scored 13 goals in four matches and have now gone 32 games without defeat. But now that everyone is talking about how many games they've been undefeated then by our law of football statistics they must inevitably lose this weekend, right?

And FourFourTwo.com offers absolutely no prizes for guessing who they're playing this weekend, none other than Monsieur Kewell and his pals. And they just happen to be the last team to beat Brisbane in September last year.

Not that this has any huge effect on who will win the Championship. Australia is a funny place where league tables may not lie, but they also only have a marginal influence on who picks up the silverware at the end of the season.

As an Englishman I have never understood the lack of prestige attached to finishing a league season at the top of the league in Australia. For the uninformed, a quick word of explanation. At the end of any football, Aussie Rules or Rugby season the top few teams in the league play in a series of play-offs. They are seeded and biased towards those who finish the highest, but ultimately the whole season always boils down to one match. Win the league and you get the 'minor' Premiership. Win the finals and you're top dog.

So, theoretically, Brisbane could pretty much do an Arsenal, go unbeaten throughout the league season, storm to the play-off final and still find themselves disappointed on the big day despite having been far and away the best team for two years.

They almost did it last season when they needed penalties to win the tournament. That does not make sense. League competitions denote who is the best team; cups are great but have a different role.

But enough of my whinging Pominess. The weekend is what the A League were dreaming of when Kewell (who I now promise will not gain so much as a mention in our next blog, lest it become all about him) came back to town. The reality is that if he and his mates had stormed the league it would have been boring. To have them struggling to keep up with the real top dogs and have a chance of ending a superlative run is more intriguing.

And it also means that the supposed superstar can go up against the real superstar of the season so far. That real superstar goes by the name of Besart Berisha, an Albanian with no real pedigree before his arrival in the A League, but one who has now alerted everyone to his presence by way of six goals in four games.

We'll talk more about him in the future, but for now all eyes are on whether the guy who arrived to the fanfare and has done nowt or the guy who slipped in the back door but has achieved a lot will take the plaudits and the points on the weekend. My money's on the Albanian.

A-League plan coming together as national heroes return home

Guest Writer — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:11:00 GMT

Paul Winslow looks ahead to the start of the new A-League season, and in particular the homecoming of two of Australian football's biggest stars

In 2011, two crack 'soccer' players were invited to play in a league where most people wouldn't commit. They promptly escaped from Blackburn and Istanbul to the Australian underground. Today, still wanted by the Football Federation of Australia, they survive on an absolute fortune. If you have a problem, if there's no other football to watch and if you think Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton are the best things in football, maybe you can watch... the A-League.

Let's only hope that the return to Australia of the aforementioned Kewell and Emerton is more successful than the remake of the A Team and more successful than that slightly laboured introduction shall we?

Outside of Australia the news of Kewell and Emerton returning home to play in the A-League would perhaps be worthy of nothing more than the raised eyebrow that would usually accompany any move by a couple of past-their-best 30-somethings. But down under the news was almost enough to knock all of Australia's other sports off the back pages for a while.

Melbourne Victory Chairman Anthony Di Pietro went so far as to describe his club's procurement of Kewell as 'the biggest player signing in the history of Australian sport'.

Such is Kewell's star quality that when rumours first started doing the rounds about his possible return it wasn't just a question of which club he would go to, but what deal he would have with the Football Federation of Australia, who wanted him as the face of the A-League with a separate contract to that effect. That's the equivalent of Messi moving to England and having a contract with the club he signed for and another one with the Premier League.

As it transpired his contract is solely with Melbourne Victory, who will hand over a hefty whack of the extra membership, attendance and sponsorship money his arrival will garner. Emerton's subsequent signing for Sydney FC wasn't greeted with quite the same fanfare, but having them both back in the fold is an undoubted coup for the A-League.

As luck would have it, Kewell's Melbourne Victory, installed as favourites , play Emerton's Sydney FC in the first game of the season. Their arrival seems to have done the trick, with rumours of 50,000 fans expected to turn up to watch them. There was a real danger that neither would be available to play because Australia, or the Qantas Socceroos as they are so nattily titled, play a friendly game with Malaysia the night before and a World Cup Qualifier four days later.

The idea of the A-League's two big recruits not playing in the season openers because of representative duty must have brought the League hierarchy out in a cold sweat, but as it is Australia coach Holger Osieck conveniently decided they are not fit enough to play international football.

You could be forgiven for wondering which genius was responsible for scheduling the start of a league season during an international 'break'. The answer lies in football's subservience to other sports over here. While Australian interest in cricket has diminished somewhat since their thrashing in the Ashes (perhaps they talk about it among themselves, but not within earshot of an Englishman), there are several other sports that will always be foremost in Australian hearts.

In Melbourne, Aussie Rules (AFL) reigns supreme (if a city could actually match the cliche of living and breathing something then Melbourne would live and breathe AFL). In Sydney and Queensland it's very much a case of Rugby League, then Rugby Union and a bit of AFL thrown in for good measure. It's bad enough that the rugby world cup is taking place, but last weekend saw both the AFL and NRL Grand Finals.

Faced with that competition, the A-League decided to push back its start to avoid clashing with the finals and to attempt to fill the sporting void that is left after them. This involved a calculated risk that none of the Socceroos squad would come from the domestic teams. That was all decided before the return of the prodigal sons and and it's only their apparent lack of fitness (obviously they will be deemed fit enough to play for their clubs) that means it isn't looking like a monumental error of judgement.

But it's also proof of just how big a deal it is that their two biggest players are now back in the domestic fold. The fact that every other player in the Aussie squad is employed overseas (in ten different countries) only proves just how big their return is. And so, by accident as much as design, opening night will see Harry and Brett going toe-to-toe, and while that prospect will undoubtedly boost the attendance in Melbourne (thankfully the international match is in Sydney) it remains to be seen how long the novelty effect will last.

Cameo seasons by Dwight Yorke and Robbie Fowler have done little to really boost the A-League, but having two genuine homegrown stars may have a real impact. Both have made the right noises about giving something back to the game in Australia and can be applauded for that; in fact Kewell has never actually played at the top level in Australia, having been spirited away to Europe as a teenager.

But can two players really make that much of a difference? The answer will not be apparent at Melbourne's Etihad Stadium on Saturday, but several weeks into the season and even if Kewell can pull in crowds on a wet Tuesday night in Perth, it promises to be a short-term gain. Not unless a flurry of other players returned or other international stars are attracted can the overall level of play be raised to subsequently have a positive affect on the popularity of the sport. But maybe it's time to just enjoy them while they are here.

More than one of my English friends has admitted they're more likely to head down to watch a game now Harry is around, so maybe even if they can't convince the Aussies to start watching they'll at least pick up a few Poms.

Brisbane's miraculous Grand Final comeback could signal brighter future

Paul Hansford — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 10:40:00 GMT

As far as comebacks go, last weekend’s A-League Grand Final was Manchester United vs Bayern in '99, Travolta in Pulp Fiction and Lazarus popping his head out of a cave after a ‘lie down’ all rolled into one.

Going into the final minutes of the game, Central Coast Mariners held a seemingly unassailable 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Adam Kwasnik and Oliver Bozanic. But Brisbane Roar – a side riding the wave of a 27-game unbeaten streak – refused to lay down, scoring twice in the last three minutes before taking out the ‘Golden Toilet Seat’ in a penalty shoot-out.

The Mariners looked home and hosed after Bozanic’s poke doubled their advantage with a little more than 15 minutes to play, but in the 117th minute the Roar were handed a lifeline thanks to Brazilian Henrique’s left-footed strike.

With the Fox Sports’ commentators imploring the men in orange to pump the ball into the box to find the winner, the Roar remained committed to their passing game and were rewarded with a stunning equalizer with the last kick of the game. Thomas Broich’s curling corner was met by the head of midfielder Erik Paartalu, who rose through a crowd of players to send the tie to penalties just before the ref blew the final whistle.

In the shoot-out, Roar keeper Michael Theoklitos – best known to English fans as the man who let in seven on his debt for Norwich, never to be seen from again – was the hero, saving twice from Daniel McBreen and Pedj Bojic to seal Brisbane’s heroic comeback.

On the balance of the Roar’s all-conquering season, the right team prevailed, but to say the Mariners didn’t deserve to get something from the match would be doing an injustice to Graham Arnold's team. The loss is the Mariners’ third Grand Final loss in six seasons and none will have hurt as much as this.

Outplayed for large portions of the game, Central Coast succeeded in keeping Brisbane’s much-vaunted attack at bay and after the introduction of 18 year-old striker Bernie Ibini-Isei, they looked the more likely to score in extra time. The National Youth League product was involved in both Mariners’ goals, nodding the ball on from a cross for Adam Kwasnik to power home the first and then assisting in another break that led to Oliver Bozanic calmly guiding the ball home for the second.

However, Roar are late goal specialists and their calm reaction to a seemingly hopeless situation was summed up by captain Matt McKay's words at the extra-time turnaround. “I'd given up and you could see that the boys' body language was down,” said goalscoring hero Paartalu. “Matty just came up and said that we'd scored two goals in less than 15 minutes before, so we could do it again. The boys were just tremendous. The way it finished just summed up our season.”

Reaction in Australia to the game has been understandably animated, with sister site au.fourfourtwo.com declaring Roar’s win ‘a miracle’, national broadcaster SBS calling it ‘a Grand Final for the ages’ and The Melbourne Age going all Hot Chocolate with the ‘everyone a winner’ line.

As for the two coaches, it was the usual story of joy and pain. Mariners’ coach Graham Arnold was unbowed after the defeat, saying “it will take more than that to break their spirit”, while Roar’s victorious Ange Postecoglou was full of praise for his ‘never say die’ heros.

Roar fans will be hoping Postecoglou sticks around long enough to take Brisbane into Asia, with the 45 year-old coach now being linked with the newly vacant position at Melbourne Victory. After the two-time Grand Final winners parted company with foundation coach Ernie Merrick, the Aussie press immediately pushed Postecoglou – whose family still lives in the Victorian capital – to the front of the queue of replacements.

Despite stories of escape clauses in his contract and the financial unrest Brisbane, Ange’s talk of building a legacy in the Queensland capital, as well as making a run in Asia, looks to have put Roar fan’s fears to rest for the moment at least.

The A-League Final: The five big questions

Paul Hansford — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 14:00:00 GMT

This weekend, Brisbane Roar and Central Coast Mariners will battle it out for Australian football supremacy in the A-League Grand Final. Here are five big questions ahead of Sunday’s big game.

Can the Roar handle the pressure?
Brisbane come into the Grand Final on the back of a 27-game undefeated run – the longest in Australian football history. Coach Ange Postecoglou is taking part in his fifth Grand Final as a player and coach and has yet to taste defeat. Roar own Central Coast in head-to-head, losing only three times in 22 games, and have scored 14 goals in five games against them this season.

All set up nicely for a Brisbane win, then? Not so fast, says Central Coast coach Graham Arnold. Turning up the heat during the week, Arnold noted that all the pressure is on Roar to take out the championship: “For them, it's the Grand Final they need to win for what they have done this season. They're going into the game under a lot of pressure, 27 games unbeaten, so the pressure keeps mounting on them every game that they win.”

Postecoglou is having none of the mind games. “I'm not going into this Grand Final thinking, ‘What could go wrong?’. I'm really feeling good about the season we have had and our form – if we play to our ability we will go well.”

Roar have played in enough big games this season – including a couple where the winning streak was in jeopardy – to not feel stressed by the pressure of a final. Both coach and players have been relaxed all week in the build-up and will see Arnold playing the pressure card as a way to take it off his own team, reinforcing the Mariners’ underdog tag. If the Roar fail to win the championship, it won’t be because they wilted under the pressure.

How will Matt Ryan handle the biggest game of his life?
Mariners’ keeper Matt Ryan has enjoyed a whirlwind start to his professional career since stepping in between the posts following an injury to first choice Jess Vanstrattan in Round Four. The 18-year-old has kept a season-high 13 clean sheets, won the A-League Young Player of the Year Award and will become the youngest keeper to ever play in a Grand Final, breaking a record held by, among others, a certain Mark Schwarzer.

While he’s proved he has maturity beyond his years, playing in front of a 50,000 sell-out in Brisbane will be unlike anything he’s experienced before and much of the pre-game press has focused on how the youngster will fare on Sunday.

Well, if last week’s Preliminary Final is anything to go by, Ryan and the Mariners will be fine. In a do-or-die game against Gold Coast United, he put in a solid performance, pulling off a stunning double save to preserve the lead and commanding his area during an aerial bombardment in the final 10 minutes. That’s not to say Roar won’t want to test the youngster early and often, but Ryan has already proved that he’s no weak link in the Mariners’ defence.

Can Brisbane’s attacking weapons be stopped?
When it comes to trying to stop the Brisbane Roar attack, it’s a case of pick your poison. If you concentrate too much in shutting down speedy frontmen Kosta Barbarouses and Mitch Nichols, space opens up for the roving Jean Carlos Solorzano. Pick up the Costa Rican, however, and you leave space for dynamic midfield duo Matt McKay and Thomas Broich. Then just when you think you’ve done a pretty good job holding them out, on comes the “Slippery Fish” – Henrique to his friends – to run you ragged for the final 20 minutes or so.

The Mariners are under no illusions as to how difficult the task of keeping the Roar at bay will be. The performances of full-backs Josh Rose and Pedj Bojic will be key. If they can find a balance between keeping the Roar wide men under wraps and getting forward themselves, the job of central defenders Patrick Zwaanswijk and Alex Wilkinson will be that much easier.

Can Central Coast survive without influential Patricio Perez?
A2005 U20 World Cup winner with Argentina, Perez has been the Mariners’ matchwinner this season but a hamstring injury in the Preliminary Final has seen his place under question this week. Arnold says he will wait until the very last moment to make a decision on whether he’ll play but in Mustafa Amini, a 17-year-old Afghan/Nicaraguan/Australian with the wildest afro this side of Marouane Fellaini, they have a ready-made replacement.

More of an impact player coming off the bench at the beginning of the season, Amini has improved with every game and looked calm and composed as the creative fulcrum against Gold Coast. If Arnold sees starting the teenager as too risky, his other option would be to start veteran John Hutchinson – a player with more experience and bite in the middle – and unleash Amini for the final third of the game.

Which players will have the most influence on the game?
For all the offensive firepower in this game, two players with defensive duties will play the biggest role in deciding who wins the trophy known as the ‘Golden Toilet Seat’. For Central Coast, Dutch defender Patrick Zwaanswijk will need to call upon all of his 12 years of European experience to keep the Roar forwards in check. A two-time Dutch Cup winner with FC Utrecht, the 36 year-old’s influence will also extend to mentoring the younger players around him as they play in the biggest games of their careers.

“[My experience] comes in handy when the young boys ask what the atmosphere is going to be like, what to expect, what is going to be different,” says Zwaanswijk. But it’s the young players on the opposition he will need to worry about the most, keeping tabs on the constantly rotating Brisbane attackers, especially sensational German import Thomas Broich.

Brisbane’s key man will be defensive midfielder Erik Paartalu, a strong physical player who played in Scotland for Gretna, Stirling Albion and Greenock Morton before signing for Brisbane. The 24-year-old sits just in front of the back four and is key distributor in the Roar’s patient passing game, as well as being the team’s chief disruptor on the defensive side. If Paartalu can impose himself early and neutralise the Perez/Amini/Hutchinson threat, then the Mariners could be in for a very long night.

The A-League Grand Final is live in the UK on Sky Sports 1 on Sunday, with coverage starting at 6am.

Grand Final a triumph for comeback coaches

Paul Hansford — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:19:00 GMT

This weekend's A-League Grand Final between Brisbane Roar and Central Coast Mariners sees two of Australia's much-maligned coaches go head-to-head.
Roar's Ange Postecoglou and Mariners' Graham Arnold have been the whipping boys of the Australian press in the (not-so distant) past. That their teams meet in the championship decider is a testament not only to their coaching abilities but to a self-belief that they still had what it takes to make a mark on the Aussie game.

It's hard to decide which man has had the roughest ride. Postecoglou has won domestic titles in his time as a player and a coach, but it's as coach of the Young Socceroos he really made his name. After a strong showing in the 2003 FIFA U-20 World Cup – where his Joeys beat eventual winners Brazil in the group stages – Postecoglou's sides floundered and despite helping develop a generation of players who laid the foundation for the first A-League season in 2005, doubts remained about his ability to get results. Not long after the infamous 'tear him a new one' interview by SBS analyst Craig Foster, Postecoglou was out of a job.

Keen to re-build his reputation, Ange worked for Football Federation Victoria and spent a year in Greece with Panachaiki before Frank Farina's drink-driving scandal saw an opportunity open up at Brisbane Roar in late 2009. His reign began controversially with several established players shown the exit, and although the release of old stalwarts Craig Moore and Charlie Miller was understandable, five wins in the season's remaining 17 games and the sale of Tommy 'the new Harry Kewell' Oar left many worried how Brisbane would fare this season.

For Graham Arnold, the criticism from fans and the media has been even harsher. A tough, uncompromising player in his day, Arnold took this same attitude with him as a coach and his gruff, tell-it-like-it-is demeanour rubbed many up the wrong way. While he enjoyed success as Guus Hiddink's No.2 in the Socceroos' historic 2006 World Cup campaign, he was clearly out of his depth when asked to take over the reigns of the national team after the Dutchman's departure.

Not all of this was Arnold's fault, as he never received the full backing of the FFA, who made him coach with an 'interim' tag around his neck, while batting their eyelids at any coach who came on the market.

In the end it was his inability to mould successful teams – an embarrassing exit in the 2007 Asian Cup and a 2008 Olympics without a group win were notable lowlights – which led to his demise and there were more than a few raised eyebrows when he took over from the successful Lawrie McKinna at Central Coast at the end of last season.

So to say that both Postecoglou and Arnold have been revelations in their first full seasons in the A-League would be an understatement.

Brisbane have lost only one game all season and their 4-0 demolition of second place Adelaide in November (above) led to posts and tweets calling Roar one of the best domestic sides in the country's history. Led by Socceroo Matt McKay, German import Thomas Broich and bright young things Mitch Nichols and Kosta Barbarouses, the pass-and-move/pressing game of the Roar has been unlike any football seen on these shores. With hindsight, Postecoglou's January 2010 statement to "judge me in 12 months" looks like more like the words of a man with a masterplan than of a coach trying to cover his backside for finishing second from bottom in the league.

For Arnold's Mariners, the rise has been a little less spectacular; an ascent more in the image of the man himself than of any great coaching philosophy. With a solid base already created by former coach McKinna, Arnold has developed a well-drilled side that never backs down from a challenge. Skipper Alex Wilkinson and striker Matt Simon best exemplify the Mariners' muscular approach, and their fightback in the Major Semi-final against the Roar shows that Sunday's final should be one of the closest in the competition's short history.

While the phrase "I Told You So" was notably used by the late Johnny Warren to prove the doubters of Australian football wrong, I'm sure the Aussie legend wouldn't mind it being borrowed by the Grand Final-winning coach on Sunday as an appropriate way to lay some ghosts to rest.

More Aussie heartbreak in Asian Cup final loss

Paul Hansford — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 11:15:00 GMT

It seems no-one does footballing heartbreak quite like the Socceroos. Following a long tradition of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Australia missed out on their first major football trophy last weekend after losing the Asian Cup Final 1-0 to Japan in Doha.

Tadanari Lee’s extra-time volley was a strike worthy of winning any championship, but the Aussies will be bitterly disappointed to miss out on the silverware after dominating large periods of the game. But for a Man of the Match performance by Samurai Blue keeper Eiji Kawashima, the Socceroos could have easily secured the Asian title in regulation time, spurning more than half a dozen gilt-edged chances over the 90 minutes.

Tactically, Australia coach Holger Osieck clearly felt the Japanese would struggle against the long ball to frontmen Harry Kewell and Tim Cahill, with the free-roaming Brett Holman clearing out space and right-back Luke Wilkshire providing the ammunition.

And for the first 50 minutes the tactic seemed to work, with Japanese centre-backs Maya Yoshida and Yasuyuki Konno enduring a torrid time against Merseyside’s favourite and not-so-favourite Aussies. But for all the attacking pressure, the Socceroos couldn’t find the back of the net and, when chance after chance went begging for the Green and Gold, the ghosts of Iran ’97 and Kaiserslautern ’06 slowly began to rear their ugly heads.

The course of an entertaining final was changed by two key events in the second half. Firstly, Japanese coach Alberto Zaccheroni elected to switch to three at the back, not only to counter the aerial threat of Cahill and Kewell more effectively, but to give his side more width. Substitute Daiki Iwamasa looked far more comfortable dealing with Australia’s predictable long punts into the box, with the added width allowing wingback Yuto Nagatomo more space to get forward.

Then, in the 72nd minute, came the chance Australia had been waiting for. Kewell found himself bearing down on keeper Kawashima after his defender misjudged the bounce, but as ‘H’ hit a hard left-footed shot towards the bottom corner, the Belgium-based stopper stuck out his trailing foot and scuffed the ball wide. It was Australia’s ‘Arjen Robben moment’, and just as the Oranje forward’s failed one-on-one could have stolen the World Cup for Holland, Kewell’s goal would surely have sealed it for the Socceroos.

If Harry fluffed his lines, Japan forward Tadanari Lee delivered the “You can’t handle the truth!!” monologue with a well-taken winner deep into extra-time. Enjoying far more room after Zaccheroni’s move to 3-4-3, Nagatomo had the beating of a tiring Luke Wilkshire, and after breezing past him on the left flank, put a delightful ball into the area which Tadanari Lee met sweetly on the volley to fire home. Lee was all alone in the box – defender David Carney inexplicably drifting away from his man to cover the near post – but it still required a cool head to beat Schwarzer on the volley.

The moment that broke Aussie hearts (again)

After the game, Osieck acknowledged the match had come down to one defensive mistake but stopped short of singling Carney out as the villain. “It was the only positional mistake and it proved so costly for us,” said the German. “I don’t want to blame anyone for that. It was not our regular defensive positioning, but to have a go at any of our players is definitely inappropriate.”

Down Under the reaction to the loss has been a mixture of disappointment and pride. With many of the ‘Golden Generation’ slated to retire from international duty after the tournament, the Asian Cup represented a final chance for many Socceroos to win a trophy of significance. That it was snatched away in such dramatic circumstances only made the heartbreak more painful.

(Many Aussies recognised the significance of making the final too, with fans booking last-minute flights to Doha to watch their heroes. That many were locked out of the ground by Qatari authorities despite having tickets – rumours were up to 10,000 ‘fans’ were bussed in to make the ground look full – has already raised questions about to the country’s ability to stage the World Cup in 2022.)

There was, however, a real sense of pride in the squad’s achievements in Doha, which featured a gutsy draw against South Korea, a 1-0 win over old enemy Iraq and a superb 6-0 thrashing of Uzbekistan in the semi-finals. Fans looking to the tournament with apprehension, not sure of what to make of a new coach and a new-look squad, are now a little more confident moving into World Cup qualifying for 2014.

Heading into Qatar with questions of depth and age weighing heavily, Osieck proved his worth as coach with both his tactics and team selections. Disregarding an over-reliance on the long ball in the latter stages of the final for a moment, the 62-year-old coach had the Socceroos playing to their strengths during the finals, with their movement and pressuring of opponents a refreshing change to predecessor Pim Verbeek's ethos of lulling opponents (and fans) to sleep.

In A-League-based Matt McKay, Osieck has found a player more than capable of making the step up to international level and despite some early teething problems, midfielder Mile Jedinak looks like keeping his place in the starting XI for the forseeable future. Forward Brett Holman continues to delight and frustrate in equal measure and if Melbourne striker Robbie Kruse can build on a couple of capable cameo spots, the future of the Socceroos may not be as bleak as many thought after South Africa.

Osieck’s squad selection signals Australia’s intent at the Asian Cup

Paul Hansford — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:03:00 GMT

If Socceroos coach Holger Osieck’s squad selection is anything to go by, then Australia will be going all out for silverware in this month’s Asian Cup.

Eschewing blooding younger players in preparation for 2014 World Cup qualifying, Osieck has stuck with the tried and tested ‘Golden Generation’ which he believes can win the tournament.

Nineteen overseas-based players have been selected in the 23-man squad, including 12 members of Pim Verbeek’s 2010 World Cup squad. Despite a few surprise names, Osieck has decided to take the safe route, opting for a core of players who have been together for nearly a decade and are looking for a chance to end their international careers on a high.

While some observers were disappointed players such as Nikita Rukavytsya, James Troisi and, initially, Tommy Oar were not given the nod, the harsh reality is that few of the next generation of Socceroos are ready for the step up to international tournament football.

Australia’s ‘Golden Generation’ consists of a group of players familiar to international football fans. Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Brett Emerton, Harry Kewell and Tim Cahill have all played for club and country at the highest level and boast more than 250 caps between them. Dinamo Moscow’s Luke Wilkshire, Blackpool’s David Carney and Gold Coast United midfielder Jason Culina are also old heads who will bring a solid work ethic to the starting XI.

The wildcard in Osieck’s pack is the enigmatic Brett Holman, the much-maligned attacking midfielder who could turn out to be the key to Australia’s Asian success. Once the subject of a (rather harsh) YouTube compilation of bad touches in a game against Holland (below), the AZ Alkmaar star was the bright spot of the Socceroos campaign in South Africa, scoring two goals and capably handling the attacking duties while Cahill and Kewell served suspensions for red cards.

Twelve months ago I would have been laughed out of the country for saying this, but Holman’s form could be the key to Australia’s success in Doha. If the 26 year-old can take some of the attention away from Cahill and Kewell when going forward, the Socceroos could have a real chance to make it to the semi-finals and beyond.

There are a few surprises in Osieck’s 23. Middlesbrough’s Scott McDonald has returned to the fold after missing out on the World Cup squad and will be looking to open his Socceroos account after 20 games without a goal. One would venture that if he can’t find the net against 142nd ranked India in the opening group game, he won’t be given another chance.

Another player new to the set-up is defender Sasa Ognenovski, who despite only recently made his debut against Egypt could find himself partnering Lucas Neill in the heart of the defence. His lack of Socceroo experience is offset by his familiarity with the Asian game, having helped Korean club side Seongnam Ilhwa win the Asian Champions League and taking out this seasons’ Asian Footballer of the Year Award. (I have a particular soft spot for him as when I introduced myself to him for the first time while writing a training with the Brisbane Roar feature, he replied, "Yeah, the boss told me there was a fat, Pommie c*** training with us.")

The squad does have a top-heavy feel about it, and when you move past the starting XI, the experience starts to drop off quite precipitously. AEK Athens’ forward Nathan Burns (four caps), Brisbane Roar midfielder Matt McKay (six) and Leeds’ midfielder Neil Kilkenny (two) all lack the necessary experience and if injury strikes any of the veterans, it will be interesting to see how the wide-eyed recruits will fill the void. Reserve goalkeeper is a position of concern too, with Brad Jones (two) and Nathan Coe (uncapped) both untested at this level.

The feel-good story of the 23 is forward Robbie Kruse, a 22 year-old forward who has resurrected his career at Melbourne Victory after falling out of favour at Brisbane Roar. 10 goals in 15 games so far this season has made him the poster boy for the struggling A-League, with pundits claiming he’s proof it’s possible to play in Australia and make the national team.

More confusing is the drafting in of Utrecht frontman – and former A-League poster boy – Tommy Oar as an injury replacement for Hull’s Richard Garcia, as only a few weeks ago Osieck had said he didn’t have what it took at the highest level.

"I mean, [he has] talent, yes. We all know it and down the road I think he will be part of the Socceroos, but at the present stage he obviously seems to lack of little bit of what is required at the top level," was Holger’s assessment when quizzed about leaving him out of his initial squad.

Australia will be hoping their second showing at the Asian Cup will be more successful than their first. Buoyed by an impressive World Cup performance the previous year under Guus Hiddink, many fans – and a few players too – felt winning the 2007 Asian Cup was a fait accompli. Talking openly about winning the tournament and bringing home Australia’s first trophy, Graham Arnold’s Socceroos endured a torrid time in the Asian heat, barely drawing with Oman before succumbing to the eventual champions Iraq 3-1 in their second group game (video below). Only a win against lowly Thailand saw them progress to the knock-out stages where a penalty shoot-out loss to Japan saw the Aussies return home with their tails between their legs.

This time around, with the strength of their first XI and their coach’s need to justify his appointment, anything less than the semi-finals will be viewed as a disappointment.
The 2011 AFC Asian Cup kicks off in Qatar on January 7th with the final taking place on 29 January. Australia’s Group C games are against India (January 10), South Korea (January 14) and Bahrain (January 18).

**STOP PRESS** Australia have this morning been confirmed as the hosts of the 2015 Asian Cup

Qatar heroes have Aussies singing the blues

Paul Hansford — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:27:00 GMT

For Australia, it wasn’t so much the loss but the manner of the defeat.

With expectations high that the biggest sporting event in the world might finally come Down Under, Australia’s attempt to host the 2022 World Cup was blown out of the water as the ‘Come Play’ bid was eliminated in the first round with just a single vote to its name.

It was a shocking wake-up call for all those involved in the game and highlighted just how far Australia still have to go to mix it with the big boys on the world stage.

Once over the initial shock of losing to a country which has already admitted it’s too hot to play a football tournament there in summer – the 2011 Asian Cup has been moved from July to January to avoid the scorching summer heat – so the post-mortem began.

Of course, the football-haters in the Aussie media decided to concentrate on asking how the Aussie team could have wasted $45 million of taxpayers' money on a bid which garnered one solitary vote.

The Daily Telegraph said the “humiliating failure of a lobbying campaign overseen by European consultants paid millions for their work is certain to spark claims that the money was destined to fund a doomed project”, managing to expertly weave into one sentence two of their favourite things – xenophobia and hatred of football.

The Australian called the campaign’s failure a "humiliation", with the single vote "an embarrassing harvest", while quoting Federal sports minister Mark Arbib as saying the amount invested “was money well spent”. Others have gone so far as to sound the death knell for the game in Australia, inaccurately stating a successful bid was the only way the domestic game could survive.

Bid and FFA chairman Frank Lowy was as baffled as anyone as to the poor showing at the FIFA polls. “I was working hard right to the end to lobby and I was not expecting this,” he said. “Maybe people told us one thing and did the other.” Welcome to FIFA, Mr Lowy.

While the Australian bid team can feel aggrieved at the voting process and the duplicitous nature of the FIFA Ex-Co, they aren’t the reasons for the Australian loss. In truth, the Aussie bid failed before a vote was cast, failing in three key areas: lack of political power within FIFA, the perceived lack of football heritage within the country and, most importantly, an Australian-hosted tournament’s inability to make FIFA enough money.

Politically, the ‘Come Play’ campaign was fighting an uphill battle from the start, with Australia not even able to count on the vote of the head of their confederation (AFC President Mohammed Bin Hammam is Qatari). Events then took a turn for the worse when Oceania – Australia’s old confederation – lost its vote with the suspension of OFC chief Reynald Temarii in the wake of The Sunday Times corruption story.

And it seems not even a recent memorandum of understanding signed between Jamaica and FFA – giving the Caribbean nation access to $60m of Australian aid money – could compel CONCACAF President, Ex-Co member and all-round honest egg Jack Warner to vote for the green and gold; many believe Australia’s only vote came from old ally Franz Beckenbauer.

The way in which the Australian game is perceived by other nations was another factor that counted against the bid. To the crusty Ex-Co suits, Australia just doesn’t have the footballing gravitas of an England, Spain or Holland. Unfortunately, rather than fight that notion, the Australian bid played to those misconceptions by choosing to concentrate on the clichéd tourism/supermodel/other sporting heritage route, rather than, say, asking indigenous footballer Harry Williams or Everton’s Tim Cahill to talk about their inspiring football stories.

Craig Foster, the journeyman Australian midfielder who talks a better game than he ever played, hit the nail on the head when he tweeted post-announcement: “The truth is simple. If I was exco member, [I] would have said 2 things: Any nation that gives much of legacy to different code is not yet ready [and] A tourism ad does not demonstrate understanding of football values or culture - what about game here? Tell our football story.”

The final straw – and arguably the killer blow when you look at the countries who were granted the hosting rights – was the economic value to FIFA of an Australian-based tourmament. Australia came out rock bottom in a report assessing five key revenue streams – ticketing, TV and media rights, sponsorship, hospitality and merchandise/licensing – given a ranking of just 68 percent compared to the US, who scored 100 percent (swots).

Lowy’s claims that “the growth of Asia… in the next 10 years is unbelievably great in numbers of people, wealth creation [and] spendable dollars” may have rang hollow to members of the Ex-Co, especially when you consider the shopping centre magnate is choosing to open malls in London and not India.
None of the above failures are anything to be ashamed of and can all be addressed in future bids. As many have noted, it took Sydney three bids to secure the Olympic Games and they turned out to be “the best ever”.

Ultimately Australia fought a good, clean fight and learnt some valuable lessons moving forward. While Qatar’s hosting of 2022 means Australia cannot bid for a World Cup until 2030 – and the smart money is on an Argentina/Uruguay centennial tournament then – don’t count the Aussies out from putting in another bid when the time arrives. Let’s just hope Elle MacPherson has lost her looks by then.

Selection the biggest of many headaches for new Socceroos boss

Paul Hansford — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:43:00 GMT

Australian football fans and media took a stroll down memory lane this week as Tuesday marked the fifth anniversary of a watershed moment in the Australian game.

On November 16 2005, the Socceroos’ penalty shootout play-off win against nemesis Uruguay saw Australia grab the last spot at the 2006 World Cup, propelling the national team to the finals for the first time in 32 years and breaking a qualification hoodoo many said was a curse after previous playoff losses to Argentina (1993), Iran (1997) and the aforementioned La Celeste (2001).

Twitter streams and web posts were flooded with fans reminiscing about Mark Bresciano’s statuesque pose after scoring, Mark Schwarzer’s penalty-saving heroics and John Aloisi’s now iconic winning penalty (and the emotional commentary that went with it).

Two days later, those same fans fell back to earth with a bump after the Socceroos' 3-0 loss to Egypt in Cairo. Listless and disjointed, the Australians were outplayed in every facet of the game and coach Holger Osieck will be left with more questions than answers leading up to the Asian Cup tournament, which begins on January 7.

One of the main problems for the current group of players is that they’re not the 2006 version. After seeing their country qualify for back-to-back World Cups and witnessing players like Tim Cahill and Mark Schwarzer shine in the Premier League, fans had their expectations raised to all but unrealistic level.

In reality, the aforementioned Everton and Fulham stars are the only ones playing regularly at the highest level. Other key players have been plagued by either injury and inconsistency, like Brett Emerton at Blackburn and Mark Bresciano at Lazio, or play in second-tier leagues like Harry Kewell and Lucas Neill (Turkey), Josh Kennedy (Japan), Brett Holman (Holland) and Scott McDonald (The Championship).

The biggest question being asked of Osieck – and, for that matter, was constantly put to his predecessor Pim Verbeek – is whether the right players are being picked. While every international team has players out in the cold, if the forums and some media pundits are to be believed, Australia could field an alternate XI with the players not selected to the squad.

Most noticeably, there has been a clamour for an injection of youth into a team which was one of the oldest at South Africa 2010, especially after the recent success of the U19 and U16 sides. Youngsters such as Tommy Oar, Ben Kantarovski and Kerem Bulut have have all been tipped for big things and calls to promote them to the senior squad have been loud and numerous.

Craig Moore and Tommy Oar in suitably aquatic locale

However, poster-boy Oar – touted by many as the second coming of Harry Kewell after one good performance in an Asian Cup qualifier – has struggled to see playing time at new side Utrecht, prompting Osieck to say young Australian players will have to earn their place in the squad.

“The problem is that young players are put on a podium after one or two games,” said Osieck. “It takes a lot more to establish yourself at the top level of football and I think we should recognise that. They first have to prove their consistency at lower levels before they are ready to step up.”

Another selection controversy has been call-up of defender Sasa Ognenovski – a controversy as many believe it has happened too late. A tough, uncompromising centre-half, ‘Big Sash’ has been enjoying the form of his life since joining Korean side Seongnam Ilwha Chunma, with whom he won the Asian Champions League final last weekend.

With Lucas Neill increasingly looking his age and promising youngster Matt Spiranovic unable to stay healthy for any period of time, Ognenovski looked to be a post-World Cup shoo-in at the back, but it has taken four months for Osieck to give one of the best defenders in Asian football his first start. Ognenovski looks to have done enough to win a place in the Asian Cup squad, but a lack of playing time with his fellow Socceroos defenders could count against him winning a starting berth.

Capping off Osieck’s selection headaches is Turkish-Australian defender Ersan Bulut, who has been at the centre of tug-of-love between Turkey and Australia for his services. Capped twice for the Australian U23s in 2007, Gulum fell off the Socceroo radar until this season, when a loan move to Besiktas and some impressive performances re-ignited the defender’s chances of selection to the national team.

The problem is that the Turkish FA had also been sniffing around Bulut, sounding him out to see if he would play for the country of his parents. And in a delicious irony, it was former Australia coach Guus Hiddink who selected Bulut in the 24-man squad for Turkey’s match against the Netherlands.

Cue an outcry in the Australian press about the FFA taking their eye off the ball with Bulut – the most impressive being this rant by SBS’s Jesse Fink – and Osieck being forced to field questions in Cairo about a player he’d probably never heard of a month ago.

“Four weeks ago no-one talks about him and he did not even play, and now all of a sudden he becomes the object of desire.”

As it happens, Bulut didn't play against the Netherlands – but welcome to the Socceroo job, Mr Osieck.

Newcastle: Centre of the Universe

Paul Hansford — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 10:32:00 GMT

Newcastle is the centre of the Australian footballing universe.

Yeah, you heard me. While Adelaide are flying high with an undefeated start to the season and champions Syndey prop up the table with just one win to their name, it’s the mining and student mecca of Newcastle that is proving to be the epicentre of all that is newsworthy, controversial and straight-up whacky in the Aussie game.

After enduring a couple of weeks on life support and a juicy ownership saga, as reported in my previous blog, the coastal town 100 miles north of Sydney has again been making headlines with a series of weird and wonderful stories this week.

Firstly, after ignoring the FFA model of recruitment by employing some people who actually have a background in the game, the Newcastle Jets made the rather impressive announcement that they were trialling a former England striker with a goal a game record. Impressive until you realised it was Francis Jeffers and that it was one goal in one game.

After the shock discovery that Jeffers still plays football, is still paid to do so and is still in his 20s, it didn’t seem like the worst of moves for the Jets, languishing as they are at the bottom of the table.

If signed, Jeffers would look to form a partnership up front with fellow Pom Michael Bridges and then all coach Branko Culina would need to do was sign Kieron Dyer, Carl Cort and Jason Euell to complete the ‘Nearly Men of England circa 2000’ team.

While we’re on the subject of washed-up England players, the Jets also announced they would be playing a friendly against David Beckham’s Los Angeles Galaxy, scheduled to take place on November 27. After Beckham's... sorry, the Galaxy’s hugely successful tour of Australia and New Zealand in 2007, new Newcastle owner Nathan TInkler looked to have pulled off a coup both in terms of ticket sales and a shot in the arm for local tourism.

‘Looked to’, you note. This is where the weird and wacky bits kick in. You see, the Jets don’t actually own their stadium, sub-letting it from rugby league team, the Newcastle Knights. In a move in no way dispelling the notion that those involved in Australian rugby league are a bunch of brain-dead Luddites, the Knights decided to stage a motocross event two weeks ago and then cover up the extent of the damage to the field, reported to be $500,000, by having groundsmen paint the worst bits green.

The damage was only discovered by Jets’ officials on Tuesday, prompting the FFA suits to declare the ground unfit for play and cancel the next day’s match. Opponents Queensland Fury were, erm, furious with the situation, especially as the squad were on the plane heading south when the announcement was made.

CEO Rabieh Krayem said: “Whoever is in charge of the Newcastle Knights for hiring out the stadium should be held responsible for this and if they worked for me, they wouldn’t anymore.” (While the Fury game has yet to be rescheduled, Sunday’s home game between the Jets and Melbourne Heart has been moved three hours up the road to Port Macquarie – with free entrance to anyone wanting to attend.)

It was the final nail in the coffin for what has been a troublesome fixture for FFA. With Fury coach Frank Straka and assistant Stuart McClaren both suspended for the game, North Queensland had enlisted the help of Mark Bosnich to mentor the side in their absence. Now a host for Fox Sports, Bozza is gaining a new generation of fans for his maniacal laugh and a hairstyle that looks like shredded wheat.

However, after intially agreeing to the move, FFA’s list of restrictions as to what Bosnich could and couldn’t do with the team – even down to where he sat on the bench – made his participation impossible. It was a baffling decision from the FFA, who hid behind “guidelines” and “restrictions” rather than letting a legend of the Australian game generate a bit of much needed positive press.

Just as well they cancelled the game then.

Weekend of wonders

Paul Hansford — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 14:47:00 GMT

After what seems like months of back-and-forth about the viability of the national league, perceived lack of leadership by the governing body and a fair bit of infighting – see the clip below, in which Harry Kewell blasts Robbie Slater – Australian football got back to basics last week by concentrating on matters on the pitch.

The international break initially meant there were no A-League games, but the FFA shrewdly maximised attendance at the first Melbourne derby between the Victory and new side Heart by rescheduling it to avoid clashing with the AFL Grand Final replay.

As Melbourne is the self-proclaimed sporting capital of Australia, it was the right decision to postpone the historic game. While Melburnians consistently top football’s attendance charts, getting them to notice the ‘roundball game’ on Grand Final day would be like trying to drag Wayne Rooney’s attention from a women's keep-fit class in an old people’s home.

On paper, the first true A-League derby looked a massive mismatch. Victory are twice champions of Australia and veterans of finals football both domestically and in the Asian Champions League. In contrast, Heart were playing just the ninth game in their history and struggling to find their feet in their initial campaign.

So, of course, Heart won 2-1 thanks to goals from ex-Coventry and Portsmouth frontman John Aloisi and Alex Terra. In front of an impressive 25,897 fans in the purpose-built AAMI Stadium – shared by both sides – the new boys outplayed the veterans for long stretches and never looked in danger of losing the tie, even after going down to 10 men for the last 15 minutes of the match.

Heart boss John Van’t Schip said after the game that it was just the kind of result needed to help build their fanbase in a competitive sporting environment, with Victory skipper Kevin Muscat stating, without a hint of irony, “football was the winner tonight”.

After a good turn out in Melbourne, all eyes were turned to Sydney and the Socceroos’ friendly with Paraguay the following evening. The Melbourne Twitterati couldn’t resist a few jibes at Sydneysiders after rumours of slow ticket sales, with Melbourne Age chief football writer Michael Lynch tweeting “Sell-out shows that Vics get off their arses and go to things. Sydney folk prefer to tweet facebook and pretend!” Ouch…

Lynch’s prediction was spot on, with just 25,210 turning up at the Sydney Football Stadium, all the more disappointing after new coach Holger Osieck ushered in a new era of attacking football by stating he’ll look to play two up front wherever possible, as a single striker looks “lonesome”.

What those who stayed away missed was an assured performance from the Australians as they ran out 1-0 winners over a South American side which started six players from the World Cup defeat against Spain. While Osieck would have liked to have seen more goals for the amount of possession, the coach is still getting to know his first XI ahead of the Asian Cup, which kicks off in early January.

The winning goal was scored by journeyman David Carney, currently on the fringes at Blackpool after previous stints with FC Twente, Norwich and Sydney FC. It’s not often a Blackpool player scores a winner in an international fixture and the left-back is hoping the goal will boost his chances of making the first team, making sure to leave a copy of the goal on DVD with boss Ian Holloway to remind him he’s still around.

To put the icing on the cake of a great weekend of football, the U19 Australian team qualified for the U20 World Cup in Colombia next year by making the semi-finals of the AFC Asian U19 Championships in China. The Young Socceroos beat the UAE 4-2 in extra-time, with goals from Matthew Leckie and Matthew Fletcher in the additional period handing Australia an automatic spot in the South American tournament.

Aussie Football’s Peep Show

Paul Hansford — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:04:00 GMT

Following Australian football at the moment is a bit like standing in the women’s changing rooms when your girlfriend wants some advice on a dress.
While you should be focusing on what’s in front of you, something you obviously hold dear, you can’t quite draw your gaze away from the cubicle next door, where the curtain has been left slightly open by the curvy blond trying on a mini skirt.

It’s the same with football. You really want to just settle down and watch the action on the pitch – which incidentally has been as good as we’ve seen in the A-League – but your attention is constantly being drawn to other more salacious goings on

Take the week just gone, for example. Round eight served up a first vs third clash, four red cards in five games and a Sydney striker called Bruno. Instead all the headlines were stolen by off-field antics yet again, as earlier in the week FFA ousted Newcastle Jets owner Con Constantine and replaced him with a man, who by his own admission, has only a passing interest in the game.

In a strange state of affairs, last Wednesday saw two hastily arranged press conferences; a lunchtime announcement by FFA, followed by an afternoon meeting organised by Constantine. Whatever the Newcastle owner had planned to talk about was blown out of the water at lunch, as the governing body announced they would be revoking Con’s licence and giving it to local businessman Nathan Tinkler instead. Constantine, a long time critic of the FFA, reportedly heard the news from a reporter calling him for a reaction.

His ‘reaction’ at the afternoon presser was typical Con, all mouth and trousers, saying he was “stabbed in the back” by chairman Frank Lowy and revealing he was told if he went quietly, he would be “looked after” when the new Western Sydney club began operations.

Having pumped several million dollars of his own money into the club, Constantine elicited some amount of sympathy for his dumping but when players were reportedly unpaid for several months and helping each other out with rent cheques, a change was inevitable.

The choice of Newcastle coal magnate Nathan Tinkler did garner a few chortles from the back of the class, not least because Australian football doesn’t have a very good record when handing over control of clubs to overweight, mining billionaires. Gold Coast United’s Clive Palmer famously made headlines by enforcing a 5,000 fan cap at his club’s matches (not something he’s had to worry about recently though…) and it looked like more of the same when Tinkler said he had “no desire to own a football club” in an early statement. Although the 32 year-old said his takeover of the Jets is an act of community for the region he calls home, it remains to be seen if he will stay with the club in the long term.

Elsewhere, the World Football Insider released an update to its sexily titled World Cup Bid Power Index, where Australia have fallen to third last place in their Top Trumps-like ratings, behind only Japan and Spain/Portugal. The most telling of the stats is a low score for ‘Bid Operation/Leadership’, a sure sign that FIFA powerbrokers are taking note of the A-League’s current ills and the shaky leadership of the FFA.

Back in the women’s changing rooms and looking where we should be looking, Socceroos coach Holger Osieck has been looking to endear himself to Aussie fans by selecting six A-League players in the Australia squad to face Paraguay on October 9.

Former coach Pim Verbeek was never a fan of the domestic league, infamously stating that training in Europe was better experience than playing in the A-League. However, the 62 year-old German is of a different mind, giving half a dozen Australia-based players the chance to impress in the lead up to January’s Asian Cup tournament, where many first choice players may not be granted release to participate by their clubs.

Defender Jade North and midfielder Jason Culina are already established in the Socceroo set-up, but keeper Eugene Galekovic (Adelaide), defender Michael Thwaite (Gold Coast), midfielder Matt McKay (Brisbane) and striker Alex Brosque (Sydney) have just 18 appearances between them and are proof Osieck has been doing his homework on the local scene. As well as attending games, the German has clearly been gathering opinions and advice on potential squad members, something evident in his selection of Brosque, who has only played three times this campaign.

If there was any criticism of the Osieck’s squad it was down to the average age of the group – almost touching 30 – but with young guns such as Tommy Oar, Matthew Leckie and Ben Kantarovski on Young Socceroos duty, his hands were tied.

Facing a strong Paraguayan side who performed well in South Africa, the coach will be keen to continue his undefeated start as Socceroos coach but might feel compelled to risk the result by blooding some players for much needed international experience.

In other news, the much-anticipated first Melbourne derby between Victory and new team Heart has been postponed a week due to it clashing with the replay of the AFL (Aussie rules football) Grand Final. The game between St Kilda and Collingwood ended in a 68-68 tie, only the third time there’s been a draw in it’s 151-year history, and AFL supremo Andrew Demetriou couldn’t resist a sly dig at our game when explaining the need for a replay over sudden death extra-time.

“Of course there was a strange feeling after the game but it would have been even more strange and hollow for a team that loses after extra time,” Demetriou said. “I think we've all seen the lack of satisfaction from a World Cup or major game that's decided on penalties.”

Strong words from a man whose league is refereed by butchers…

Sharks circle Aussie FA chief

Paul Hansford — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:40:00 GMT

(With Mike Tuckerman seeking pastures new, we welcome back FourFourTwo Australia launch editor Paul Hansford as our Aussie correspondent... – Ed.)

Like a pack of great whites circling a lone early-morning surfer, the Australian football press is smelling blood in the water. Their target: Football Federation Australia (FFA) CEO Ben Buckley.

As the national competition falters with dwindling crowds, club owners in revolt and several teams in dire financial straits, the Australian football chief is out in open water with the Jaws tune playing loudly in his ears.

The news dominating the Australian footballing press over the last few weeks is that the FFA have placed far too much time, effort and money into the bid to host the 2022 World Cup finals, while the domestic A-League has been left to flounder in a sea of empty seats, crippling debt and finger-pointing.

From a financial standpoint, table-topping Adelaide United are being propped up by the FFA, North Queensland Fury were revived from their deathbed over the summer and Sydney Rovers, the 12th expansion team hastily handed a licence over several more viable alternatives, look to have been given the elbow because they can’t raise enough capital. And less than three years after a Grand Final win, Newcastle Jets are sitting on the very edge of extinction too.

While journos and bloggers have been discussing these issues for some time, the waters were well and truly chummed last week by former A-League CEO Archie Fraser, who hit out at Buckley and the FFA for taking their eye off the ball when it came to the domestic game.

Fraser, who left his position at the FFA at the end of last season, told The World Game website “The only focus right now at the FFA is the World Cup bid and the A-League has been left to become a basket case.”

As Mike Tuckerman reported last week, Fraser soon trained his sights on his former boss: “I couldn't make any decisions, and no decisions were ever made until the last minute. Everything went through Ben Buckley.”

While most previous criticism of the FFA’s mishandling of the domestic competition had focused on the governing body itself, Fraser’s comments were the first time someone on the inside had named Buckley personally.

With moneybags FFA Chairman Frank Lowy maintaining a distance from the furore, preferring to make a few unspectacular comments to FourFourTwo Australia, Fraser’s outburst opened a floodgate of comment that has placed Buckley – a man who looks like a mix of George Clooney and Anthony Wiggle – firmly in the firing line.

Spot the difference: Buckley, Clooney, Wiggle

The Australian’s Ray Gatt wrote a scathing attack on the governing body and Buckley’s leadership, SBS’s Jesse Fink called for an ‘intervention’ by Lowy, and Robbie Slater – already causing a storm by saying national treasure Harry Kewell was "past it" – called Buckley "a faceless man who sits in his ivory tower firing out emails".

What no-one has explicitly written yet is a call for Buckley’s head over the entire mess, but it’s just a matter of time before the sharpened knives are given a thrust in his direction.

In Buckley’s defence, some of the problems the A-League is now facing are not of his making. It was the previous regime at College Street who locked the A-League into a sponsorship deal that severely limits the clubs from developing their own revenue streams.

With the league having a centralised kit, car, drinks and communications sponsor, individual clubs are prohibited from approaching competing companies to broker their own deals. So companies with a pedigree for their involvement in football like Ford, Vodafone and Adidas are locked out of the domestic game, while the clubs are reported to be losing up to $2.5million per year.

Buckley and Lowy glad-hand the AFC

One of the big issues is the TV deal with pay-TV giant Fox Sports. At the time it was rightly hailed as a vital lifeline to the Australian game, but it now looks archaic, locking tens of thousands of potential new fans out of the game.

Fox Sports are fiercely protective of their deal with the FFA and have resisted all calls to have one live game a week or a highlights package on free-to-air. Fox’s inability to see they might actually see an increase in subscriptions by allowing a bigger audience a taste of their product is as disappointing as Buckley’s reluctance to renegotiate the deal.

It doesn’t help that the 43-year-old former Aussie rules player suffers in comparison to his predecessor, the confident and headstrong John O’Neill. Joining the FFA in 2004, the former ARU chief helped launch the A-League and bring in Guus Hiddink to coach the Socceroos to the 2006 World Cup. While O’Neill would jump in front of a camera at the mere sniff of a crisis, Buckley only tends to emerge in response to issues.

What is ironic about the entire saga is that the quality of the football has improved every year and early signs in season six are that fans are in for the most hard-fought competition yet. The football has been exciting and some of the goals have been as good as you’d see anywhere in Europe. It’s just a shame that not enough people are going to the grounds to see it.

A great dribble and goal – click to watch

Ultimately, Ben Buckley will live or die as head of the FFA on FIFA’s December 2nd decision on who will host the 2022 World Cup. If Australia can win it, then it will buy him and the FFA time to right the ship. If they fail, then don’t expect Frank Lowy to pull a Roy Scheider and pick off the sharks circling around Buckley.

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Derision and destitution in Australia

Mike Tuckerman — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:20:00 GMT

A-League fans can be forgiven for diverting their attention away from any action on the pitch, as Australia’s embattled domestic competition suffers through yet another tumultuous week of horrendous headlines.

First, Football Federation Australia find that the Newcastle Jets are cash-strapped enough to threaten their very existence. Then former A-League CEO Archie Fraser pipes up with a withering critique of the FFA.

Fraser accused the FFA of neglecting the A-League in favour of Australia’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup, and this unleashed a torrent of media criticism.
“The A-League is suffering,” Fraser said during the week. "Hopefully it will still be there in December when FIFA decides whether we do or don’t get the World Cup. The structure of the league is wrong. It needs more autonomy and to be separated from the FFA and allowed to look after its own affairs.”

FFA supremo Ben Buckley was a major target, with Fraser claiming that every decision made during his tenure was signed off by the much-maligned administrator. Buckley could hardly have picked a worse week to embark on a fact-finding mission to China.

Australian officials are deeply concerned with how a Chinese bid to host the 2026 World Cup might affect their own bid to host the tournament four years prior, and the fact that Buckley was out of the country while the A-League struggles for direction was not lost on his many critics.

Barely 35,000 fans turned out across five fixtures last weekend, with defending champions Sydney FC drawing just 7,557 fans through the gate for their clash with traditional rivals Adelaide United – who proceeded to thump the Sky Blues 3-1.

Newcomers Melbourne Heart are suffering just as badly at the turnstiles, with a grand total of 4,184 fans turning out to see them register a first ever A-League win over North Queensland Fury at an admittedly rain-soaked AAMI Park.

The dwindling crowds echo the relative lack of interest from corporate sponsors, and the lack of income threatens to bring some clubs to their knees – the beleaguered Jets foremost among them.

It’s a frustrating situation for fans, who’ve witnessed some of the best football ever played in the A-League in a relatively entertaining start to the season, on the pitch at least. Adelaide playmaker Marcos Flores, Perth Glory’s star duo Mile Sterjovski and Robbie Fowler and North Queensland’s erratic attacking style have lit up A-League stadia, whilst the current struggles of Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory will please those eager to support a less predictable competition than the English Premier League [Can't be hard, shurely - Ed.].

However, the financial security and relative stability of the Premier League is something A-League fans can only dream about, and the honeymoon period is well and truly over for a competition still struggling to make an impact on the Australian sporting landscape.

Nevermind the marquee matches in this weekend’s round of fixtures: Brisbane Roar’s trip south to face Melbourne Victory and Perth’s hosting of Gold Coast United will thrill no one if games continue to be played out against the backdrop of empty seats and players are left to grapple with the possibility that their club is set to fold at any minute.

Another difficult weekend may be in store for a competition that can’t seem to take a trick, and all the good football in the world won’t diminish the barrage of negative publicity currently consuming the A-League.

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Dives, biomechnanics and cash flow

Mike Tuckerman — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:16:00 GMT

"Football Federation Australia (FFA) today confirmed that the suspensions imposed on two Hyundai A-League players for simulation last weekend will stand," begins a terse press release doing the rounds of the Australian football media earlier this week.

It was the first shot fired in a Mexican stand-off between FFA and two A-League clubs following an extraordinary series of events last weekend.

Argentine midfielder Patrcio Perez made his mark at the Central Coast Mariners for all the wrong reasons in Round 4 action, going down under a rash challenge from Sydney FC goalkeeper Liam Reddy in what would later become a scene of infamy.

Referee Matthew Breeze did not hesitate to point to the spot in his 100th match in the middle, and Perez himself swept the resultant spot-kick past Sydney substitute Ivan Necesvki after Reddy had been given his marching orders for bringing the Argentine down.

The match ultimately finished in a 1-1 draw, and the whole incident might have been forgotten were it not for an even more extraordinary scene at a sparsely populated AAMI Park the following afternoon.

Visitors Perth Glory were 2-1 down deep into stoppage time against hosts Melbourne Heart, when Glory striker Michael Baird flung himself to the ground as young Heart substitute Kliment Taseski loitered nearby.

Having come off the bench himself, the tenacious Baird provided the Glory with thirty minutes of hustle and bustle up front, but his theatrical flop to the ground looked for all money like a last second dive of absolute desperation.

However, it fooled rookie referee Kurt Ams into pointing to the spot and Robbie Fowler showed no mercy as he slotted home the penalty to snatch a share of the spoils in a controversy-riddled 2-2 draw.

Baird has only just returned to the A-League following a four-year stint in Romanian football, and his injury-time antics kicked off a furious debate as to whether the so-called "dark arts" were beginning to creep into the Australian scene.

Controversy reigned throughout the ensuing debate, and both the Mariners and Glory took obvious offence to their players being labelled "cheats," with Central Coast officials going so far as to consult a team of biomechnanics experts from the University of Newcastle to support their claim that Perez had been tripped.

They even threatened to bring legal action against FFA, but backed down on Thursday afternoon - despite registering their annoyance at the lack of an appeals process for players accused of simulation.

Perth Glory also bristled at suggestions that Baird had deliberately conned the referee, and the public slagging match between the two clubs and the game's governing body will place an immense strain on referees as soon as a player next takes a contentious tumble inside the penalty box.

Meanwhile, 2007/08 champions Newcastle Jets are gripped in turmoil of their own, after controversial owner Con Constantine admitted that his cash flow problems meant that his players had gone unpaid for the past fortnight.

So dire are Newcastle's financial problems, concerns were raised their Round 5 clash with Brisbane Roar may not go ahead, but the beleaguered FFA have stepped in to underwrite the costs after matchday contractors threatened to withdraw their services should they not be paid in advance.

Constantine has asked FFA for a short-term loan in order to pay his players and staff, but it's anyone's guess how much longer the Jets can subsist playing in front of small crowds out of a stadium undergoing a seemingly endless round of renovations.

Central Coast Mariners and Perth Glory may have thought they had problems, but events over the past 24 hours suggest they're minor compared to what the Jets are going through, as the topsy-turvy A-League takes yet another crazy turn of events.

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Mouth guards, bad smells and Fury

Mike Tuckerman — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:09:00 GMT

It doesn't take much to want to shove Kevin Muscat to the ground. The Melbourne Victory veteran is one of the most irritating players in the A-League, and he's been involved in numerous stoushes over the years.

So it was no surprise to see North Queensland Fury defender Eric Akoto sent off last Sunday afternoon after a match-long feud with Muscat, as Akoto fulfilled the wishes of A-League fans up and down the country by pushing Muscat to the ground.

It was a bizarre tête-à-tête which came to a head when Muscat stood on the Togo international's mouthguard, prompting Akoto to simply knock the Victory defender over and retrieve his missing dental wear.

Unfortunately for Akoto, rookie referee Chris Boyle interpreted the shove as violent conduct and flashed his second red card of the match, which bizarrely arrived as Fury striker Chris Payne waited patiently to take a penalty.

Payne slotted home from the spot as a truly remarkable encounter finished in a 2-2 draw, but Akoto's dismissal left a sour taste for the Fury and they set about launching an immediate appeal.

Muscat was typically forthright in his defence, alleging that he and Akoto had merely engaged in a "bit of banter" throughout the fiery clash, but eye witnesses tell a different tale of Muscat repeatedly gesticulating at the newly signed Fury defender.

One gesture involved Muscat inferring that Akoto smelled, and the unsavoury incident has understandably raised the spectre of racism rearing its ugly head in the A-League.

Veteran Muscat later shrugged off the incident, but privately Fury officials were left fuming, and the mood won't have improved after Football Federation Australia dismissed their appeal to have Akoto's red card rescinded.

The much-travelled defender will now miss the Fury's next two matches, but his wasn't the only dramatic incident in what was one of the most action-packed fixtures in recent memory.

Fury took an unexpected lead through another of their African imports, Ugandan striker Eugene Sseppuya, who knocked home a scrappy finish to open the scoring on the quarter hour mark.

The match then exploded into life with half an hour gone as Fury defender Chris Grossman was harshly dismissed for tripping Robbie Kruse inside the area, and man-of-the-moment Muscat stepped up to convert from the spot and exorcise the demons of his 2009/10 Grand Final penalty shootout miss.

In the second half Victory had two legitimate appeals for another penalty denied, the second of which saw Robbie Kruse booked for diving, but it was a case of third-time lucky when new signing Geoff Kellaway went down under an Osama Malik challenge, with Muscat once again converting from the spot.

There was still time for Akoto's outlandish intervention, and he practically had to be dragged off the pitch by his own team-mates as Fury waited to take their own spot-kick, which youngster Payne confidently drilled home.

But it was the ugly spat between Muscat and Akoto that remains the talking point from a game in which Victory missed an avalanche of chances to claim all three points.

A media career seemingly awaits Muscat upon his retirement - he's already acted as a commentator for Channel 10 and SBS - but the latest in a long line of incidents won't be quickly forgotten, particularly if the hitherto silent Akoto reveals what really happened on the pitch.

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Arnold seeks reputation restoration

Mike Tuckerman — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:28:00 GMT

Graham Arnold once went AWOL. It wasn't after a big night out or even a brief stint in the army, but rather after the Australian under-23 side had been knocked out of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the first round.

Rather than fronting up the media to explain how it all went wrong, Arnold simply skipped town for two weeks to leave the press and fans baffled as to how he could confidently proclaim the Olyroos a medal chance, only to watch in stony silence as his team failed to win a game.

Needless to say, the former Socceroos striker isn't the most popular of coaches in Australian football circles, but he's found an unlikely ally in new Central Coast Mariners goalkeeper Jess Vanstratten.

The one-time Juventus shot-stopper called Arnold a "breath of fresh air" after signing on at the Gosford club during the off-season, although such comments should be seen in the context that Vanstratten's former coach is Gold Coast United's resident lunatic Miron Bleiberg.

"I didn't agree with some of Miron's methods but in the end we all shook hands and said thanks for the time and they let me loose," says Vanstratten of his time on the Gold Coast, almost sounding professionally conciliatory until he slipped by adding: "For me, just to work with a coach that makes sense has been good, because last year it was a bit hard to make sense of some of the things that was going on up there."

Arnold: "You haven't seen me..."

Vanstratten has found a new home at Bluetongue Stadium, and that's exactly where Central Coast find themselves on Sunday afternoon as they take on Adelaide United in the Mariners' first home game of the season.

It may not be the kind of fixture which sets the pulses racing, but the Mariners won't care after they pulled off a 1-0 victory at debutants Melbourne Heart last time out, with skipper Alex Wilkinson crashing home a header to send the Gosford side top of the table.

There wasn't much to suggest the Mariners had moved away from the long-ball tactics preferred in the latter stages of former coach Lawrie McKinna's tenure, but new man Arnold holds high hopes for Argentine playmaker Patricio Perez.

The diminutive playmaker lit up the pre-season despite seeing limited action, and after missing the win over Melbourne Heart, the self-styled No.10 may finally provide some attacking spark in an otherwise one-dimensional outfit.

Central Coast were the only team to taste victory in an opening round which featured two scintillating 3-3 draws, the first of which was played out at the newly renamed NIB Stadium, as Robbie Fowler's Perth Glory let slip two points by allowing a battling North Queensland Fury to equalise deep into stoppage time.

Shannon Cole's equaliser for Sydney FC in their 3-3 draw at home to Melbourne Victory was slightly more photogenic, as the substitute curled a free-kick over the wall and past Victory new boy Michael Petkovic.

But it's the Mariners who made the biggest name for themselves in the opening round of action, and with Graham Arnold looking to restore his battered reputation, the unfancied Gosford side may quietly harbour ambitions of repeating their unexpected 2007/08 title success.

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Heart join A League for season six

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:43:00 GMT

They’re new, play sexy football and are a headline writer's dream. Melbourne Heart kick off season six of the A-League with a home clash against Central Coast Mariners.

With the good names already taken – think Fury, Glory and Victory – the A-League’s newest club set about establishing their brand presence in the most confusing manner possible.

Originally Melbourne’s second team claimed that the Heart moniker was just a working title, and then asked fans to propose a new name through an online poll conducted by local tabloid The Herald Sun.

The poll was presumably hijacked by Melbourne Victory fans the second it went online, and when nothing ever came of it, the club eventually surmised that they might as well just call themselves the Heart.

Fortunately their recruitment has been less haphazard, and after luring former Dutch international John van’t Schip into the coaching hotseat, the Heart then went about securing the services of several big-name players.

Clint Bolton, Simon Colosimo and John Aloisi all moved south from champions Sydney FC, while dynamic duo Matt Thompson and Dean Heffernan arrived from Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners respectively.

Dutch pair Gerald Sibon and Rutger Worm join Brazilian talent Alex to give the Heart some international flair, but the undoubted jewel in the crown is marquee signing Josip Skoko.

Capped 51 times by the Socceroos, Skoko had his finest hour volleying the winner over European champions Greece in 2005, as more than 95,000 fans packed the Melbourne Cricket Ground for a pre-World Cup friendly.

It was a bittersweet moment for the much-travelled midfielder – who ultimately failed to get on the pitch in Germany – but it hasn’t stopped one of Australia’s most technically gifted players from making the A-League his final port of call.

Skoko will have a brand new stadium to call home, with the Heart signing on as permanent tenants of Melbourne’s newest sporting facility, AAMI Park. In a city littered with oval-shaped Australian Rules grounds, the lack of an adequate rectangular stadium has finally been addressed with the construction of the boutique 30,000-capacity venue.

Melbourne’s two A-League clubs will share AAMI Park, although the Victory will still play their so-called “marquee matches” at the unpopular Etihad Stadium – where the surface is currently slippier than an ice rink, rather than its usual sandy state.

Melbourne Victory kick off their campaign away at defending champions Sydney FC on Saturday night, but it’s a Friday evening fixture which could set the pulses racing, as Robbie Fowler faces the team he left in a blaze of acrimony.

Fowler skipped out on North Queensland Fury with the Townsville-based side seemingly at death’s door, but a last-minute recovery means the tropical town will still house the team in green – although Fowler had already signed on as the new marquee man at Perth Glory.

The Western Australian side can also call upon the likes of English defender Andy Todd and ex-Socceroos midfielder Mile Sterjovski, and colourful owner Tony Sage will expect nothing short of a finals campaign as a return on his sizeable investment.

The round’s other fixtures see Adelaide United host Newcastle Jets at Hindmarsh Stadium on Friday night, while the Sunday afternoon blockbuster between Gold Coast United and local rivals Brisbane Roar is sure to be a fiery affair – as Wellington Phoenix face the first bye in the unwieldy 11-team roster caused by the A-League’s ongoing expansion (with Sydney Rovers expected to join next season).

But it’ll be all eyes on Melbourne and specifically AAMI Park when the new season kicks off, and Heart coach van’t Schip has promised to play an attractive brand of football as the new boys bid to win over fans. They’ve got off to a rocky start with ticket sales reputedly slow, but if the A-League’s newest team can score some spectacular goals on the pitch, we can expect plenty more “Heart attack” headlines to follow.

Bluffer's Guide to the A League teams (20 Aug 2009)

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Asia-based trio pay price for speaking out of turn as Verbeek names his 30+1

Mike Tuckerman — Tue, 11 May 2010 10:14:00 GMT

"Thirty plus one is 31," was one of the first things Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek revealed to the gathered media as Australia named their preliminary World Cup squad, and to the misfortune of those present, that was about as insightful as the Dutchman got.

There was no chastising, no public admonitions, no 'if only you had tried a little harder' for the likes of Sasa Ognenovski and Joel Griffiths – players championed by the media, but who had about as much chance of going to the World Cup as The Dirt from Down Under has of winning the Pulitzer Prize.

Verbeek had always made it clear that he has a preference for certain players, and there was no room for Ognenovski, Griffiths or Eddy Bosnar despite their recent good form in Asia.

Ognenovski is vice-captain of South Korean giants Seongnam Ilhwa, Griffiths has scored goals galore for Chinese side Beijing Guoan and Bosnar is currently starring for Japanese outfit Shimizu S-Pulse, but all three appear to have paid the price for speaking out of turn.

Griffiths incensed Verbeek during the qualifying campaign when he questioned the quality of the Qatari national team, while Ognenovski lashed out at the Socceroos coach after missing selection in an Asian Cup squad.

That Ognenovski subsequently pledged his allegiance to Macedonia proved irrelevant – the uncompromising stopper has never represented the Red Lions just as Eddy Bosnar was never seriously considered by Croatia, but the outspoken players were nevertheless deemed surplus to requirements by Verbeek and his coaching staff.

Instead, journeymen defenders Michael Beauchamp and Jade North both earned selection alongside AZ Alkmaar midfielder James Holland, whilst Middlesbrough’s Rhys Williams and on-loan Leeds United man Shane Lowry were also surprise selections.

All five will do well to retain their places in the final 23-man squad to be named by June 1, but the selection of Beauchamp and North in particular suggests that squad harmony is a trait Verbeek holds dear to his heart.

Any egotism tends to be reserved for the genuine superstars of the team, and with the likes of Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill and Harry Kewell set to back up for their second World Cup finals appearance in a row, it should be a familiar looking Australia that runs out against Germany in Durban on June 13.

On paper, the Socceroos are capable of fielding a menacing looking starting eleven, but a spate of untimely injuries now has the country holding its breath.

These days Harry Kewell’s troublesome groin receives as much media attention as Kylie Minogue’s photogenic rear end, whilst doubts remain over whether Mark Bresciano and midfield enforcer Vinnie Grella are fully fit.

That would explain the media hype surrounding players who might otherwise be described as Australia’s 'second stringers,' some of whom have been plucked from the most obscure of foreign leagues.

Most recently, Michael Beauchamp has struggled to make an impact in the United Arab Emirates with Al-Jazira, although the same cannot be said of Mark Milligan – currently earning rave reviews at JEF United in the Japanese second division.

Meanwhile, Jade North was recently forced to swap life on the bench in South Korea for a chilly existence above the Arctic circle in Norway, as he currently calls Tippeligaen club Tromso home.

Teenager Tommy Oar and the pacy Nikita Rukavytsya were perhaps the only surprise inclusions, notwithstanding the fact that Rukavytsya is one of the few Australian players with genuine speed to burn.

Oar may do well just to tag along for the experience, however Rukavytsya should be a shoe-in to make the final squad after turning in some blistering performances for Belgian strugglers Roeselare of late.

All in all, it was the type of squad that many predicted, and while it’s unlikely to give Messrs Loew, Rajevac or Antic too many sleepless nights, that won’t stop optimistic Australian fans from dreaming of second successive trip to the Round of 16.

Full Australian squad: Michael Beauchamp (Al-Jazira), Mark Bresciano (Palermo), Tim Cahill (Everton), Nick Carle (Crystal Palace), David Carney (FC Twente), Scott Chipperfield (FC Basel), Jason Culina (Gold Coast United), Brett Emerton (Blackburn Rovers), Adam Federici (Reading), Richard Garcia (Hull City), Vince Grella (Blackburn Rovers), James Holland (AZ Alkmaar), Brett Holman (AZ Alkmaar), Mile Jedinak (Antalyaspor), Brad Jones (Middlesbrough), Joshua Kennedy (Nagoya Grampus), Harry Kewell (Galatasaray), Shane Lowry (Leeds United), Scott McDonald (Middlesbrough), Mark Milligan (JEF United Chiba), Craig Moore (unattached), Lucas Neill (Galatasaray), Jade North (Tromso), Thomas Oar (FC Utrecht), Nikita Rukavytsya (Roeselare), Mark Schwarzer (Fulham), Carl Valeri (Sassuolo), Dario Vidosic (MSV Duisburg), Luke Wilkshire (Dynamo Moscow), Rhys Williams (Middlesbrough)

*Eugene Galekovic (Adelaide United) has been named in the train-on squad

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Could Fowler's quest for Glory lead to another run-in with Ferguson?

Mike Tuckerman — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:59:00 GMT

When your off-season is twice as long as everywhere else, transfer sagas tend to drag on a bit.

One of the A-League’s longest has finally concluded, with Robbie Fowler set to call Perth Glory home next season.

The news came as a surprise to many, following speculation that Fowler would stay on at cash-strapped North Queensland Fury as captain-coach, before Sydney FC admitted that they too were keen to sign the popular English striker.

Instead it’s Perth Glory who have pulled off a major coup, making immediate use of Football Federation Australia’s latest addition to the marquee player rule.

Perth’s marquee signing from last season, Mile Sterjovski, will now fall under the new 'Australian marquee' slot created to entice more Socceroos back to the A-League, leaving space for Perth to also sign Robbie Fowler outside of their salary cap.

In a week which saw one of the biggest sporting scandals in Australian history break – rugby league club Melbourne Storm have been stripped of two Premiership titles for cheating the salary cap – the Glory may now find it difficult to side-step questions about how they’ve managed to afford such a star-studded squad.

Fowler and Sterjovski will run out alongside veteran English defender Andy Todd, Scottish midfielder Steven McGarry and much-travelled Serbian striker Branko Jelic next season, not to mention Perth’s considerable pool of Australian talent.

The star names have Perth backer Tony Sage dreaming of a top-two finish next season, although Fowler’s arrival should also make a difference to the club’s bottom line.

The former Liverpool star added some 4,000 fans to the gate when North Queensland travelled to Perth’s ME Bank Stadium last season, and Sage is hopeful that thousands of new members will now sign up to watch a club that was once the best supported in the defunct National Soccer League.

When a new regime swept to power and established the A-League in 2005, they did so aiming to rid football in Australia of its long-standing ethnic ties.

However, the FFA has remained conspicuously silent on Perth’s close links to the city’s expatriate British community, and the Union Jack still flutters freely on the terraces in Western Australia.

Fowler will receive another dose of familiarity when he lobs up in Perth, as the Glory have also signed erstwhile North Queensland coach Ian Ferguson to act as assistant to top man Dave Mitchell.

Fowler and Ferguson were at loggerheads for much of the previous campaign, so how the pair get along in Perth will prove a fascinating sub-plot to what is already shaping up as an intriguing A-League season.

With Perth having lured Fowler from under the nose of Sydney FC, the Sky Blues will be doubly determined to land Crystal Palace midfielder Nicky Carle – one of the most coveted players in the A-League following his successful stint with the Newcastle Jets.

Carle has endured a peripatetic career in Europe, but the creative midfielder is fondly regarded in his homeland, and Sydney FC could face stiff competition to land his signature from a host of other clubs – including, it seems, Perth Glory.

The addition of new club Melbourne Heart will generate plenty of interest in the weeks to come, but for now its Perth Glory attracting all the headlines in the A-League.

After making their maiden finals appearance last season, they’ll hope to go one step further this time around, and with Robbie Fowler set to don the Number 9 jersey for the 2010-11 campaign, Perth Glory supporters may just have found their new 'God'.

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Muscat: Champions League? You're having a laugh!

Mike Tuckerman — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Kevin Muscat doesn’t like Asia.

Not the sprawling region which is so culturally, linguistically and ethnically diverse it’s difficult to pin down where it begins and ends, but rather the AFC Champions League.

Muscat doesn’t like the travel, he doesn’t like the schedule and most of all, he doesn’t like the amount of diving those pesky Chinese, Koreans and Japanese partake in – even if most of the players who tumble inside the box have conspicuously Brazilian names.

In case anyone was left in doubt as to just how Muscat feels about the Champions League, he candidly expressed his opinions in the wake of Melbourne Victory’s scoreless draw at home to Chinese champions Beijing Guoan last week.

“To be honest, playing in Asia is not all that enjoyable,” Muscat told Fox Sports after the match, which saw Victory exit the Champions League group stage with a whimper.

“People going down left, right and centre, stalling for time, it’s not that enjoyable playing in the Champions League,” said the Victory skipper – who perhaps wisely opted not to canvas Adelaide United for their opinions, since the South Australian club are top of their group and have already qualified for the knock-out stage.

The contrast between Melbourne and Adelaide’s fortunes is stark, with the latter looking to reprise their superb run to the 2008 Champions League final, despite the fact that coach Aurelio Vidmar was informed at the start of the campaign that his AFC coaching credentials were not up to scratch

Vidmar’s assistant coach Joe Mullen was named the team’s “head coach” for the tournament, but it’s still Vidmar unofficially calling the shots, and the pair have conjured some impressive results so far – including a first-up win over defending Asian champions Pohang Steelers.

Claims that the Champions League has failed to capture the imagination of the Australian public appear to be wide of the mark – at least in Adelaide – where a capacity crowd should turn out for United’s final group stage game against Shandong Luneng.

Despite United finishing bottom of the A-League last season (they’re in the Champions League thanks to results from the previous campaign), crowds have continued to flock to their compact Hindmarsh Stadium home, which has become somewhat of a fortress for the South Australian side.

While Adelaide’s form in the Champions League has been impressive, concerns remain over just how much of an impact Australians side can have on the continental competition.

United may have reached the final in 2008, but they were thumped 5-0 on aggregate by a rampant Gamba Osaka, and the following season South Korean side Pohang dished out a brutal 6-0 thrashing of Newcastle Jets in their one-off Round of 16 clash.

The Champions League is still very much a work in progress, and the sheer scale of the region has forced the Asian Football Confederation to split the competition along geographical lines until the quarter-finals.

If Adelaide can overcome the might of East Asian football in the Round of 16, they may then find the likes of Saudi giants Al-Hilal, popular Iranian club Esteghlal or the Luiz Felipe Scolari-coached Uzbek side Bunyodkor standing in their way.

Kevin Muscat has no such concerns, with the 36-year-old veteran weighing up his options ahead of a testimonial at Melbourne’s new “rectangular stadium” on May 14.

Love him or loathe him, the Victory skipper is always good for a quote, and those who lambasted him for speaking his mind on the Champions League are usually the first to complain about censorship in the Australian game.

No doubt Muscat will have plenty to say ahead of his big night, as he reflects on a twenty-year career that has seen the tackles fly in across three different countries.

There’ll be a job waiting for him at his beloved Victory if he does decide to retire, but for the sake of Australia’s relations with it’s Asian neighbours, let’s just hope that no one asks him about the AFC Champions League.

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Why Socceroos fans would love Frank Rijkaard at the helm

Mike Tuckerman — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:18:00 GMT

If England coach Fabio Capello ever tires of London, I’m sure Football Federation Australia can rustle him up a penthouse suite in Sydney quick smart.

It may be considered a footballing backwater, but in billionaire backer Frank Lowy, Australian football possesses some serious financial clout.

Which is ironic, considering that so much about the game in Australia is either broken or going broke. Clubs are struggling to stand on their own feet, fans still prefer European football to the local fare, and Australian sides have been slow to recognise the technical skills needed to win the Asian Champions League.

Only the Socceroos can be considered a genuine success story, and that’s mainly because Guus Hiddink ended 32 years of exile by steering them to just their second ever World Cup appearance.

Hiddink’s short-term appointment in 2005 was at the behest of Lowy, who unceremoniously shoved Frank Farina aside to lure one of world football’s biggest names Down Under.

In doing so, Lowy unwittingly sparked an odd new trend – one that has seen Australian fans dream high above their station to lobby vociferously for a succession of high-profile coaches.

Despite qualifying for the World Cup, Verbeek is far from popular down under

They wanted one when Hiddink left, so Dick Advocaat was the man pencilled in as the most suitable replacement. What they got was Pim Verbeek, and the repercussions of his appointment still resonate today.

On the surface, Verbeek’s record with the Socceroos looks impressive. World Cup qualification was achieved with minimum fuss, next year’s Asian Cup finals were booked in – albeit via slightly more effort – and Verbeek made light of the absence of talismanic striker Mark Viduka throughout.

But despite his achievements, Verbeek has never really won over the critics who lament his conservative tactics, highlight his reluctance to use young talent and blast his penchant for playing a lone striker up front.

The acerbic Dutchman did himself few favours when he claimed that simply training with a Bundesliga club was of more value than actually playing in the A-League, with Verbeek steadfastedly denying that he had damaged the credibility of Australia’s domestic league.

Recently Verbeek confirmed the worst-kept secret in Australian football, with the ex-Korea Republic coach revealing that he will step down after the World Cup finals in South Africa.

The search is now on for his successor, and no amount of common sense looks set to stop a section of Australians fans from rattling off an improbable list of names.

Frank Rijkaard appears to be the front-runner, for no apparent reason other than the fact that many Australian fans have actually heard of him, and have seemingly determined that this will be enough to lure him from a high-paying job at Galatasaray.

"Hey, Mancini isn't the only manager who can rock the snazzy scarf look!"

Perhaps mercurial Galatasaray winger Harry Kewell can convince Rijkaard that a four-year stint in the backwaters of Asian football is a sensible career move, however logic dictates that it’s an unlikely scenario.

Far more likely is the arrival of the kind of coach that many Australians have never heard of, as was the case with current incumbent Verbeek – who spent the first half of his coaching career working as an assistant.

What Socceroos fans want is a big-name celebrity to put them squarely on the world football map, but what they’re likely to get is an up-and-coming coach looking to make a name for himself on the world stage.

That’s exactly what Verbeek has done, steering Australia to the World Cup finals with ease and racking up over a million kilometres (literally!) of travel in the process.

What he hasn’t done is convinced Australian fans that a mid-ranking coach is the way to go. Hiddink set the mould, and many Socceroos supporters are keen to see someone of a similar stature fill the breach.

How Football Federation Australia attempts to fill the vacancy is anyone’s guess, as they tread the fine line between public expectation and global football reality.

Perhaps they’ll simply run a classified in the back pages of the daily broadsheets; “Have money, need coach. Must be high-profile.”

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Fowler swaps exit talk for Fury coaching role

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:30:00 GMT

It’s a cut-throat caper, this football business. One minute you’re coaching the A-League’s highest profile player, and the next minute he’s angling for your job.

To suggest that there’s no love lost between North Queensland Fury’s out-going coach Ian Ferguson and star striker Robbie Fowler would be an understatement of epic proportions.

Fowler clearly took issue with Ferguson’s abrasive coaching style, but the matter really came to a head in January when the Glaswegian gaffer attempted to bench the former Liverpool striker – with disastrous results.

No doubt expecting to be backed to the hilt over his decision, Ferguson instead felt the full weight of the Australian football public come crashing down upon him, as even his own club indulged in some thinly-veiled snipes about his managerial nous.

The tense standoff was eventually resolved after Fowler agreed to continue on as the Fury’s marquee player, however the rancour clearly remained.

When it became apparent that the Townsville-based side were in serious financial trouble, Fowler seized his chance.

Ferguson has been rammed out the exit door with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and Fowler has subsequently offered to take a drastic pay cut and stay on as player-coach for next season.

Whether North Queensland would even survive until next season has been the hot topic in recent weeks, after major financial backer Don Matheson stepped aside amid claims that he had lost around £1.8 million investing in the club.

Many expected the Fury to go under – especially after a local whip-around failed to raise the funds required to keep the club afloat – only for Football Federation Australia to step in and ensure that the Townsville side would take part in the 2010/11 campaign.

At various stages of the A-League’s six year existence, the FFA has now provided funds to the defunct New Zealand Knights, Perth Glory, Adelaide United, Melbourne Victory, Central Coast Mariners and Brisbane Roar in a competition that is clearly struggling to capture the general public’s imagination.

Bankrolled by billionaire Frank Lowy, the FFA will oversee the entry of two new clubs in the form of Melbourne Heart and Sydney Rovers over the next two seasons, with the former recently announcing the signing of ex-Socceroos striker John Aloisi from Sydney FC.

But it’s in Townsville where most of the concerns remain, after virtually the entire squad were informed that their services would no longer be required.

Only Fowler looks likely to stick around, with the Liverpudlian seemingly sensing an opportunity to carve out the beginnings of a coaching career.

The new season will kick off in late July, and the Fury have until then to assemble a viable squad, with Fowler the leading candidate to take over as player-coach for North Queensland’s second A-League campaign.

They’ll hope to do better than the first, after constant financial concerns and a fractured dressing room overshadowed some decent performances on the pitch.

At times the North Queensland saga appears to have been scripted straight from a dodgy Australian soapie, and confusion remains over the exact status of the embattled club.

From “extinct” to “back-in-business” within a matter of weeks, the only thing North Queensland needs now is some cash, an entirely new squad, and about 10,000 more fans to regularly pile through the gates of their Dairy Farmer’s Stadium home.

Other than that they look sorted – not least because in Robbie Fowler they’ve got a ready-made replacement coach. All he needs now are some players.

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The most popular penalty miss ever?

Mike Tuckerman — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:05:00 GMT

It just had to be Kevin Muscat. Trust the A-League’s most reliable penalty taker to miss from 12 yards in a shootout and cost his side the championship.

Forget the fact that Shannon Cole and Marvin Angulo both saw their own spot-kicks saved; all the post-match talk in the wake of the A-League Grand Final surrounded the former Crystal Palace, Wolves, Millwall and Rangers player.

The self-proclaimed hard man of Australian football looked a picture of confidence as he strolled to the penalty spot, but Muscat saw his vital spot-kick come clattering back off the post, and the smirk on Sydney goalkeeper Clint Bolton’s face said much about the esteem that Victory’s tough-as-nails defender is held in.

The word “karma” was bandied about with liberal abandon in the post-match press, with several scribes pointing to Muscat’s penchant for thuggish behaviour as the reason for their schadenfreude.

Muscat claimed that he was “haunted” by the miss – but one man’s misery was another team’s joy, as Sydney FC celebrated wrapping up their second A-League title at the home of their most bitter rivals.

Muscat crestfallen - click to watch shootout video

The 44,560 fans who packed into the reconfigured Etihad Stadium created one of the most raucous atmospheres ever seen in the A-League, but they weren’t exactly treated to much champagne football as the match finished 1-1 in regulation time.

Victory suffered a bitter early blow when star striker Archie Thompson was carried from the pitch in agony after 15 minutes. Subsequent tests revealed that he will miss up to 12 months of action – including the World Cup.

It wasn’t until the hour mark that the match exploded into life, and it did so in contentious circumstances as Victory defender Rodrigo Vargas bundled home after Clint Bolton had spilled a Carlos Hernandez strike – only for an offside flag to come to Sydney’s rescue.

That decision appeared to rattle the home team, and they went behind barely 60 seconds later when Alex Brosque raced upfield and crossed for strike partner Mark Bridge to head home and put the Sky Blues in front.

Sydney tried desperately to cling on to their narrow lead, but for the second time in a number of weeks they were undone by a quickly taken free-kick, as Muscat crossed for Adrian Leijer to crash home an unstoppable header at the far post.

Several eagle-eyed fans pointed out that the ball was still in motion when Muscat swung over his free-kick, so perhaps there was a sense of justice when the Victory talisman became the first player to miss in the shootout.

As the shootout progressed, young Victory goalkeeper Mitch Langerak momentarily spared Muscat’s blushes when he pulled off a tremendous save from Shannon Cole, only to watch in disbelief as his counterpart Bolton later denied Costa Rican midfielder Marvin Angulo.

The stage was set for Sydney’s popular South Korean defender Byun Sung-Hwan to seal proceedings, and the veteran left-back duly drilled home to spark wild celebrations from the Sydney players and fans. The Sky Blues thus wrapped up the A-League’s version of “the double” – winning both the premiership and championship trophies in a hugely successful 2009-10 campaign.

It’ll be all change at the harbour city side for next season, with key men Clint Bolton, Simon Colosimo, Karol Kisel and John Aloisi all moving to pastures new, while veteran playmaker Steve Corica has retired.

That won’t bother the Sydney FC fans – for now, at least – with impressive Czech coach Vitezslav Lavicka having masterminded the title success the fans so desperately craved.

The question at hand is whether they can do it all again for a record third time, this win having drawn them level with Melbourne on two championships each (the only other team to have won being Newcastle Jets in 2008).

But for now it’s Sydney FC left celebrating, with the club from Australia’s most populous city deservedly claiming the 2009-10 A-League crown.

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Sydney steam through for final face-off with Melbourne

Mike Tuckerman — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:04:00 GMT

Nobody died and any fire damage to castles was minimal, but it’s been a bit of an annus horribilis for the A-League.

At the start of the season officials talked it up as a possible break-out year for the fledgling competition, but at times Australia’s professional football league has looked more likely to break down than break through.

You could almost hear Football Federation Australia’s groans of relief drift down Macquarie Street to the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday night, as Sydney FC brushed aside Wellington Phoenix to book their place in the Grand Final.

Sydney’s 4-2 win over the Phoenix was not without its controversy, as a second goal from youngster Chris Payne was clearly bundled home with the use of his hand. The ‘goal’ sparked predictable “Hand of Payne” headlines on both sides of the Tasman, but the headline writers may as well have trotted out some “storm in a teacup” clichés given the way that Sydney ruthlessly swept aside their opponents.

The Sky Blues played some of the best football seen in the finals series to date, with Alex Brosque and Mark Bridge running rampant in the one-sided encounter.

Boom: Bridge douses the Phoenix (click to watch highlights)

Sydney’s fluid passing game has sparked jokes that they will inevitably lose on Grand Final day, with Melbourne Victory’s atrocious Etihad Stadium pitch set to be re-laid before the big game.

Victory striker Archie Thompson likened the surface to a “cow paddock” after the hosts were beaten 2-0 by South Korean side Seongnam Ilhwa in the Asian Champions League last week. The lunar landscape will be replaced by a lush new green-top on Saturday, but the spongy state of the new pitch will do little to benefit either side.

The match will at least see the country’s two biggest clubs go head-to-head for the title, and it’s a showdown that the A-League desperately needs after only 13,196 fans turned out in Sydney to watch the Sky Blues win the Preliminary Final against the Phoenix.

This time around there will be a full house inside Etihad Stadium, and FFA officials have persuaded the stadium trust to move the retractable stands of a ground more commonly used for Aussie Rules into a rectangular configuration. That means that a slightly reduced but still impressive crowd of around 50,000 fans will turn out for what is the sixth meeting of these two clubs this season, after Victory triumphed 4-3 on aggregate when the two sides clashed in their two-legged semi-final a fortnight ago.

The Etihad, back when it was the Telstra Dome

FFA suits have likewise been talking up the potential global TV audience, boasting that upwards of 79 million households across the globe will have live access to the game – although there are no official figures on just how many will change channels less than five minutes after tuning in.

It has been a long, hard slog, so perhaps it’s fitting that the two most consistent sides in Australia will face off for the A-League’s ‘toilet seat’ trophy on Saturday night.

Fans will hope that it’s more entertaining than last year’s Grand Final, when Melbourne Victory wrapped up a dour 1-0 win after referee Matthew Breeze dubiously sent off Adelaide United striker Cristiano just 10 minutes in. Dour is the last thing that the A-League needs to end a largely forgettable campaign, but with these two sides backed by some of the most partisan supporters in the country, there could be fireworks at Etihad Stadium on Grand Final night – both on and off the pitch.

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Fowler’s Fury exit overshadows finals series

Mike Tuckerman — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Forget the fact that Melbourne Victory are the first side through to the Grand Final – much of the talk around the A-League surrounds the future of North Queensland Fury.

The first bombshell was dropped when chairman and sole investor Don Matheson revealed that he could no longer provide financial backing to the beleaguered Townsville side.

But it was an exclusive report on The World Game website late last week that really set the cat amongst the pigeons, with veteran columnist Les Murray claiming that Fury coach Ian Ferguson’s contract had been declared “null and void” with immediate effect.

Fairfax scribe Mike Cockerill chimed in the next day, suggesting that Robbie Fowler had almost certainly played his last game for a club that lost a reputed £30,000 per week throughout its inaugural A-League season.

Ferguson was widely expected to be shown the door at the end of a fractious season anyway, but Fowler’s exit rams home just how much trouble the Fury are in – with the Liverpudlian by far the most recognisable player in the A-League.

His A-League career might not be over – predictably a host of rival Australian sides have expressed an interest in signing the prolific marksman – but the second year of his contract in Townsville now appears worthless at a club teetering on the brink of extinction.

Despite reports that the entire Fury squad had been released from their contracts, the players themselves appear confused by the situation, with several telling local newspaper the Townsville Bulletin that they are yet to hear anything from the club itself.

Robbie Fowler: soon to appear in less garish colours?

Even so, Fowler will almost certainly leave the Townsville side following a testing first season in Australia, with the former Liverpool star frustrated by a seemingly endless procession of off-field problems.

The news overshadowed another dramatic weekend of finals football, with Melbourne Victory and Wellington Phoenix winning their respective semi-finals.

Victory will host the Grand Final after a 2-2 draw at the Sydney Football Stadium saw them defeat bitter rivals Sydney FC 4-3 on aggregate in a pulsating two-legged semi-final.

With the scores locked at 3-3 on aggregate following 90 minutes of absorbing second-leg action in Sydney, it was the visitors who sealed a controversial win as Kevin Muscat’s quickly taken free-kick caught the entire Sydney defence off-guard.

Archie Thompson swept home the intelligent through ball with just six minutes of extra-time remaining, however the goal left Sydney fans fuming, with the original free-kick awarded despite Tom Pondeljak’s cross appearing to hit Sydney midfielder Terry McFlynn square in the face.

Highlights from the game - click to watch

Across the Tasman a crowd of 32,792 fans broke New Zealand’s domestic attendance record, with tickets selling out days in advance of Wellington Phoenix’s sudden-death semi-final with the Newcastle Jets.

The casual fans amongst them could hardly have enjoyed a more entertaining spectacle, as Newcastle captain Matt Thompson silenced the capacity crowd with an early opener, before Phoenix skipper Tim Brown equalised midway through the first half.

Highlights from the game - click to watch

Paul Ifill should have won it at the death when he managed to round Newcastle goalkeeper Ben Kennedy in stoppage time, but a heavy touch took the ball from Ifill’s reach and the chance was lost.

The exhausted ex-Barbados international then asked to be substituted, but having been swiftly rebuffed by coach Ricki Herbert, the veteran striker scored deep into extra-time to send a packed Westpac Stadium into delirium.

Substitute Eugene Dadi added a third to seal a 3-1 win for the Phoenix, who now cross the Tasman to take on Sydney FC in a sudden-death showdown at the Sydney Football Stadium next weekend.

The winner will then play Melbourne Victory in the Grand Final on March 20, and Victory will be relieved to have negotiated arguably the most dramatic A-League finals series to date.

It’s just a shame that off-field news has overshadowed the action on the pitch, with the conjecture surrounding North Queensland’s future casting a pall over a pulsating finals campaign.

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Shootouts aplenty as finals claim victims

Mike Tuckerman — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:30:00 GMT

FINALS SERIES Semi-finals Wk1: Sat Feb 20 Gold Coast United 0-0 Newcastle Jets (Newcastle win 6-5 on penalties) Sun Feb 21 Wellington Phoenix 1-1 Perth Glory (Wellington win 4-2 on penalties)

The thing about a football team boldly declaring that they will go through a season undefeated is that it’s hilariously funny when they lose.

Gold Coast United discovered that in spades during their inaugural A-League campaign, after it took them just four rounds to relinquish their undefeated status to the unheralded Newcastle Jets.

There was a sense of symmetry to Gold Coast’s inglorious A-League finals exit, as the club from the glitter strip lost 6-5 on penalties following a scoreless draw with Newcastle in their maiden finals appearance.

Just 4,109 fans bothered to turn out at Skilled Park in Robina for the sudden-death encounter – compared to the sell-out crowd of just under 27,000 who watched a recent rugby league exhibition game – suggesting that the locals hate their football side as much as everyone else does.

The sterile atmosphere contributed to the sort of game that could cure insomnia, so perhaps it was apt that by the end Gold Coast were practically sleep-walking their way to a bumbling finals exit.

That it was the A-League’s most maligned goalkeeper Ben Kennedy who proved the hero completed the Monty Pythonesque spectacle, as Kennedy chose an opportune time to pull off his best-ever individual performance.

Kennedy was in superb form during the 120 minutes of scoreless action, winning his personal duel with Gold Coast captain Jason Culina and frustrating New Zealand international Shane Smeltz at every opportunity.

Gold Coast v Newcastle highlights - click to watch

Yet it was in the shoot-out that Kennedy proved his greatest worth, as the error-prone custodian clawed away Zenon Caravella’s sudden-death penalty to send Newcastle through to a meeting with Wellington Phoenix.

“Caravella… off the post!” was how Fox Sports commentator Mike Cockerill summed up the fateful spot-kick, proving that even the A-League’s host broadcaster had trouble coping with Kennedy’s unexpected turnaround in form.

Newcastle will now face Wellington Phoenix in their next knock-out finals match, after the club from the New Zealand capital beat Perth Glory 4-2 in a similarly dramatic penalty shoot-out.

This time there was plenty of action in regulation time, as Perth youngster Scott Neville cancelled out a strike from Wellington’s English import Chris Greenacre with the scores finishing level at 1-1 after 120 minutes.

Up stepped Wellington’s on-loan goalkeeper Liam Reddy to play his part, as he dived to his left to keep out Naum Sekulovski’s driven effort, before going the opposite way to spectacularly deny substitute Scott Bulloch's spot-kick.

Wellington v Perth - click to watch highlights

It was left to former Perth midfielder Adrian Caceres to administer the last rites, as he drove home low and hard into the bottom corner to spark wild celebrations inside Westpac Stadium.

The result was all the more remarkable for the record crowd of 24,278 that turned out at the cavernous ground – the highest ever for a domestic football game played in New Zealand.

With injuries having already decimated both Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory, Wellington now look the most dangerous team still involved in the finals.

If the New Zealand side can overcome Newcastle Jets at home on March 7 – the same day as Sydney and Melbourne face off in the other game – then just one more game will stand between them and an unexpected Grand Final appearance.

It’s turning out to be an historic year for football in the Land Of The Long White Cloud, as the New Zealand national team gears up for just its second ever appearance at the World Cup finals.

An A-League championship would provide the icing on the cake, even if it invariably invokes the wrath of Asian Football Confederation chief Mohammed Bin Hammam.

Sydney the first losers in confusing A-League finals

Mike Tuckerman — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:45:00 GMT

If a week is a long time in politics, then it must be an eternity in the A-League.

No sooner had Sydney FC wrapped up the Premiership plate than their world came crashing down with the news that playmaker Steve Corica’s career had come to a premature end.

Former Leicester, Wolves and Walsall midfielder Corica announced his impending retirement in the week leading up to Sydney’s premiership showdown with Melbourne Victory, so the Sky Blues were understandably keen to send him off a winner.

However, Corica played little part in the top-of-the-table Valentine's Day clash as he limped from the field with a serious hamstring injury just 10 minutes in – although Sydney still managed to conjure a 2-0 win that saw them crowned premiers at Victory’s expense.

14.02.10: Sydney 2-0 Melbourne - click to watch

Wonder strikes from Slovakian midfielder Karol Kisel and former Socceroos frontman John Aloisi proved major talking points, but all Melbourne were talking about after the match was Terry McFlynn’s tackle on Robbie Kruse.

“If that was Kevin Muscat who made that tackle it would have been all over the papers,” raged Victory coach Ernie Merrick – despite the fact that McFlynn’s X-rated challenge was in fact all over the papers, so much so that the Northern Irishman publicly apologised to Kruse the next day.

The bone-crunching challenge ruled Kruse out for the rest of the season and spurred furtive talk that Victory were determined to “get square” in the first leg of their major semi-final with Sydney just four days later.

The controversial tackle - click to watch

The threats ultimately proved unfounded, although Victory still managed a 2-1 semi-final win thanks in part to an opening goal from man of the moment Nik Mrdja – who was later sent off and will subsequently miss the second leg through suspension.

FEATURE: Melbourne get away with Mrdja in dodgy transfer

The controversial new arrival pounced on some poor Sydney defending to open the scoring early on, before Costa Rican maestro Carlos Hernandez – who was named the A-League’s Player Of The Season earlier in the week – added a second.

Sydney hauled themselves back into the tie through a deflected John Aloisi strike just before half-time, with some help from an Etihad Stadium surface that looked suspiciously like the venue of an upcoming beach volleyball tournament.

18.02.10: Melbourne 2-1 Sydney - click to watch

The disgraceful state of the pitch wasn’t the only contentious issue in what was another drama-charged week, after Victory revealed that they had considered pulling out of the finals series altogether.

Since the A-League is out of sync with much of the Asian football calendar, last season’s champions Victory kick off their 2010 Asian Champions League campaign away at Beijing Guoan on February 23.

Had they topped the league standings this season, Victory would have qualified automatically for the next edition of the Champions League – prompting club officials to claim that they had considered withdrawing from the current A-League finals.

Doing so would have triggered an almighty protest from FFA headquarters, but in the meantime it has once again kicked off the debate over whether the A-League should revert to a first-past-the-post system to decide its champions.

One team that could benefit from the chaos is Gold Coast United, who will field a settled squad in the finals despite losing an appeal to have the five-match suspension of niggling defender Steve Pantelidis reduced.

On paper, Gold Coast arguably have more depth than any other club in the league, and should they see off Newcastle Jets in their opening sudden-death playoff match, they will then take on either Wellington Phoenix or Perth Glory in the next game.

It’s convoluted, it’s confusing and in the end, no one is really sure who the real champions are anyway.

But the finals series has rolled around again, and after topping the table to be crowned ‘premiers’ at the end of the regular season, Sydney FC still have plenty to do if they are to finish as ‘champions’ in the confusing world of the A-League.

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Melbourne get away with Mrdja in dodgy transfer

Mike Tuckerman — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 20:00:00 GMT

Imagine Manchester United borrowing Jermain Defoe to replace the injured Wayne Rooney in a last-day title decider against Chelsea. As Mike Tuckerman explains, a similar thing has happened in the climaxing A-League...

As if to downplay its reputation as a bit of a tin-pot competition, the A-League has suddenly burst into life with the sort of drama more commonly found in the blogs of La Liga Loca.

It all started with the news that Melbourne Victory’s record goalscorer Archie Thompson would miss a month of action after breaking his foot against Wellington Phoenix.

“No worries,” reckoned coach Ernie Merrick, who insisted that his side still had plenty of striking talent available to steer Victory through the opening rounds of the finals.

Either Merrick is a filthy liar or the prospect of fielding untested youth team striker Aziz Behich suddenly lost its appeal, because the po-faced tactician promptly got on the phone and gave Central Coast Mariners a call.

The result of Merrick’s chat with outgoing Mariners coach Lawrie McKinna was Victory’s signing of veteran striker Nik Mrdja on a short-term “injury replacement” deal.

It's obviously not a loan, as the transfer window closed at the end of January.

Only Mrdja hasn’t replaced the injured Archie Thompson, but instead has joined as cover for holding midfielder Billy Celeski, who was ruled out for the rest of the season way back in September.

The move has the rest of the league spitting chips – not least Sydney FC, who blasted Football Federation Australia over the loan deal in the pages of the News Limited press.

“Approval of these kinds of player movements at such a critical stage of the season seriously undermines the credibility of the A-League,” raged Sydney vice-chairman Scott Barlow.

Such a reaction was predictable given that Sydney FC host Victory on the final day of the regular season, with the two giants jostling for top spot – and the 2011 AFC Champions League place that comes with it.

Sydney are two points behind their southern rivals going into the Sydney Football Stadium blockbuster, so nothing less than a win will see Vitezslav Lavicka’s team snatch top spot.

Sydney officials could be forgiven for rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of the Valentine’s Day clash, were it not for the fact that the Sydney Football Stadium pitch may be virtually unplayable.

Last weekend the Edinburgh Tattoo was in town, forcing Sydney FC to take their home game against Perth Glory to Parramatta Stadium as the A-League played second fiddle to marching militia.

Unfortunately for the Sky Blues, the effect of dozens of marching bands trampling over an already fragile surface amidst a torrential downpour was so severe that the match venue was rumoured to be changing.

Sydney officials were quick to scotch those rumours, and nervy A-League fans must now hope for the best in a season that has been blighted by the sorry state of certain pitches.

It has been a surreal build-up to what should be a momentous clash, and Gold Coast United could still stand to profit from the highly anticipated showdown.

Miron Bleiberg’s side were controversially beaten 1-0 at home by Wellington Phoenix last weekend, but they will nevertheless finish second if they defeat North Queensland Fury and see Sydney FC lose the following day.

A top-two finish ensures a double chance in the six-team play-offs, but for now there’s still the final round of the regular season to negotiate.

It’s shaping up as one of the most anticipated rounds in the A-League’s brief history – full of the kind of conspiracy theories, dodgy officialdom and good old-fashioned argy bargy that the rest of the world’s more colourful leagues take for granted.

And if Nik Mrdja scores a dramatic late winner on Sunday afternoon, expect to hear an outcry all the way from Sydney to FIFA’s head offices in Zürich.

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Fowler-Ferguson fury sparks coaching merry-go-round

Mike Tuckerman — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:30:00 GMT

If North Queensland Fury officials had a sense of humour, they’d have been blasting that most annoying of Clash songs Should I Stay Or Should I Go? over the tannoy as Robbie Fowler’s side ran out for their recent Round 25 clash with the Newcastle Jets.

The match had already been postponed after Tropical Cyclone Olga dumped a deluge of rain on the Dairy Farmer’s Stadium pitch.

Before the rearranged game, all the talk focused on whether Robbie Fowler would return to the starting XI following his sensational bust-up with coach Ian Ferguson.

A week earlier, Ferguson had asked Fowler to start on the bench for the clash with Brisbane Roar – only for the former Liverpool legend to refuse, and in doing so kick off a very public spat played out largely through the media.

The sight of the A-League’s most high-profile player sitting high in the stands made every major news broadcast in the country, and rookie first team coach Ferguson suddenly found the glare of the media spotlight tough to bear.

The aftermath of the spat was as humorous as it was farcical, as desperate Fury officials attempted to play down the rift by claiming that Fowler and Ferguson had simply suffered a “miscommunication” on the eve of the match.

That didn’t stop reports emanating from the club that Fowler had subsequently demanded Ferguson’s removal – something that Fury officials were quick to deny, while Fowler himself later claimed that he was “embarrassed” by his conduct during the affair.

But if Fowler was contrite over his role, the sting in the tail was reserved for Ian Ferguson, who looks almost certain to be out of a job come the end of the season.

Despite backing their coach publicly, Fury officials were privately said to be furious with his decision to drop the club’s marquee player in favour of playing a 4-1-4-1 formation which featured lone striker Dyron Daal at the point of the attack.

Instead of Fowler, it seems to be Ferguson headed for the exit door, as Fury officials line up a move to replace him with his former mentor and current Central Coast Mariners coach Lawrie McKinna.

All smiles - but it's gone wrong now for Ferguson and Fowler

Both Daal and Fowler started up front in North Queensland’s midweek 2-1 win over the Newcastle Jets.

But “Fowlergate” has cast a shadow over the Townville club’s inaugural A-League campaign.

They’ll at least avoid finishing bottom of the table – that indignity is reserved for Adelaide United – but for former Rangers midfielder Ferguson, a maiden A-League campaign as a first-team coach has proved a baptism of fire.

The same cannot be said for popular Sydney FC coach Vitezslav Lavicka, although the Czech tactician was no doubt equally despondent after his side went down 1-0 away at strugglers Brisbane Roar last time out.

The Roar had former Dutch international Patrick Kluivert on the bench as part of his coaching “work experience,” although most A-League fans could be forgiven for preferring to see the 33-year-old on the pitch.

At least Kluivert looked happy to be at the club, which is more than can be said for Danny Tiatto, who quickly became the latest big-name casualty of new coach Ange Postecoglu’s axe-wielding regime.

Tiatto followed Liam Reddy, Craig Moore, Charlie Miller and Bob Malcolm out the door, although he did so in his own inimitable fashion by blasting Postecoglu in the press on the eve of the match with Sydney, prompting Roar officials to predictably point the way to the nearest exit.

It’s a wonder the A-League has any coaches left, after a season punctuated by player dissent and simmering rancour winds its way towards the finals - the regular season ends next weekend.

By mid-March only one coach will be left celebrating as he holds the A-League’s “toilet bowl” trophy aloft, leaving nine other disgruntled coaches wondering whether it was worth all the hassle.

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Life’s a pitch for Melbourne Victory

Mike Tuckerman — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:00:00 GMT

“Melbourne Victory against Perth Glory, the game that very nearly didn’t happen. All the pre-match talk about the state of the surface, and let’s be brutally honest, the surface is a state.”

Fox Sports commentator Simon Hill was exasperated, but his frustration was nothing compared to that of Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell – who asked referee Strebre Delovski to abandon their Round 23 clash with Melbourne due to the horrendous condition of the Etihad Stadium pitch.

Looking more like St Kilda Beach than a serviceable football field, the latest in a long line of Etihad Stadium horror shows included one stretch of barren dirt that appeared to be a misplaced cricket pitch.

Perhaps Melbourne had simply called for “the heavy roller” before kick-off, or otherwise portly midfielder Carlos Hernandez had gone down a little too frequently in pre-match training, but the disgraceful state of the surface precluded any champagne passing football from being played.

Not that it bothered Melbourne, as they demolished their hapless opponents 6-2 on the back of a first ever senior hat-trick from Robbie Kruse, with the ubiquitous Hernandez pulling the strings from midfield in another imperious display.

Victory coach Ernie Merrick was quick to downplay the pitch issues after the game, and charitably he chose not to mention the Benny Hill-like performance of the entire Perth defence.

But while Merrick contends that the Etihad Stadium surface didn’t bother his team – and this after he had labelled it a “car park” earlier in the season – the problem for Victory is that it was the first of three home games at the venue within the space of seven days.

Adelaide United and Wellington Phoenix are the next unlucky opponents to risk life and limb on the diabolical surface, although cynics will note that neither side play the ball on the ground that often anyway.

The issue once again highlights the struggles of A-League clubs to play on suitable pitches, and while many Victory fans believe that a move to the as yet unnamed ‘Rectangular Stadium’ next season is the answer, it too comes with its own set of problems.

Far from having the stadium all to themselves, Victory will share it with expansion club Melbourne Heart next season – not to mention rugby league side Melbourne Storm – and from 2011 new rugby franchise Melbourne Rebels will also call the high-tech venue home.

In essence, Victory will simply move from an unloved Aussie Rules ground to one co-tenanted by at least three other sporting teams, and that’s to say nothing of the fact that so-called “blockbuster games” will still revert to the larger Etihad Stadium.

Victory are not the only A-League team frustrated by the poor condition of their pitch, but if the case of Brisbane Roar is anything to go by, it is possible for A-League teams to co-exist with rivals from other sporting competitions.

Brisbane share their cavernous Suncorp Stadium home with popular rugby league club Brisbane Broncos, and both teams play on a pitch that is best described as “pristine.”

Either the A-League needs to fly Suncorp’s groundsman around the country, or football fans had best brace themselves for more shonky surfaces, because if the Etihad Stadium pitch is anything to go by, things are only getting worse.

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Midweek sports special a success in A-League

Mike Tuckerman — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:00:00 GMT

The midweek A-League action provided a goal worthy of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when James Brown curled a neat finish past Neil Young.

The ‘Godfather of Soul’ might have passed away some years ago, but his teenage namesake enjoyed a stellar evening in the Gold Coast United front line, scoring his first ever A-League goal in the 2-0 win over Newcastle Jets.

Newcastle goalkeeper Young was less fortunate, copping a boot to the face from Shane Smeltz that left him with a badly broken nose and facing weeks on the sidelines.

Despite looking as disoriented as a ‘Crazy Horse’-loving hippy, Young stayed on the pitch in the wake of the sickening collision – only to let Jason Culina’s opener skip straight past him in a difficult first half.

"Owwwwwwwww...."

Culina’s goal was another sub-plot to an entertaining affair, as the United midfielder triumphed at the third attempt over his father and Newcastle coach Branko.

The Jets gaffer was in characteristic form in the pre-match press conference, talking up his team’s chances in typically blunt fashion.

“You can’t say we’re a bad side, because we’ve now beaten Sydney, Gold Coast – twice. We’ll probably do it three times,” blustered Culina Sr as he gazed into a crystal ball which could probably use a once-over with the Windex.

The elder Culina went on to blame his team’s “punishing schedule” for the defeat, after Newcastle had been forced to slog it out in the Sunday afternoon heat just three days earlier, when the 10-man Jets beat champions Melbourne Victory 3-2.

While Newcastle are often on the receiving end of a difficult fixture list, the experiment of playing midweek football has conjured some surprising results.

In a league in which apocalyptic doom always seems just around the corner, many expected midweek football to prove an unqualified disaster, with record-low crowds and TV ratings predicted.

Instead league officials have been pleasantly surprised, with decent crowds turning out in Brisbane, Sydney and on the Gold Coast to watch a Round 19 staggered over five weeks.

The staggering decision – which means the round started on December 16 and will finish on January 26, by which time Round 24 will be done with – allows Fox Sports to broadcast every game live.

There’s something inherently enjoyable about sitting down to watch an A-League game in midweek, as though the process somehow draws us closer to the spiritual heartland of Europe.

Perhaps that’s a tad poetic, but for now midweek football looks to be a success – although once again the fixture list itself raises more questions than answers.

With the Australia Day public holiday on the horizon, surely Football Federation Australia could have done better than to force New Zealand side Wellington Phoenix to cross the Tasman and take on Melbourne Victory on January 26.

Melbourne are the A-League’s best-supported side, and an Australia Day clash with old rivals Sydney FC or Adelaide United would surely have captured public attention and ensured a bumper crowd.

Perhaps the FFA were mindful of the amount of alcohol consumed on the day, with sensational “soccer riot” headlines the last thing the A-League needs in its quest to win over the mainstream public.

As for the rest of the midweek action, it’s been a success so far – in as much that it hasn’t been a total disaster.

That hardly speaks volumes for the A-League, but in a competition that has struggled to generate much positive press of late… it’s a start.

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The A-League team of the (half-)decade

Mike Tuckerman — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:00:00 GMT

When your FourFourTwo.com editor asked The dirt from Down Under to come up with an A-League team of the decade, the blog’s first response was “sure thing, although the league has only been around for five years!”

Never one to let time constraints ruin an old-fashioned popularity contest, the blog has assembled a crack squad of A-League elites that would surely give Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering Barcelona side a run for their money (or maybe not).

Goalkeeper: Eugene Galekovic has been far and away the A-League’s most consistent goalkeeper, and the former Melbourne Victory and current Adelaide United custodian could soon be rewarded with a move to the German Bundesliga.

Right-back: Matthew Kemp has been a grafter of the most versatile kind for Adelaide United and now Melbourne Victory, with the much-improved defender a possible bolter for Australia’s World Cup squad.

Central defender: Kevin Muscat is one of the most controversial figures in the A-League, but the one-club veteran has been a colossus at the back for Melbourne Victory.

Keen as Muscat

Central defender: Craig Moore won few friends by walking out on Brisbane Roar, but the gritty Socceroos defender proved that it was possible for Australia’s best players to turn out in the A-League and still play regularly for the national team.

Left-back: Dean Heffernan is an unpopular figure with away fans, but the Central Coast Mariners defender is renowned for his lung-busting runs and tenacious attitude, which will soon be utilised by expansion club Melbourne Heart.

Right midfield: Travis Dodd has endured some inconsistent spells during his time at Adelaide United, but on his day the tricky winger is unstoppable, with his blistering pace and penetrative runs a vital component of the Reds’ game plan.

Tricky Travis

Holding midfielder: Dwight Yorke may have only spent one full season in Australia, but his impact was immense. ‘All-Night Dwight’ started by scoring Sydney FC’s first-ever league goal and finished by skippering the Sky Blues to the inaugural A-League crown.

Attacking midfielder: Carlos Hernandez arrived in the A-League palpably overweight and out of form, only for the Costa Rican import to silence the critics and establish himself as the best attacking midfielder the competition has ever seen.

Left midfielder: Matt Thompson is the ‘Mr Versatile’ of the A-League. The popular Newcastle Jets captain is also one of the most improved players in the country, as he gets set to take his never-say-die attitude to new club Melbourne Heart next season.

Forward: Archie Thompson has been much maligned in a Socceroos jersey, but the pacy striker has been outstanding as Melbourne Victory’s inaugural marquee signing, and he tops the A-League’s all-time goalscoring charts.

Golden Archie

Forward: Robbie Fowler raised eyebrows when he moved to Australia, but despite turning out for strugglers North Queensland Fury, the Liverpudlian has scored goals aplenty and drawn fans through the gate for the club from tropical Townsville.

Substitutes: Michael Theoklitos (ex-Melbourne Victory), Jamie Harnwell (Perth Glory), Jason Culina (Gold Coast United), Shane Smeltz (Wellington Phoenix, Gold Coast United)

Coach: Ernie Merrick might appear to be about as much fun as a surfboard in the desert, but the dour tactician has proved his worth with two titles at the helm of Melbourne Victory.

So there you have it, an A-League Best XI that will probably have Sydney FC fans fuming, Perth Glory supporters whining and Wellington Phoenix well-wishers thinking “hey, we’re just happy to be here.”

Much like the league, then...

Team of the Decade: Portugal
Team of the Decade: Italy

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Go abroad to see the World (Cup), says Socceroos boss

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Like the creepy uncle who keeps coming back to hog the PlayStation after Christmas lunch, The dirt from Down Under returns from a brief exile to point out that all is not well in the world of Australian football.

Never mind that it’s a sentiment expressed just about every week in the A-League – the season was anything but festive for those who considered it the most appropriate time to launch another predictable whinefest.

The first to stick his head above the parapet was Gold Coast United’s corpulent club benefactor Clive Palmer, who on Christmas Eve launched his umpteenth Dr. Evil-style rant at Australia’s national coach Pim Verbeek.

The crux of the complaint – lest this matter of utmost importance failed to make the papers in Europe – is that Verbeek doesn’t much rate the A-League.

In fact, the laconic Dutchman has essentially informed any locally-based Socceroos that if they don't get a loan abroad after (or before) the A-League season ends in March, they’ve got more chance of being crowned Miss Universe than they have of going to the World Cup.

It’s this sentiment that has got Palmer ranting and raving – understandably, since he laid out the cash to entice erstwhile PSV Eindhoven and current Socceroo midfielder Jason Culina back home.

The first to take up Verbeek’s bold travel challenge was Socceroos regular Craig Moore, who had probably already finished packing by the time he delivered the age-old “back me or sack me” line to club side Brisbane Roar.

Not surprisingly, the Roar backed newly-installed coach Ange Postecoglu over the former 34-year-old skipper, who now looks set to join Scottish Premier League side St. Johnstone on loan.

His departure will have the likes of Perth Glory trio Mile Sterjovski, Jacob Burns and Chris Coyne sweating, since they’ll have to invent their own excuses to depart the West Australian club.

The animosity between Moore and Postecoglu may have been well documented, but whether Sydney FC duo Simon Colosimo and Alex Brosque exchanged Christmas cards with club officials is anyone’s guess.

The pair were bluntly informed that they would not be allowed to go out on loan during the January transfer window – slightly problematic for both, since the A-League season finishes a mere three months before the World Cup kicks off.

Whether loan moves would even help the pair’s cause is questionable, as Verbeek already has plenty of overseas-based talent to call upon.

However, the debate has brought even more attention on one of the most glaring issues of the current campaign: the bizarre scheduling which saw the competition kick off amid the finals series of more popular codes yet which finishes some three months before the World Cup takes place.

He may have been steaming about the whole debacle on Christmas Eve, but by Boxing Day the much-maligned Palmer was probably dancing the hully-gully after his Gold Coast side smashed local rivals Brisbane Roar 5-1 in the derby.

The match itself was notable for the presence of veteran Charlie Miller in a Gold Coast shirt, just weeks after he exited Brisbane in acrimonious circumstances – the first victim of coach Postecoglu’s age-based purge.

Miller was fairly quiet against his former club, as burly defender Kristian Rees and striker Shane Smeltz stole the headlines – the former scoring a brace, the latter a hat-trick – while the aforementioned Jason Culina picked up a knee injury that ruled him out of Australia’s upcoming Asian Cup qualifier in Kuwait.

Culina has at times played like a dead man walking this season, and it’s clear that he fears for his spot in the national side.

He’s a key player for both the Socceroos and Gold Coast United, but that could all change if Pim Verbeek gets his wish – one way or another.

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Fans ignore naff name ahead of ‘Big Blue’

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:00:00 GMT

After weeks of gloomy headlines, there’s finally light at the end of the tunnel for embattled A-League fans.

On December 19, the two biggest clubs in the land go head-to-head at Etihad Stadium in a fascinating top-of-the-table clash.

Around 35,000 supporters are expected to turn out to see league leaders Melbourne Victory do battle with arch-rivals Sydney FC, and there are more sub-plots to consider than your average Hitchcock thriller.

Former Crystal Palace, Rangers and Millwall hard-man Kevin Muscat plays his 500th game in the colours of his beloved Victory, as he lines up against Sydney’s evergreen playmaker Steve Corica.

In-form Sydney striker Alex Brosque also celebrates a milestone in the form of his 100th A-League match, doing so in the knowledge that he features in the plans of Australia coach Pim Verbeek – who will rely heavily on local players for an upcoming Asian Cup qualifier against Kuwait.

Meanwhile, Sydney defender Simon Colosimo was nonplussed by his club’s failure to appeal the red card he received in the Sky Blues’ recent win over Wellington Phoenix.

“For the club to decide not to appeal, I don't think was right. At least we should have given it a go,” sighed Sydney’s exasperated centre-back to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Club officials responded by claiming there was only a minimal chance of success, yet the failure to appeal is unlikely to do much for relations between player and club – with Colosimo being tracked by a host of rival Australian and Asian outfits.

His absence means that ex-Melbourne defender Sebastian Ryall will slot into the defence for what will inevitably be a torrid encounter against his former club.

Ryall missed the start of the season after criminal charges were brought against him for engaging in a sexual act with a 13-year-old girl, and Victory supporters are unlikely to bother with good taste in their attempts to unsettle the young defender.

Melbourne and Sydney have both won 10 games this season, however Victory are still three points in front of the Sky Blues at the top of the standings.

They could go a long way to wrapping up the ‘premiership’ trophy with a win over their biggest foes, and Melbourne are itching for revenge after Sydney thrashed the Victorian side 3-0 when the pair met in an earlier Etihad Stadium encounter last October.

After only 30,372 fans turned out across five matches last weekend – the lowest aggregate total this season – A-League officials could be forgiven their relief over a blockbuster that should draw more fans through the gate than last weekend’s entire round.

The only thing left is to give the interstate grudge match a name.

Host broadcaster Fox Sports made a half-hearted attempt back in October, launching a website poll that featured some of the most ridiculous names for a football game one can possibly imagine.

‘The Big Blue’ came out on top, but given that it was up against ‘Big City Derby,’ the hilariously misappropriated ‘Oz Superclasico’ and the downright bizarre ‘Parra-Yarra Derby,’ it’s not clear whether that was a genuine sign of affection or an attempt to minimise further embarrassment.

Whatever the truth, fans have mostly avoided employing the strange moniker – opting instead to simply label the match ‘Melbourne Victory vs Sydney FC.’

It goes to show that when it comes to hyperbolic marketing, most A-League fans won’t have a bar of it.

But when it comes to the A-League’s biggest match, there’s no doubt that Melbourne’s classic with their hated harbour city rivals has all the ingredients of a classic.

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"Football" blocks Australia's World Cup bid

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:30:00 GMT

There’s a real danger that ‘football’ could destroy the fabic of Australian society.

If we don’t act now, this alien sport could tear the country apart!

Don’t laugh – that’s the sentiment dredged up by a frenzied Melbourne press on the back of some carefully timed comments from AFL (Aussie Rules) chief Andrew Demetriou.

Less than 48 hours after the Socceroos were drawn with Germany, Ghana and Serbia in a challenging World Cup group, Demetriou dropped a verbal bombshell designed to inflict maximum damage.

Any bid to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals could see the AFL season postponed – possibly for an entire season – if you believe the artful stirrer.

The loss of revenue would subsequently bankrupt some of the country’s most iconic teams, banishing them forever from the Australian sporting landscape.

Never mind that Demetriou is talking rubbish: his comments gathered flapping like moths to a flame, with the talkback switchboards soon flooded by angry callers denouncing the world game.

The debate centres on which stadia would be used during a World Cup finals – and when.

Any finals staged in Australia would take place in the middle of domestic AFL and rugby league seasons, and there are only so many grounds to go around.

The AFL have demanded further details from Football Federation Australia regarding schedules, even though the bidding process is in its infancy, and the 2018 tournament is nine years down the track.

Temporarily rescheduling Australian Rules fixtures to regional centres would prove a ready-made solution to the impasse, but the AFL has made it clear they don’t appreciate football encroaching on hallowed turf.

Any World Cup bid is likely to propose the 100,000-capacity Melbourne Cricket Ground as a venue for the final, but the MCG is also home to several AFL blockbusters.

Silly games at the WCG (pint not to scale)

Since FIFA requires exclusive use of stadia for between six to eight weeks, the AFL has resorted to overblown hyperbole to demonstrate the threat that football poses.

While it’s not surprising to see the Melbourne media promote their sport of choice, what has been disheartening is the largely xenophobic response their comments have generated from the public.

For a country that prides itself on being ‘multicultural’, there has been an inordinate amount of vicious name-calling on both sides of the debate.

The irony of the AFL’s stance is that the sport is not especially popular outside the state of Victoria, with rugby league generally the game of choice further up the coast in both New South Wales and Queensland.

Rugby League’s governing body, the NRL, has proffered a lukewarm response to a potential World Cup – with the prospect of improved stadia a potential sweetener.

However, the Sydney media has jumped at the chance to ridicule their southern cousins, with the city’s daily rags talking up the opportunity to host a World Cup final – at Melbourne’s expense.

That support is largely cosmetic, with many Sydneysiders feeling there’s as much chance of hosting a World Cup as there is of Dwight Yorke becoming a prominent teetotaler.

But with Australia already at long odds to host a World Cup, convincing the locals is the last thing the FFA needs, as they set out on the long journey of trying to win over FIFA.

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Melbourne revels in Sydney slump

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:25:00 GMT

Travel writer Bill Bryson got it right when describing Australia’s capital city.

“Canberra: Gateway to everywhere else!” chirps Bryson, summing up the indifference with which most Australians treat their seat of government.

Football Federation Australia certainly seem to regard Canberra as irrelevant – they recently denied a club from the capital entry into A-League, with an expansion licence instead handed to a second Sydney team.

Of course, Canberra wouldn’t exist were it not for the fact that Australia’s two largest cities just can’t seem to get along.

That an artificial capital was built at the midway point between Sydney and Melbourne speaks volumes for the animosity between the two cities.

So it should come as no great surprise that the rivalry between Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory is, to put it mildly, somewhat intense.

It all started on a windy Sunday night in Sydney back in August 2005, as the pair played out a pulsating 1-1 draw in front of what was then the largest-ever crowd for an Australian regular season fixture.

The rivalry has only grown since, but for now it’s Melbourne Victory looking down with sneering contempt at their hated rivals from the harbour city.

That’s because Ernie Merrick’s side have opened up a five-point gap at the top of the A-League, and they’ve done it playing some breathtaking football of late.

Melbourne’s 4-0 obliteration of Gold Coast United in Round 15 was a masterclass of attacking football, even if United fielded an understrength side due to injuries and suspensions.

On the same weekend Melbourne were putting Gold Coast to the sword, Sydney were slumping to their third straight defeat as they crashed 3-1 at home to the Newcastle Jets.

The loss was doubly frustrating for Vitezslav Lavicka’s side, as English import and former Sydney striker Michael Bridges scored twice – his reward being a new two-year contract offered by the Jets.

Sydney thumped Melbourne 3-0 when the pair met in their first meeting of the season, but there’s plenty of work for Lavicka to do ahead of the next instalment of one the A-League’s great rivalries on December 19.

The Sky Blues will hope to have bridged the gap on the current league leaders by then, not least because Central Coast Mariners and Gold Coast United are currently breathing down their neck.

In fact, so tight is the league table that bottom club Adelaide United are still only three points outside the top six.

Adelaide were recently beaten 2-1 away at North Queensland Fury, for whom Robbie Fowler scored his ninth goal of a profitable season so far.

The Liverpudlian is fast reeling in Gold Coast striker Shane Smeltz at the top of the goalscoring charts, with the marquee man’s signing proving a masterstroke both on and off the pitch.

He has recently been joined by another Englishman at the Townsville club, after North Queensland recruited journeyman midfielder Terry Cooke.

The 33-year-old most recently spent four years at MLS club Colorado Rapids, but Cooke will forever been known as “the former Manchester United man” – despite getting on the pitch just four times in five years when starting out his career at Old Trafford.

North Queensland may face an uphill battle to reach the end of season finals, but Melbourne and Sydney will be in the thick of it come February.

Whether they qualify as the top two remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that a Grand Final between the two clubs would represent a marketing dream.

Such a showdown could even be staged at the 100,000-capacity Melbourne Cricket Ground, with the old adage that Melburnians would turn out for the opening of an envelope bearing more than a semblance of the truth.

Both clubs will be jostling for home ground advantage, but if the A-League wanted to defuse the situation they could always play it on neutral territory.

After all, there has to be some decent use for the city of Canberra...

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“No jokes please, we’re Australian!”

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:06:00 GMT

At a point unknown to the rest of us, Football Federation Australia seem to have quietly hired infamous Torquay hotelier Basil Fawlty to conduct its operations.

Media liaisons are now conducted with summary brusqueness, visitors are routinely insulted and the sign has been slung over the doorknob: “No riff-raff!”

How else to explain the extraordinary events of the past week, in which two A-League coaches have been censured for audiciously speaking their minds.

In the first instance, it wasn’t even the normally trigger-happy FFA that cracked down on an outrageous outbreak of free speech that has threatened to tear Australian football apart.

Instead, it was South Australian club Adelaide United who moved quicker than a politburo censor to distance itself from comments made by coach Aurelio Vidmar.

Asked in a post-match press conference if he was “too nice” to his players, Vidmar replied, “What would you like me to do? Chop their heads off? I can do that. We can go to Saudi Arabia and we can do that.”

The ramifications of that off-the-cuff statement were as swift as they were stupid. Vidmar was suspended by his club for two matches – assistant coach Phil Stubbins will now take charge – and the former Australian international was fined £5,500.

All this for demonstrating a surprising degree of cultural awareness in referring to a country that carries out capital punishment by beheading.

Vidmar’s quip was admittedly not the most tasteful, but it’s surely the fact that he has prior form that saw Adelaide administer such a draconian response. He became a cult hero on the terraces for memorably labelling Adelaide a “piss-ant town,” after United were thrashed 4-0 by arch-rivals Melbourne Victory in a semi-final match last February.

Speaking in the aftermath of his latest foot-in-mouth moment, Vidmar admitted that the suspension was “a bit of a kick in the teeth.”

“I think I've had two strikes now, so I'm sure three strikes and you are out,” conceded the beleaguered tactician.

He can at least sympathise with Newcastle Jets coach Branko Culina, who has been summonsed to the FFA over a comment made in the wake of Newcastle’s recent home defeat to Wellington Phoenix. When questioned whether his side could still make the finals, Culina responded with refreshing honesty.

“We're only a finals team because all the teams around us are pretty sh*t as well,” shrugged the veteran coach.

Apparently that was too much for the FFA to bear, who issued the ever-candid Culina with a notice for breaching their code of conduct.

Forget that Culina had only said what every Australian football fan was already thinking – it’s evidently intolerable for anyone to make even slightly disparaging remarks about the A-League. In a competition crying out for some colour and flair, the FFA have demonstrated a penchant for cracking down on dissent with all the subtlety of a Stalinist stormtrooper.

The irony of both cases was that they received prolonged mainstream media attention. That’s something the A-League desperately requires, but the FFA are threatening to cut off their nose to spite their own face by constantly clamping down on coaches’ comments.

A-League press conferences are boring enough without coaches offering monosyllabic responses to the most inane of questions, but that’s precisely what will occur should the current crackdown continue.

Even Gold Coast United’s rent-a-quote comedian/coach Miron Bleiberg has been silent of late – although that’s probably because his team have been playing rubbish.

Larrikinism is alive and well in Australia – just don’t expect to find it in the A-League. When it comes to comedy, we’re more Basil Fawlty than Crocodile Dundee.

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Kiwis qualify with not a sheep joke in sight

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:00 GMT

When the various World Team of the Year awards go out, don’t expect New Zealand to top too many lists.

The Kiwi side may have qualified for their first World Cup finals since 1982, but their status as a representative of Oceania has put plenty of noses out of joint.

That’s because New Zealand knocked out an Asian nation in the form of Bahrain, using a squad comprised mainly of players from A-League outfit Wellington Phoenix.

Since the A-League is an Asian competition, Australia has essentially provided its Antipodean cousins with the perfect platform to launch an assault on the World Cup.

That won’t go down well with the head honchos at the Asian Football Confederation, who saw New Zealand knock the last remaining west Asian side out of the competition.

The AFC has already proposed booting Wellington out of the A-League, with powerful Qatari-born supremo Mohammed Bin Hammam repeatedly expressing his desire to see the club evicted from the league.

However, FIFA have responded to the impasse with predictable indifference, as the globetrotting Sepp Blatter makes it clear that a trip to the Kiwi capital is not high on the agenda.

For now, New Zealand march on to the finals in South Africa with a squad consisting largely of A-League players, including play-off hero Mark Paston and star striker Shane Smeltz.

Paston saved a penalty in New Zealand’s 1-0 win over Bahrain in Wellington, where 36,000 fans packed into Westpac Stadium to see the hosts prevail following a scoreless first leg.

The Phoenix goalkeeper was only playing due to a suspension to Melbourne Victory custodian Glen Moss, and Paston made the most of his start – although it was Plymouth Argyle striker Rory Fallon who cannoned home the header that sent New Zealand through.

Coach Ricki Herbert went to the World Cup as a player in 1982, and he was the focus of emotional scenes at the final whistle, having guided the Kiwi side to just their second finals appearance.

Much has been made of the fact that New Zealand did not beat a single country with a population exceeding one million en route to the finals.

Nevertheless, the All Whites simply did what was required and beat every team that was put before them.

They’ll go into the finals with the mantle of underdogs and a game plan based heavily on “hitting set pieces into areas” – as midfielder Leo Bertos described the build-up to the winning goal against Bahrain.

What England coach Fabio Capello makes of a potential Commonwealth showdown at the World Cup is anyone’s guess, with New Zealand joining Australia and hosts South Africa at the table of football’s elite.

For their part, the Kiwis are just happy to be there – even if the 5-0 mauling they suffered at the hands of Spain in last year’s Confederations Cup suggests that they are merely making up the numbers.

From an Australian point of view, reaction has been fairly positive to the success of our cousins across the ditch, with talk of a potential friendly on the cards.

These days Australia is a commited member of the AFC, but there are plenty of well wishers who remember the not-so-distant past when the Kiwis were our fiercest international rivals.

The dirt from Down Under wishes New Zealand well, and promises to lay off the sheep jokes for the foreseeable future.

That is, of course, unless the two sides meet in South Africa – in which case it’ll be on for young and old.

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The league where any team can win (and sometimes do)

Mike Tuckerman — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:00:00 GMT

What’s short, redundant and willing to stretch the laws of mathematical probability?

If you answered Jean Tigana, you’re not wrong.

However, in this instance the blog refers not to the man who once paid £11.5 million for the services of Steve Marlet, but rather to the convoluted finals series that takes place at the end of the regular A-League season.

Never an organisation concerned with stretching credibility, this season Football Federation Australia welcomed two new expansion teams by announcing a spanking new finals system.

The dirt from Down Under would give you the gist of it, but must confess to never having bothered to look it up.

What is pertinent is the fact that six teams out of 10 qualify for the finals, making consistent football unnecessary in a competition that can be won by losing more games than your opponents.

Nevertheless, with the halfway point of the regular season having come and gone, a consistent pattern has begun to emerge.

It’s perhaps best explained through the use of chaos theory, with any one A-League team capable of thrashing any other – regardless of whether that team is lying bottom of the table, or is more concerned with the logistics of trying to lock out fans.

A case in point is the 4-0 hammering the Central Coast Mariners dished out to defending champions Melbourne Victory in Round 14, with the Mariners winning in Melbourne for the second time this season.

That result came on the same night that Gold Coast United popped up to beat Sydney FC 1-0 in Robina, ensuring that the league’s top two clubs both lost on the same evening.

Sydney, Melbourne and Gold Coast occupy the top three positions, while the Mariners are this season’s surprise package in fourth – mainly on the back of a game plan based loosely on hoofing the ball towards striker Matt Simon at every given opportunity.

Aside from having two first names, Simon is clearly the go-to man at the Mariners.

So bustling is his all-action style that he’s been mentioned as a possible bolter for Australia’s World Cup squad, where presumably he would be used to scare the living daylights of some of world football’s more cultured international sides.

Rattling along in fifth is every British expat’s favourite team Perth Glory, whose respectable tally of 19 goals for is offset by a schizophrenic defence that has seen them concede 18 times this season – mostly in hilarious circumstances.

Wellington Phoenix are clinging to sixth, despite the fact that coach Ricki Herbert and half his squad have spent the best part of two months preparing for New Zealand’s epic World Cup qualification play-off against Bahrain.

The bottom four is a fairly apt reflection of the A-League’s current strugglers, with basket case Brisbane Roar hoping to improve under new coach Ange Postecoglu, while Aurelio Vidmar is feeling the heat at last season’s runner-up Adelaide United.

The same can be said for for former Sydney FC coach Branko Culina at struggling Newcastle Jets, who have turned in some shambolic performances this season.

Only North Queensland Fury have managed to garner any widespread sympathy from fans, through the time-honoured method of being wholehearted but largely ineffective.

Yet despite sitting bottom of the table, North Queensland are only 10 points behind current league leaders Sydney with half the season still to play.

It’s testament to just how tight the current A-League campaign is, with the Fury’s three victories this season coming over big guns Sydney, Perth and Gold Coast.

The A-League’s much publicised salary cap plays an obvious role in ensuring a level playing field, but perhaps it’s partly reflective of the fact that even a fairly mediocre campaign is enough to see teams qualify for the finals.

It’s Sydney FC out in front for now, but it would take a brave gambler to bet the lot on the Sky Blues being crowned ‘premiers’ in what is a notoriously unpredictable competition.

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Fan power forces change at Gold Coast

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:00:00 GMT

As a football fan, it’s not easy living in a place where the round-ball code is not the No.1 game in town.

Transfer deadlines come and go with little understanding of their earth-shattering significance. Big European nights equate to 4.30am starts and a giant pot of coffee.

Simply calling the game ‘football’ is enough to turn certain folks red with anger, as they threaten to round up a posse and start confiscating the passports of those miscreants who follow this strange and frankly foreign game.

So it was somewhat of a surprise to see some bona fide fan culture turn up – of all places – on the Gold Coast.

Gold Coast United’s decision to impose a virtual lock-out of fans from their Round 13 clash with North Queensland Fury prompted bemusement in some quarters, simmering rage in others.

BLOG, Sat Oct 30: Ifill towers as Gold Coast beg fans to stay away

The usual detractors painted it as proof that football is destined to fail in Australia, but if the reaction of Gold Coast’s small but hardy band of supporters is anything to go by, there are still plenty for whom the game is more than a passing trend.

Armed with an assortment of banners for the visit of Robbie Fowler and his battling Fury side, Gold Coast’s hardcore supporters may not have won any Pulitzer prizes, but their message was clear enough.

“Greatest team never seen” was one of the more inventive banners picked up by the TV cameras, while the instructive “Want bigger crowds? Ask us how” was aimed squarely at Gold Coast’s curmudgeonly benefactor Clive Palmer.

It was Palmer who insisted that capping crowds would save United bucketloads of cash, although why one of the country’s richest businessmen didn’t expect to lose money investing in domestic football is the question on everyone’s lips.

On the pitch, Gold Coast not surprisingly went down 2-0 to Fury.

Off it, the storming of the home end by Gold Coast’s hardcore fans in the 73rd minute captured almost as much attention as the record-low crowd of just 2,616 paying spectators.

Having been corralled into the main stand on the back of United’s crowd-capping policy, Gold Coast’s home-end hardcore took back the hilariously named ‘Beach’ by force.

Mind you, it was hardly a fair fight against a lone security guard – who saw what should have been the easiest night of his life ruined by a bunch of rowdy Gold Coast fans eager to rage against the machine.

They took up their position behind the goal just in time to see United defender Steve Pantelidis concede a penalty for handball, with the resultant spot-kick impudently swept home by Fowler.

It’s a shame that so much of this season’s focus has been on crowd sizes, because the football on display has been of a consistently high standard.

Mile Sterjovski scored one of the goals of the season in Perth Glory’s narrow 2-1 home defeat to Melbourne Victory last time out, with Sydney FC clearly the team of the round as they brushed aside Wellington Phoenix 3-1 at home.

Sydney’s win sets up an intriguing Round 14 clash with Gold Coast at Skilled Park – and it appears that fan power has won the day, with Football Federation Australia agreeing to help pay the costs of United’s home fixtures for the remainder of the season.

Ticket prices have also been slashed, with Gold Coast officials now imploring local fans to get out and support their team.

It’s a strange marketing tactic, to say the least, but in a week in which they strengthened their reputation as the most disliked club in the land, Gold Coast United will be looking to put one of the darker chapters in the A-League’s brief history behind them.

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Ifill towers as Gold Coast beg fans to stay away

Mike Tuckerman — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:00:00 GMT

He came, he saw, he took quite a while to get started.

However, eventually Wellington Phoenix striker Paul Ifill did what many assumed he would do at least once this season: run riot against a stunned A-League defence.

The hapless back four in question belonged to Gold Coast United, who copped an Ifill during a 6-0 defeat at the hands of the Kiwi side.

The Barbados international was the main protagonist, setting up Wellington’s first three goals before adding their fifth for good measure.

The 6-0 thrashing equals the heaviest ever defeat in the A-League’s (admittedly brief) history, and it shattered whatever aura remained about the star-studded Gold Coast side.

Prior to the match, Gold Coast coach Miron Bleiberg informed Wellington gaffer Ricki Herbert that he needn’t bother concentrating on this clash, claiming that Herbert had “bigger fish to fry.”

A former Kiwi international, these days Herbert doubles as coach of the New Zealand national team – with the All Whites still in the running for World Cup qualification.

But having witnessed his club side rattle in five goals before the hour mark had even ticked over, Herbert couldn’t resist a riposte: telling a stunned Bleiberg to “look at the scoreboard” – or words to that effect.

Yet, in a week in which Gold Coast were obliterated by one of the A-League’s most unfashionable clubs, their capitulation was far from the main news story.

Instead, it’s their decision to close stands at their Skilled Park Stadium home in an attempt to cap their Round 13 crowd against North Queensland Fury to fewer than 5,000 fans, that has spun the Australian football fraternity into a tizzy.

Already a deeply unpopular outfit, Gold Coast have now prompted a furious backlash from fans and officials with this unprecedented move.

The basis of Gold Coast’s astonishing decision is their desire to avoid a £1.70 transport levy that kicks in when more than 5,000 tickets are sold – ensuring free public transport for those fans that make their way to the ground.

Not only will supporters now be slugged with the cost of travelling to a stadium that features limited parking, they’ve also been denied the opportunity to buy the cheapest tickets on offer – with Gold Coast fans now expected to fork out the princely sum of £23 to sit in a near-deserted arena.

An apoplectic Football Federation Australia has been caught off-guard by the diabolical scheme, issuing a variety of stern rebukes from FFA headquarters, despite appearing powerless to prevent the move.

The news come on the back of another difficult week for football in Australia, with the mainstream media ratcheting up its anti-football campaigns ahead of next year’s World Cup.

Arguably the most amusing article came courtesy of Sydney tabloid The Daily Telegraph, with the newspaper claiming to have counted each and every individual who attended Sydney FC’s 2-1 defeat of Brisbane Roar at the Sydney Football Stadium.

Lo and behold, Sydney’s bastion of the truth claims to have discovered a discrepancy of some 2,000 fans from the official crowd figure posted – and they’ve helpfully included colourful seating charts and photos of empty seats to prove it.

The whole thing would be utterly laughable were it not for the fact that it highlights just how desperate some media outlets are to discredit the round ball game in Australia.

They needn’t try so hard, since at least one A-League club appears hell-bent on discrediting its own code in an already over-crowded Australian sports market.

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Fury furore over Fowler-Fergie "fight"

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:30:00 GMT

If you were to believe the media headlines following the latest round of A-League action, simmering disharmony appears to be the new teamwork.

From the spat between Perth Glory skipper Jacob Burns and Dutch import Victor Sikora to Wellington Phoenix skipper Andrew Durante ragging on his former club Newcastle Jets, airing public grievances has been the trend in vogue of late.

As such, it was no major surprise to read a headline on The World Game website imaginatively entitled “Fury deny Fergie-Fowler rift.”

The crux of the article, if you couldn’t guess, was that North Queensland officials were forced to refute claims that coach Ian Ferguson was unhappy with the form of a certain Robbie Fowler.

The feature was easy to overlook – Fowler can hardly blow his nose without an eager A-League scribe reporting it – and the former Liverpool, Leeds and Man City striker has been linked with a move away from the minute he set foot in the tropical north.

However, if fans of the Townsville club were desperate for assurances that “God” would see out his contract with the struggling Fury, they’ve hardly received them thanks to another spate of articles linking Fowler with a move.

The latest gossip suggests that Tranmere are casting envious glances at the Scouser – who coincidentally got on the scoresheet with a fine header in North Queensland’s 1-1 home draw with Wellington Phoenix in Round 11.

Fowler wasn’t the only player to answer his critics on the pitch, with Perth's Sikora shrugging off a rebuke from captain Burns to set up the Glory's equaliser against Gold Coast United.

Following several slips from Sikora, and without even waiting for the imminent half-time break, an apoplectic Burns demanded that coach Dave Mitchell substitute the Dutchman.

Mitchell shrugged his shoulders at the request, and Sikora went on to thread a defence-splitting pass to set up a goal for Todd Howarth.

If Howarth was delighted with his debut A-League strike, his euphoria lasted all of 10 seconds.

Straight from the kick-off he comically clattered into team-mate Jamie Coyne and allowed Gold Coast’s Joel Porter to set up goal-machine Shane Smeltz for the winner.

Howarth will no doubt spare a thought for Newcastle Jets' beleaguered goalkeeper Ben Kennedy, who was publicly assured that his position was safe – only to discover within days that the Jets were courting former Socceroos wild-child Mark Bosnich.

These days Bosnich is a Fox Sports analyst, and an insightful one at that, with his candid honesty a refreshing change from the old boys' club that dominates certain sections of the Australian football media.

The hapless Kennedy would face another long spell on the bench if Bosnich were to come out of retirement to play for the Jets, and the three late goals conceded in a 3-1 home defeat to Melbourne Victory didn’t exactly help his cause.

The Jets are synonymous with a lack of professionalism – after re-signing for Wellington Phoenix, former Newcastle defender Andrew Durante admitted as much – so hanging their young goalkeeper out to dry isn’t beyond the Novocastrian club.

But it’s the claim that Robbie Fowler could be on his way out of the A-League that will keep the headline writers in work.

Whether there’s any truth to the story is somewhat of a moot point.

Fowler is one of the A-League’s most marketable players, so any suggestion that he could leave the struggling Fury will strike at the heart of a competition that has found it a hard slog to attract fans through the gates this season.

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Brisbane Roar hit self-destruct button

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:00:00 GMT

There are football clubs that are run as models of efficiency, with directors overseeing business affairs, highly-paid coaches poring over tactics and a flotilla of support staff all employed to ensure the best possible results on the pitch.

And then there is Brisbane Roar.

To suggest that the struggling A-League club have endured a nightmare season would be to understate things just a tad.

From stayaway fans to disciplinary problems to a stadium tenancy that looks liable to cripple the club, Brisbane have lurched from crisis to self-made crisis throughout the campaign to date.

But things really came to a head in a bizarre 2-1 defeat away at defending champions Melbourne Victory back in Round 9.

It wasn’t so much the scoreline that was confounding, but rather the fact that several of the Brisbane players took to kicking ex-Roar midfielder Robbie Kruse for the entire 90 minutes.

Kruse had left the Roar just weeks earlier, so it was somewhat of a surprise to see the youngster become the target of a spiteful Brisbane midfield.

He was bodychecked by former Manchester City and Leicester hard-man Danny Tiatto, who was later given a one-match ban for flipping Melbourne fans the bird.

Ex-Rangers midfielder Charlie Miller then took it upon himself to king-hit Kruse in the dying minutes, with the off-the-ball incident earning the Scotsman a two-match suspension – a decision that outraged Victory officials for its leniency.

It also prompted several stern rebukes from The Courier Mail’s resident football man Marco Monteverde, who was nonplussed by Brisbane’s attempted intimidation.

Yet the local newspaper’s blunt appraisal incensed Miller, who was quick to blame “the media” for his suspension.

It was a precursor of things to come.

When word broke that Roar coach Frank Farina had been arrested on drink driving charges on the eve of Brisbane’s Round 10 derby with Gold Coast United, it rapidly became headline news.

Incredibly, it was the second time the ex-Socceroos coach had been charged with DUI during his tenure as Roar coach.

Sources were quick to speculate that Roar officials would use the charge to sack Farina, citing his influence on a squad that has been wracked by ill-discipline.

Sure enough, Brisbane announced that Farina had been “suspended indefinitely” – but that was apparently code for the fact that the club was locked in a bitter dispute with Farina over severance pay.

Days later the pair finally came to agreement, but not before Farina had lashed out at Football Federation Australia, claiming that the game’s governing body were responsible for making him “a scapegoat.”

The unseemly affair is the last thing Brisbane needs, as fans continue to boycott home games.

Less than 9,000 turned out for the derby with Gold Coast United, prompting Brisbane officials to slash ticket prices for the rest of the season.

But with the club now considered a basket case, recent events will do nothing to improve their dismal attendances.

Indeed, the Roar may be lucky to attract crowds in excess of 10,000 to the cavernous Suncorp Stadium home for the rest of the campaign.

The club’s plight is proving a major headache for FFA officials, who already have their hands full dealing with newcomers North Queensland Fury and Gold Coast United.

North Queensland are suffering from a shortfall in sponsorship, while Gold Coast have consistently attracted the league’s lowest attendances – despite possessing a star-studded squad.

But it’s Brisbane who currently hold the mantle as the A-League’s problem child, with the Roar constantly creating headlines for all the wrong reasons.

With several players reputedly loyal to former coach Farina, assistant coach Rado Vidosic has the unenviable task of trying to unite a fractured squad.

Improving performances on the pitch might be the least of Vidosic’s problems, with the Roar looking more likely to self-destruct than win a maiden A-League championship.

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Michael Bridges still calls Australia home

Mike Tuckerman — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:00:00 GMT

The dirt from Down Under is in an English kind of mood, and it's not just because the blog is desperate to make The Guardian's online "favourite things this week" shortlist.

Michael Bridges - that amiable Geordie of a seemingly innumerable host of clubs including, most famously, Leeds United - has returned to the A-League to ply his trade with the Newcastle Jets.

The big target man was all arms and elbows in his A-League second-coming, as his Newcastle side played out an absorbing 1-1 draw on the road at Adelaide United.

Bridges was an immensely popular figure during a brief nine-game spell at Sydney FC during the 2007/08 campaign, with the former England U21 striker quickly establishing himself as a fan favourite.

Strong in the air, powerful in the shot and every other footballing cliché one cares to mention, Bridges won over fans with his whole-hearted commitment to the cause - which stood him in glaring contrast to several other A-League imports.

Back in Old Blighty, fans often snigger at English lower-league players moving to Australia, but the point they miss is this - some of these players are a vast improvement on A-League standards.

Admittedly, we have experienced the occasional disaster. The ill-fated New Zealand Knights and their plethora of English plodders springs immediately to mind.

But if the Mother Country is willing to send the likes of Robbie Fowler and Michael Bridges to a land down under, we'll gladly take them.

Bridges failed to get on the scoresheet on his Newcastle debut, strangely enough, although six of the eight goals scored in Round 9 action were registered by foreigners.

Diminutive South Korean dynamo Song Jin-Hyung and Brazilian misfit Cassio traded goals in the 1-1 draw at Hindmarsh Stadium - the latter with a thumping volley, while two more Brazilians and a Northern Irishman got in on the act elsewhere.

What was also noticeable in a low-scoring, albeit intriguing round of action was the return of big crowds to certain stadia.

Both Perth Glory and Adelaide United attracted decent attendances - at least by A-League standards - while Melbourne Victory welcomed their largest crowd of the season to Etihad Stadium in their 2-1 win over Brisbane Roar.

Victory will top that figure this weekend when they host eternal rivals Sydney FC, while the gritty Central Coast Mariners will hope that their attendances improve now that the popular Rugby League season has come to an end.

The one club still sweating profusely on crowd figures is Brisbane Roar, and it's not because of the sub-tropical climate in South-East Queensland.

So desperate are Brisbane to usher fans through the gate for the derby with local rivals Gold Coast United, they've hired the services of one Warwick Capper.

Capper is a former Australian Rules player, who upon being recruited by Brisbane to spruik the derby, admitted that he hadn't seen a game of 'soccer' in over 20 years.

He's also synonymous with wearing the world's tightest pair of shorts, launching an abortive porn career and failing in a 2009 Queensland State Election bid because he didn't bother submitting official documentation.

In other words, he's the kind of guy that makes Paris Hilton look like a stable and intelligent human being.

His recruitment as an official Brisbane Roar mouthpiece smacks of desperation of the last-chance saloon variety, with the Roar seemingly staggering towards death's door.

It would be a shame to see them go belly up, not the least because Brisbane play some of the most attractive football in the country.

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Where in the world are the A-League crowds?

Mike Tuckerman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Football Federation Australia has claimed there’s “no cause for panic.”

The keyboard warrior brigade are calling for calm. Meanwhile, the naysayers are labelling it proof that the A-League is doomed.

But when a grand total of 31,532 fans pile through the gates for a complete round of fixtures, the question must surely be asked: where in the world are the A-League crowds?

That’s a total of 31,532 fans spread across five different Round 8 fixtures!

For the sake of comparison, Melbourne Victory’s 1-0 defeat at the hands of Adelaide United in Round 8 of the 2006/07 season drew a crowd of 32,368 on its own.

In a season in which expansion clubs Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury were expected to raise crowd figures – albeit marginally – a litany of excuses have been trotted out for the drop in attendances.

From an overlap with the popular Australian Rules and Rugby League seasons to poor weather, the global financial crisis and haphazard scheduling, every excuse under the sun has been proffered for why A-League fans are staying away in droves.

The most commonly cited complaint is high ticket prices, and the award for the most optimistic ticketing campaign since Luton Town were a force must surely go to Brisbane Roar.

This season, fans in Brisbane were treated to a new name for the club formerly known as Queensland Roar.

If the subsequent hike in ticket prices is anything to go by, it must have been an expensive transition to make.

Despite the club failing to sign any players of note – unless you count Scottish hard man Bob Malcolm – the Roar raised tickets prices to the sort of excess that would make even Sir Richard Branson blush.

The club’s financially crippling tenancy at the Queensland Government-owned Suncorp Stadium may have pushed them to the brink of insolvency, but forcing fans to dig deep into their pockets to cover the debts was perhaps not the most prudent of decisions.

Rather than turning out en masse to support the cash-strapped outfit, fans have instead simply stopped going.

Where once a crowd in excess of 20,000 might have been expected for Brisbane’s most recent clash with Sydney FC, this time around just 7,677 fans bothered to turn out.

So numerous are complaints over price rises that Brisbane have been forced to introduce a new six-game ticket package, in a last-ditch attempt to placate angry supporters.

That’s to say nothing of the dischord between A-League fans and security forces, with Suncorp Stadium staff notorious for their heavy-handed tactics, while Melbourne Victory fans recently complained of being spied on by private security firm Hatamoto.

It’s a shame that dwindling crowd sizes are beginning to dominate the headlines, because on the pitch the standard of football is the best it’s ever been.

Gold Coast United and North Queensland Fury have both added value with some attractive, attacking football – although the two Queensland sides both lost last weekend.

Gold Coast went down 3-2 at home in a controversial defeat to Melbourne Victory, which saw Victory talisman Kevin Muscat convert a late penalty at the second attempt after referee Peter Green ordered a retake for encroachment when Muscat fired his first effort high over the crossbar.

Meanwhile, North Queensland bossed the first hour of their clash with Adelaide United, only to go down 2-0 in front of their home fans – who were no doubt just as concerned with reports that the embattled Townsville-based club are reputedly losing some £30,000 per week.

Perth Glory beat Newcastle Jets 1-0 on the road and Brisbane beat Sydney at home by the same scoreline, while draw specialists Wellington Phoenix were held to a scoreless stalemate by the Central Coast Mariners.

But all the talk from another entertaining round of matches was about crowd sizes.

While playing “spot the fan” is becoming an increasingly common practice at A-League games, it’s not a good look for a competition struggling desperately to find its place in the crowded Australian sports market.

At least one group isn’t complaining, though.

With more and more fans staying at home, TV ratings for host broadcaster Fox Sports are not surprisingly on the rise.

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Crowd violence flares in fiery A-League clash

Mike Tuckerman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:53:00 GMT

In an adventurous pre-game promo, Football Federation Australia billed it is as “football’s biggest rivalry.” Forget the Premier League or the World Cup finals – apparently Adelaide United versus Melbourne Victory is the pinnacle of the game.

But in the wake of a heated clash between two of the A-League’s fiercest rivals, it was hyperbole of a different kind gracing the website of the Adelaide Advertiser.

“Ban soccer hooligans” read one bizarre post-match headline, although whether that was an impassioned plea or the result of some lazy sub-editing is anyone’s guess.

However, there was nothing ambiguous about the nightly news bulletins, and the fact that 29 fans were ejected from a near-capacity crowd of 15,038 at Hindmarsh Stadium was quoted with as much frequency as the 2-0 scoreline to Melbourne.

The Advertiser employed some comical YouTube footage to illustrate the threat of rabid football fans, although it mainly leaves viewers with the impression that Adelaide fans hate Melbourne supporters because they’re Victorian.

In fact, apart from some footage of pimply-faced teenagers being dragged away by police officers, there was very little to suggest the sky was falling due to the actions of a few rowdy A-League fans.

Such is the Australian mainstream media, though, with its vested interests in the more prominent sports of cricket, Australian Rules football and the National Rugby League.

There’s a wonderful passage in Matthew Hall’s book “The Away Game” that illustrates the relish with which mainstream Australia denigrates football fans.

In it, Hall relates the story of a lone intoxicated fan ejected from a National Soccer League game at Wollongong’s WIN Stadium after being subdued by a posse of capsicum-spray wielding police.

The presiding judge latter saw fit to label it one of the worst cases of “European soccer violence” he’d ever encountered in Australia.

The man’s crime? Muttering the word “testicles” at the seemingly terrified officers.

Hall ponders the hysteria associated with Australia’s football supporters from high up in the stands of the Stadio Olimpico, as he takes in a typically chaotic Rome derby amidst knife-wielding Lazio fans and their flare-lobbing Roma counterparts.

But while A-League fans rightly condemn the sensationalist headlines that accompany anti-social fan behaviour, there’s no denying that such behaviour is cannon fodder for the daily news.

So it was with an exasperated air that fans of both Adelaide and Melbourne hit the message boards in the wake of this fiery clash, to lament the fact that those accused of throwing bottles and ripping flares are “once a year” types.

Like the recent Carling Cup clash that attracted so many West Ham and Millwall thugs to the Boleyn Ground, the meeting of Adelaide United and Melbourne Victory has become a beacon for those looking to revel in the edgier side of the game.

Melbourne Victory, in particular, have a reputation for attracting hooligans.

When police attempted to check the ID of one fan inside Hindmarsh Stadium – who may have been the subject of a banning order – his refusal to co-operate led to a scuffle with police that resulted in most of the ejections.

For all the off-field shenanighans, the match itself failed to reach any great heights.

From the moment Nick Ward beat former Victory keeper Eugene Galekovic with a freak cross-come-shot from the touchline barely seven minutes in, it always looked set to be a one-sided affair.

Nevertheless it took until the final minute of play for Grant Brebner to confirm the result as he slammed home from a scrappy build-up, by which time the police were more concerned with the prospect of keeping the two sets of supporters apart.

They didn’t do too well, by all accounts, with officers marching the visiting fans straight into a crowd of angry Adelaide supporters.

Cue more juvenile taunts and threats of violence – all appropriately dealt with by the local constabulary, who were no doubt prepared for the animosity given the history of the two clubs.

There are far worse problems in Australian society than the relatively minor threat of football fans coming to blows.

But while the rest of us could only laugh at Hollywood’s rendition of football violence, some A-League fans clearly regard Green Street Hooligans as a movie of the utmost biographical importance.

It is these fans who are causing headaches for officials, as they continue to wreak havoc with the FFA’s vision of a sanitised, family-friendly A-League.

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Robbie Fowler rules as Fury finally win

Mike Tuckerman — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:30:00 GMT

It was billed as “God” vs Aloisi – and there was one clear winner in Sydney FC’s clash with North Queensland Fury.

Robbie Fowler scored his fourth goal of season with an impudent lob, while John Aloisi’s reputation took another blow with the former Australia international missing a first-half penalty.

The ex-Liverpool icon’s strike in the 1-0 victory had fans frantically smashing their keyboards in search of the requisite hyperbole – with many overlooking the fact that the lead-up play was straight off Route One.

Goal! – Watch it here

But while the former Leeds and Man City man’s impressive volley was widely lauded by the critics, his presence was enough to persuade just 16,649 fans through the gates of the Sydney Football Stadium.

That’s despite the fact that the game was well publicised throughout Sydney, with former Premier League goalkeeper Mark Bosnich heavily involved, while a Beatles cover band belted out the strains of the Fab Four at the ground itself.

However, of all the gimmicks that had Sydney fans up in arms – remember this was actually a Sydney home game – it was a pre-match article by Melbourne-born Sydney Morning Herald reporter Sebastian Hassett that really lit the fuse.

According to Hassett, his pre-match correspondence with Sydney officials had left him with the impression that the club was prepared to play Anfield anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone as the two teams took to the pitch.

Cue some rapid backtracking from those inside Sydney headquarters, who promptly claimed that it was the first they’d heard of the idea.

Hassett himself later hinted that the idea was likely floated by the marketing department of Football Federation Australia rather than Sydney FC, but whatever the truth, it went down like a lead balloon with members of Sydney supporter group The Cove.

The truth is that club officials can ill-afford to get offside with The Cove or any of the 7,000 members of the club.

Sydney’s attendances have dipped dramatically since the heady days of Dwight “All Night” Yorke in Season 1, and somewhat embarrassingly for the FFA, the crowd of 17,644 that turned out at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne was larger than the one Fowler drew for his big night in the harbour city.

Speaking of Melbourne, the Victory were left frustrated by their 1-1 draw with Wellington Phoenix – with the match played on one of the most diabolical pitches ever seen in the A-League.

The quality of A-League pitches has long been a bone of contention, since the round-ball game is forced to share stadia with more popular Australian sports.

Etihad Stadium is a regular venue for Australian Rules football, and two nights before Victory’s match the stadium had hosted an end-of-season Rugby League finals game featuring local side Melbourne Storm.

Both Victory and the Storm will move into a new rectangular stadiums next season, and the shift can’t come quickly enough given the truly dire state of the Etihad Stadium surface.

In the round’s other games a direct free-kick from midfielder Cassio was enough for Adelaide United to see off Central Coast Mariners in a 1-0 win – the misfit Brazilian has seemingly made up with coach Aurelio Vidmar after an early-season tantrum – while Brisbane Roar thumped Newcastle Jets 3-0 on the road.

NEW! FFT.com's A-League results page

Brisbane are as enigmatic a side as any in the A-League, and if a mounting injury list wasn’t causing enough headaches for coach Frank Farina, he must now contend with the loss of three important youngsters to the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Egypt.

Gold Coast United rounded out the weekend by doing what they do best, as they infuriated Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell with a last-minute equaliser in a 2-2 draw.

Mitchell should be cursing his defenders, who fell asleep to allow Shane Smeltz to score his ninth goal of the season with a typically predatory finish.

There’s plenty for Robbie Fowler to do if he wants to catch Smeltz at the top of the goalscoring charts, but for now the Liverpudlian is free to revel in the glow of his winner against Sydney FC.

He’ll have conjured a sigh of relief from former Rangers midfielder Ian Ferguson as well, as he celebrated a maiden victory in charge of North Queensland Fury – with the Townsville-based side finally cracking a first ever A-League win at the sixth time of asking.

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Why the A-League might lose its stars

Mike Tuckerman — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:00:00 GMT

It was supposed to be a match made in heaven.

Like a beachside wedding in Home And Away, Australia’s switch to the Asian Football Confederation was expected to herald a prosperous and life-changing union.

But while Australians dreamed of a more egalitarian World Cup qualifying route and access to continental club football, many failed to grasp that – as in any relationship – the move was bound to be a give-and-take affair.

So while the AFC gave Australia access to more competitive football, some Asian sides have set about taking Australian players from under the noses of A-League clubs.

They’re doing so under the auspices of Asia’s new “3 + 1” rule, which allows Asian clubs to sign three foreign players, plus another from within their own confederation.

The 3 + 1 rule is the brainchild of the J. League.

Japanese clubs have long had a penchant for signing Brazilians, but lucrative salaries and a higher standard began to attract high-profile South Korean players from the neighbouring K-League.

To accommodate both nationalities, the J. League incorporated the 3 + 1 rule for the start of the 2009 season, and Japanese sides rapidly signed up the best Korean talent on offer.

Other Asian leagues were quick to adopt the new rule, and it’s now causing problems for the A-League.

Newcastle Jets striker Joel Griffiths was the first to depart, joining brother Ryan Griffiths at Chinese Super League side Beijing Guoan.

But it was the more recent departure of Adam Griffiths – Joel’s twin brother – that should have sent alarm bells ringing at Football Federation Australia headquarters.

This season Adam Griffiths played just one game for Gold Coast United before signing a lucrative deal with Saudi side Al-Shabab.

The move may have netted Gold Coast a cool £330,000, but it also signalled the fact that every A-League player has his price.

Unfortunately for Australia’s fledgling domestic league, money is no obstacle for most clubs in the oil-rich Gulf.

When Qatari side Al-Rayyan came calling for Melbourne Victory striker Danny Allsopp this week, no amount of cash was going to stand in their way.

Allsopp eventually departed for a rumoured fee of around £415,000 – small change compared to the £6.5 million that Q-League rivals Al-Sadd recently paid Gamba Osaka for the services of Brazilian striker Leandro.

And Allsopp, while a consistent goalscorer, is hardly the most high-profile player in the league. His exit has Gold Coast United fans concerned that prolific striker Shane Smeltz will be next.

They should be concerned, since Smeltz’s manager recently confirmed that the big Kiwi striker has already received several offers from the Gulf.

Archie Thompson may be the top goalscorer in A-League history, but he too may be tempted to cash in on one final payday and leave struggling champions Melbourne Victory.

Some A-League fans have argued that the departure of ageing players looking for one last lucrative contract is of no major concern. Certainly the players are not at fault for simply taking what’s on offer.

But since the raison d'être of the A-League was to lure Australians back from Europe, it’s now surely of some concern that those same players are now jetting off to the Gulf.

Far from finishing their careers in the A-League, some ageing players could be about to use it as a shop window.

It was always expected to be a shop window – but for young players making their way to Europe.

That has all changed thanks to the 3 + 1 rule, which has the potential to hasten the exit of some of the A-League’s most recognisable stars, and leaves many Australian clubs wondering what to do once the Gulf comes calling.

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Sydney slump in the Sunshine State

Mike Tuckerman — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:00:00 GMT

Travelling to the Gold Coast by train is a bit like watching cricket. It’s slow, boring and slightly pointless.

I say this because I caught the train down from Brisbane to watch my former home-town team Sydney FC lose 2-1 to Gold Coast United in Round 5 action.

As an ex-Sydney FC season-ticket holder I sniffed an upset, but it never eventuated thanks to a calm and composed display from the A-League’s new glamour club.

“We simply didn’t get going very well,” claimed Sydney’s giant Swiss defender Stephan Keller on TV program The World Game the following day.

“And Gold Coast… some things they simply did better than us.”

A simple explanation, but it aptly summed up the difference between the two sides.

The fact that Gold Coast could also call upon New Zealand international striker Shane Smeltz helped immensely.

He played because New Zealand’s scheduled friendly with Iraq was cancelled over security fears, and Smeltz made the most of his start – scoring twice – to make it eight league goals in just five games.

Gold Coast’s win was all the more impressive given that they were missing their other international star, Jason Culina, to national team duty.

While his club side were grinding out an impressive victory, Culina was chasing shadows in Seoul as Korea Republic thumped Australia 3-1 in a friendly.

Football Federation Australia are yet to accommodate international dates in the A-League fixture list – perhaps because the FFA originally thought A-League players would not be of the standard required to play international football.

Whatever the reason, it makes a mockery of Gold Coast signing Culina as a ‘marquee player’ only for United fans to be denied the chance to see him play in their top-of-the-table clash with Sydney.

The counterpoint is that Gold Coast barely have any fans to begin with.

The official attendance was first posted as 6,800 fans inside the 27,000-capacity Skilled Park, before that figure was later revised down to 6,406.

But to the naked eye it looked like less than 3,000 souls had made it out to the state-of-the-art cow paddock, suggesting that Darlington fans would feel right at home in the A-League.

No fans, a dodgy pitch – but Gold Coast United can sure play football. And in enigmatic coach Miron Bleiberg, they’ve got a real eye for talent.

He snapped up Cairns-born journeyman Zenon Caravella from Dutch second tier club FC Omniworld at the start of the season, and that looks to be a shrewd piece of business indeed.

Caravella was all over the pitch against Sydney FC, jinking passed defenders, winning tackles in midfield and testing opposing goalkeeper Clint Bolton whenever the opportunity arose.

Smeltz may have been the two-goal hero, but Caravella was at the heart of everything for the Gold Coast.

For Sydney FC, there was none of the long-ball football on display that at one time had certain sections of the Australian football media frothing at the mouth.

When Czech coach Vitezslav Lavicka jetted in to the harbour city side, he was supposed to encourage the kind of continental-style passing game that would make the Sky Blues the envy of the league.

Instead Sydney FC resorted to a long-ball-a-thon in a scoreless away draw at provincial hackers Central Coast Mariners in Round 3, forcing certain scribes to reassess some hackneyed national stereotypes.

A couple of thumped clearances aside, there was no such long-ball stuff on offer at Skilled Park, and the performance earned the thumbs-up from The Sydney Morning Herald’s chief analyst Mike Cockerill.

“Sydney FC’s worst result of the season came from their best performance,” wrote Cockerill, who described the display as a victory for attacking football.

Pleasing on the eye it may have been, but it was a disappointing result nonetheless for Czech coach Lavicka.

Meanwhile Gold Coast bounced back from their recent 1-0 defeat away at Newcastle Jets in the best possible fashion.

They’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s plenty to suggest that Miron Bleiberg’s side have what it takes to win the A-League in what is their foundation season.

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Gold Coast Galacticos go down in the fourth round

Mike Tuckerman — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:00:00 GMT

They’re not quite Ronaldo, Kaka, Alonso & Co. But the schadenfreude flowed freely when the galacticos of Gold Coast United crashed to a first-ever defeat.

Those proclaiming the Gold Coast to be Australia’s ‘glitter strip’ clearly hold tacky souvenir stands and overpriced fusion cookery in higher esteem than most.

And there was nothing sparkling about United’s football in their recent 1-0 loss to the Newcastle Jets.

Billionaire benefactor Clive Palmer set tongues wagging in pre-season by declaring that United could go through the entire season undefeated. They lasted until Round 4.

Hailing from a coastal town synonymous with industry, perhaps it was fitting that Newcastle's industrious performance was enough to outshine the A-League’s glamour club.

A neat finish from 20-year-old striker Sean Rooney did the damage for Branko and the Jets – with coach Branko Culina getting the better of son and star Gold Coast recruit Jason.

Jason Culina wasn’t the only big name to lob up on the Gold Coast, with United also signing goalkeeper Jess Vanstratten from Verona, imposing Dutch defender Bas van den Brink and no fewer than four Brazilian imports.

That’s to say nothing of strikers Shane Smeltz and Joel Porter.

Their spending spree left many wondering just how they’d managed to assemble such an impressive squad under the restraints of the league-wide salary cap.

At any rate, it was a patient counter-attacking performance from Newcastle that proved that money can’t buy love – or even three points – with Gold Coast’s defeat setting up a blockbuster clash with league leaders Sydney FC next time out.

Elsewhere there was a decidely English flavour at Hindmarsh Stadium, as Robbie Fowler notched his first goal from open play in North Queensland’s pulsating 3-3 draw away at Adelaide United.

Maybe it was the driving rain that had Fowler in the mood, as he confidently volleyed home to open the scoring.

Adelaide soon levelled through stand-in skipper Lucas Pantelis, before it was the turn of the English-born ex-Ghana international Lloyd Owusu to steal the spotlight.

His first goal for Adelaide United might have come from the most humdrum of finishes, but in a league where uninspired goal celebrations are the norm, Owusu’s was first class.

Momentarily possessed by what appeared to be the spirit of Wacko Jacko himself, the former Brentford cult hero embarked on a crazed, robot-style dance routine which appears to be called ‘krumping’ on So You Think You Can Dance (as watched by, er, Mrs Dirt from Down Under).

Whatever, Owusu whipped the Adelaide fans into a frenzy with the kind of moves you’d expect from someone who’d just dropped a toaster in the bath.

Sadly, it wasn’t enough to propel Adelaide to victory, with the Reds needing a stoppage-time penalty from Pantelis to claim a share of the spoils in the entertaining 3-3 stalemate.

Perth Glory’s new Serbian striker Branko Jelic preferred the old-fashioned “leap over the advertising boards and head first into the fans” display when he scored the winner in the 2-1 win over Melbourne Victory, while Brisbane Roar and Sydney FC also recorded victories.

However, Round 4 in the A-League was all about the defeat of Gold Coast United.

Enigmatic coach Miron Bleiberg was gracious in defeat, and he knows that his squad is strong enough to challenge for the title this season.

But with the brash-talking upstarts ruffling the feathers of the A-League’s established elite, you can be sure there were glasses raised up and down the country in a toast to the Newcastle Jets.

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From Halifax Town to the World Cup finals

Mike Tuckerman — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Speak to some Australian fans about the standard of the A-League, and they’ll insist it’s the equivalent of The Championship.

Never mind that in 2008's two-legged Asian Champions League final, J.League side Gamba Osaka smashed Adelaide United 5-0.

So total was Gamba’s dominance that the normally recalcitrant Yasuhito Endo candidly expressed his disappointment over his team’s failure to score more goals.

Maybe it’s because so many Championship-level players end up in Australia?

It’ll certainly be elbows akimbo the next time Andy Todd’s new side Perth Glory faces up to Lloyd Owusu and his Adelaide United crew, that’s for sure.

At any rate, I’m at a loss as to how this mysterious equation is formulated. But having seen a decent amount of Championship football on the tele, it’s certainly not a theory that The dirt from Down Under subscribes to!

Perhaps a more accurate marker is former Halifax Town striker Shane Smeltz.

He scored – and I’m relying on the infallibly accurate Wikipedia for this information – two goals in some 31 appearances while at The Shay, although admittedly that came on the back of a more successful spell with pyramid-climbing AFC Wimbledon.

The Shay: given no trouble by shot-shy Shane

But when Smeltz arrived at A-League misfits Wellington Phoenix, he was suddenly a man transformed.

He scored nine goals from 19 appearances in his first season for the club from the Kiwi capital. In the following campaign he claimed the Golden Boot with 12 goals from 20 games.

That prompted mining magnate Clive Palmer to wave his chequebook, and Smeltz needed little encouragement to cross the Tasman and join cashed-up newcomers Gold Coast United.

Smeltz himself hails from an interesting background. Born in Göppingen, just south-west of Stuttgart, he grew up in the far warmer climes of the Gold Coast.

But disappointingly for Socceroos fans, the A-League goal machine plays his international football for New Zealand.

And it’s in the international arena that Smeltz could be about to make his greatest mark.

In mid-October, New Zealand face off against either Bahrain or Saudi Arabia for a place at the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

Should the Kiwis prevail, then New Zealand will jet off for just their second appearance at a World Cup finals.

All Whites' coach Ricki Herbert was a player the first and only time New Zealand reached the finals, when they ran out for the 1982 World Cup jamboree in Spain.

He knows Smeltz well, what with also being the long-time coach of Wellington Phoenix.

And with Smeltz currently in red-hot form for his club side, Herbert knows he’s got a proven match-winner on his hands.

His six goals in the opening three A-League games (including an impressive four-goal haul against the hapless North Queensland Fury) haven’t just caught the attention of the national team.

Gold Coast United have been pre-emptively forced to ward off potential suitors, claiming that Smeltz is not for sale “at any price.”

"Are you listening, West Yorkshire?"

It hasn’t stopped the furtive chatter – probably because Gold Coast just sold the perfunctory Adam Griffiths to Saudi side Al-Shabab for a cool £330,000.

Griffiths played for Gold Coast just once after signing from A-League rivals Newcastle Jets.

But surely no amount of money will separate the A-League’s most dangerous striker from its new headline-grabbing club.

Smeltz has scored in all three A-League rounds so far this season, profiting from the incisive vision of the league’s best player Jason Culina and some insightful link-up play with ex-Hartlepool striker Joel Porter.

But it’s international success that Shane Smeltz will soon be dreaming of.

Forget their disastrous showing at the recent FIFA Confederations Cup, if New Zealand reach South Africa, it could mark one man's remarkable turnaround from Halifax Town hacker to World Cup hero.

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Fair go Cobber, the A-League's alright!

Mike Tuckerman — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:00:00 GMT

If the A-League is boring, maybe it’s time to take up chess.

After an uninspiring Round 1 sent critics into a spin, Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar proved there’s life in the new league yet by producing one of the greatest games in the competition’s brief history.

It wasn’t just that Melbourne clawed back a 3-1 half-time deficit that will have the nay-sayers choking on their Weet-Bix.

Instead it was the quality of goals – so often maligned in the A-League – that suggests there’s enough quality lurking under the surface to sway even the most hardened of cynics.

In a land where English football provides stiff competition to the local product, perhaps it was fitting that former English Premier League midfielder Danny Tiatto was the first to fire a broadside with an early candidate for goal-of-the-season.

More renowned for his leg-breaking challenges than any kind of goalscoring touch, Tiatto let fly with the sort of 25-yard piledriver that usually results in both teams shutting up shop, safe in the knowledge that no better goal will be scored.

Instead it was a precursor of things to come – although Tiatto’s bald döppelgänger Sergio van Dijk was forced to convert the obligatory penalty to send Brisbane two goals in front.

Enter one Carlos Hernandez. The Costa Rican international arrived in the A-League palpably overweight, sparking a trend that has been lovingly adopted by every big-name foreign signing since.

From the blimp-like Mario Jardel to North Queensland heavyweight Robbie Fowler, stepping off the plane as though they’ve just consumed every lamington ever baked has become somewhat of the norm for the A-League’s foreign legion.

But no matter how many jam scones he’s scoffed prior to kick-off, few prove as effective as Melbourne’s mercurial playmaker.

Doing away with his usual fancy foot-work, Hernandez hauled Victory back into the match with a thunderous strike that hit the back of the net like an Exocet missile.

Just when Melbourne’s army of fans began to find their voice, Brisbane’s recent acquisition Henrique then added his personal contribution to the list of stunning goals.

The diminutive Brazilian lived up to his nickname “Slippery Fish” by twisting and turning past a baffled Victory defence and curling a superb right-foot strike into the far corner.

3-1 to Brisbane at half-time, and Melbourne done and dusted. Or were they?

Danny Allsopp doesn’t have a colourful nickname – or at least any that The dirt from Down Under is aware of – but if he did, it’d be something like “The Hungry Yak.”

A ubiquitous presence in the goal mouth, the bullocking front-man is more accustomed to banging them in with his shin than he is to making the highlights reel.

Everyone expected Allsopp to get his head to a stock-standard Hernandez cross just after the hour mark.

But when the ball looped high into the air, the former English lower-league journeyman turned and smashed a textbook volley into the far corner of the goal!

Maybe it was the stinging criticism dished out after Melbourne’s opening night defeat to Central Coast Mariners a week earlier, but in a game that appeared to be following a blockbuster script, you just knew that Victory would haul themselves level.

It was Carlos Hernandez who did his best Cesc Fabregas impersonation when Melbourne were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box.

A cross appeared the more likely option, but Hernandez had clearly tired of the niceties and simply curled his direct free-kick straight into the far corner.

3-3! Goals galore! Five of the best strikes seen in recent A-League history.

But will it be enough to silence the critics?

With poor attendances and a wildly lop-sided Queensland derby threatening to knock this Etihad Stadium classic out of the headlines – probably not.

But with 17 goals scored in each of the first two rounds of A-League action, Australia’s premier club competition can no longer be accused of being boring.

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All's fair in love and style wars

Mike Tuckerman — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:00:00 GMT

“Worst title defence ever!”

It was a phrase popularised by Sydney FC supporter group The Cove during the 2007-08 A-League campaign, when Sydney fans gleefully unfurled a banner reminding Melbourne Victory supporters of their team’s hapless struggles to defend their crown.

Since then it’s become a popular part of the A-League lexicon, helped by an eye-watering fall from grace from the Newcastle Jets – who went on to lift the 2007/08 title and backed it up by finishing bottom the following season.

So it was no surprise to see defending champions Melbourne lose 2-0 at home to Central Coast Mariners in their Round 1 fixture at Etihad Stadium.

After all, no team since inaugural champions Sydney FC has won their opening round fixture the following season.

But the manner of Melbourne’s defeat has sparked the latest round of teeth-gnashing over the style of football played in Australia.

This season’s insipid opener set influential analyst Craig Foster into over-drive.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Foster blasted the quality of football on display in a piece entitled “The long-ball game lets everyone down.”

Ironically, Foster chose not to take issue with an innocuous comment from Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell that was seized upon elsewhere as proof the A-League advocates a long-ball style.

“The great Liverpool side couldn’t play against Wimbledon and that’s what they are like,” Mitchell told reporters after his side had gone down 1-0 to a tough-as-teak Adelaide United in the opening round.

“They are very competitive, as I’ve said they put a lot of long balls in behind you and challenge you and it’s tough football.”

Mitchell’s claims invariably drew comparisons between Adelaide United and 'the Crazy Gang' – even if Foster himself waxed lyrical about what was a relatively entertaining contest.

Foster is a respected member of the football fraternity Down Under.

An ex-Socceroo, the articulate former midfielder has carved a niche for himself as one of Australia’s most outspoken analysts.

But the next day his former co-commentator and colleague Simon Hill couldn’t resist a dig in his online column for A-League broadcaster Fox Sports.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m getting rather weary of being told which type of football I should prefer,” Hill countered.

The line was a not-so-subtle swipe at Foster and his like-minded detractors, who for years have questioned the physical brand of football employed by many A-League teams.

Foster and Hill were once colleagues at the Special Broadcasting Service – the free-to-air network that formerly broadcast Socceroos fixtures.

The pair’s legendary commentary from the 2005 World Cup play-off against Uruguay is regarded as one of the greatest calls in Australian sporting history.

But when Hill jumped ship to rival pay-TV network Fox Sports, he left what many fans consider the traditional embodiment of “old soccer” to join the public face of “new football.”

For the sake of full disclosure, I should point out that I pen a column for News Limited magazine Australian Football Weekly, whose News Corp. backers are also part-owners of Fox Sports.

But I have friends from both sides of the spectrum, including Australia’s best – and best known blogger – Jesse Fink.

For what it’s worth, some Australian fans have labelled SBS criticism of A-League standards as “sour grapes” at no longer holding exclusive broadcast rights.

Meanwhile, Fox Sports’ determination to defend a product it shells out substantial amounts to screen is understandable.

But many Australian fans would prefer to embrace their football analysis without the perceived bias that comes with it.

And why wouldn’t they? Round 1 of this year’s competition produced a healthy 17 goals from five games – up from just five goals in four games the previous season.

Star recruit Robbie Fowler was in fine form for North Queensland Fury, despite being on the losing end of a 3-2 scoreline against Sydney FC.

The former Liverpool legend not only converted a penalty on the hour mark, but looked lean and lively throughout.

His performance was only overshadowed by a star turn from John Aloisi, who scored a superb first for Sydney before converting a late penalty to seal a hard-fought victory in the tropical north.

The first ever South-East Queensland derby produced plenty of vim and vigour, and it was handbags at 10 paces when Brisbane Roar’s Bob Malcolm snared Kiwi striker Shane Smeltz in an impressive head-lock towards the end.

By then the Roar were in all sorts of trouble, and they ulimately went down 3-1 to newcomers Gold Coast United in a match that saw five yellow cards dished out to either side.

The final game of the round saw Newcastle Jets beat Wellington Phoenix 3-2 courtesy of some diabolical defending from both sides. Expect both to struggle this season.

Goals galore then, but whether it’s “hoof it long, son” or “keep it on the carpet,” it seems that all’s fair in the A-League’s never-ending style wars.

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Bluffer's guide to the A-League teams

Mike Tuckerman — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:00:00 GMT

There’s a popular seaside foreshore in Townsville known as The Strand.

With no word yet on any attempts from Robbie Fowler to add it to his vast property portfolio, it’s entirely plausible that the man nicknamed “God” has actually moved to Australia to play football.

It’s also possible that Fowler might melt in the tropical heat. Such is the risk of playing summer football – but then no one said that the A-League was conventional.

From bizarre club monikers to team kits that wouldn’t look out of place in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Australia’s five-year-old domestic league veers from the sublime to the downright ridiculous.

Who and where the 10 A-League teams are

And what better place to kick off an A-League blog than with Fowler’s new boys North Queensland Fury?

North Queensland are one of two expansion teams to have joined the league this season – the other being Gold Coast United – and the Townsville-based outfit have prompted widespread mirth thanks to their incredible choice of team name.

However, the bizarre handle might be a marketing masterstroke, with critics generally overlooking the most garish team kit since the Socceroos puke-inspired effort of the early '90s in favour of incessantly deriding North Queensland for their childish nickname.

On the pitch the Fury don’t look much chop, with former Rangers midfielder Ian Ferguson overseeing a bunch of cast-offs from rival A-League clubs.

But with Fowler leading the line and livewire loan striker Dave Williams looking to press claims for international selection, the Fury will be out to surprise a few teams – even if they’ve been written off by many before a ball has even been kicked.

The contrast with fellow newcomers Gold Coast United couldn’t be more stark.

Several media outlets have tipped United to reach the Grand Final – it wouldn’t be an Australian sport without a finals series – while rent-a-quote coach Miron Bleiberg boldly declared that his team would win the competition undefeated.

Lofty proclamations indeed, but one glance at the United squad underlines the hubris.

Bankrolled by billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer, United went on a spending spree the likes of which have never been seen in the Australian game.

The highest profile arrival is undoubtedly Socceroos midfielder Jason Culina, whose decision to trade life at Dutch giants PSV Eindhoven for a stint in the A-League seemed to provoke heart palpitations in Australia coach Pim Verbeek.

Yet it also helped entice several other high-profile signings to the club, including prolific ex-Hartlepool striker Joel Porter. He will link up with Kiwi international Shane Smeltz in a strike force that has Gold Coast fans salivating.

Smeltz: "Oi! Big-ears!"

United’s arrival hasn’t been without controversy, with the club from the sunshine strip happy to present itself as the A-League's new pantomime villain.

From their helicopter-hopping chairman to a larger-than-life coach to attempts to poach rival fans and threats of media boycotts, it’s been a whirlwind arrival for Gold Coast United, and they haven’t even kicked off yet.

United’s emergence as a regional rival has the locals in Brisbane all hot and bothered, so much so that club officials felt a name change was in order.

Comically enough, they’re still known as the Roar, but these days it’s “Brisbane Roar” (as opposed to Queensland Roar).

You’d be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled upon a Rangers Old Boys convention watching a side captained by Craig Moore that also contains the rotund Charlie Miller and hard-man Bob Malcolm, while astute A-League watchers will also note that the Roar were recently thumped 3-0 by Celtic in a friendly.

However, Frank Farina’s side are renowned for their free-flowing and attractive football, although they’re just as well known for choking every time the finals series rolls around.

Heading south of the border is a bit like stepping onto the set of Home And Away, with one-time champions Newcastle Jets providing more drama than your average Australian soapie.

“Dysfunctional” is perhaps the best way to describe patriarch Con Constantine’s bunch of misfits, with the controversial chairman constantly in hot water.

From threatening to throw club supporters off a balcony to booking his team on economy-class long-haul flights to save cash, no argument is too petty for Constantine to wade into.

His latest stoush is with Football Federation Australia, whom Constantine threatened to sue after coach Gary van Egmond walked out on the Jets to take up employment within the FFA.

Van Egmond’s replacement is Branko Culina – yes, he’s Jason’s dad – while on the pitch most of Newcastle’s hopes are pinned on Australia’s most colourful footballer, Ljubo Milicevic, who memorably claimed that he’d "rather spend time in a gay disco in Paris” than waste it on another of Constantine’s interminable intercontinental flights.

Ljubo: "Coming out, Freddie?"

Heading down the Pacific Highway, the Central Coast Mariners are wedged in between twin rivals Newcastle and Sydney like an Australian version of Walsall.

Once lauded for their consistency and no-nonsense approach, the Mariners suffered a swift fall from grace when their maiden Asian Champions League campaign brutally exposed some of the technical flaws inherent in coach Lawrie McKinna’s squad.

A team of grafters if ever there was one, the Mariners have been strengthened by the arrival of British trio Nicky Travis, Chris Doig and Michael McGlinchey, while most of their goalscoring hopes rest on the fragile shoulders of injury-plagued striker Nik Mrdja.

Once home to party-boy (and occasional footballer) Dwight Yorke, inaugural A-League champions Sydney FC have traded the “bling” tag for a more low-key approach under new Czech coach Vitezslav Lavicka.

The former Sparta Prague tactician was drafted in by Sydney’s new Russian benefactor David Traktovenko, who has been variously described as “mysterious,” “enigmatic” and “intriguing” – mostly by your humble FourFourTwo correspondent.

Sydney FC’s three major off-season captures are former Swiss international Stephan Keller, South Korean defender Byun Sung-Hwan and ex-Slovak international Karol Kisel.

But it’s former Australian international John Aloisi who sparks most of the headlines in the harbour city, with the player who converted that penalty (to send Australia to the 2006 World Cup finals) desperate to reclaim his place in the national side.

Sydney’s main rivals – and Australia’s best-supported club – are Melbourne Victory.

Twice A-League winners and the current reigning champions, Victory have built a squad around club mainstays Kevin Muscat, one-time Manchester City striker Danny Allsopp and Archie Thompson, with the trio once again putting their hands up for another season of A-League action.

The fulcrum in midfield is Costa Rican international Carlos Hernandez, while in Kiwi keeper Glen Moss and Thai international Surat Sukha, Victory look to have made some astute signings for the new campaign.

Still coached by inaugural gaffer Ernie Merrick, the Victorian outfit are used to being hunted down by the chasing pack, and they will be forced to work harder than ever to defend their title in what looks set to be the tightest A-League campaign to date.

Victory again for Melbourne?

Across the border in South Australia, Adelaide United are looking to shake off the bridesmaid’s tag collected via two A-League Grand Final appearances and a spectacularly unsuccessful trip to the 2008 Asian Champions League final.

Coach Aurelio Vidmar has lost plenty of experience this time around, but in English lower league journeyman Lloyd Owusu, Vidmar will hope to have something of an X-Factor up front – although Owusu’s A-League career got off to an inauspicious start when he contracted swine flu barely a day after setting foot Down Under.

United can call upon the best goalkeeper in the land in the form of Eugene Galekovic, but whether that’s enough to propel the often goal-shy Reds over the line in tight fixtures remains to be seen.

Way over on the west coast, in the world's most isolated city, Perth Glory should have no problems scoring goals - they’ve just signed former Derby County man Mile Sterjovski and Serbian striker Branko Jelic.

What’s more, they’ve also signed ex-Colchester United skipper Chris Coyne, fellow Australian international Jacob Burns and everyone’s favourite old-school centre-half Andy Todd.

But wait, there’s more! Also on the books at the Western Australian side is the wonderfully-named and much-travelled Eugene Dadi, whose passport must now resemble that of a United Nations diplomat.

Eugene Dadi: Have boots, will travel

The tough task of moulding this cosmopolitan outfit into a well-oiled unit falls upon former Swindon and Millwall star Dave Mitchell.

And he’ll need to do it in some style, with Glory desperate to attract some of their dwindling support base back through the gates of Members Equity Stadium.

Last but not least is Australia’s answer to Cardiff City (or Swansea City, if you prefer). New Zealand's Wellington Phoenix will hope to prove that they’re not just making up the numbers by qualifying for a first ever finals series.

Lead by popular coach Ricki Herbert – who represented New Zealand at the 1982 World Cup finals – the Kiwi side have enough problems off the pitch before they worry about beating teams on it, with the Asian Football Confederation unhappy with the existence of an Oceania representative in Australia’s domestic league.

Confused? It gets worse. The Phoenix are only in the competition because the hapless Auckland-based New Zealand Knights were booted from the competition after just two seasons.

The problem with the Knights was that their exclusive policy of signing washed-up hacks from League Two largely resulted in them playing like a team full of washed-up hacks from League Two.

These days the Phoenix play a more attractive brand under the likeable Herbert, although the links to English football remain in the form of recent arrivals Chris Greenacre and Paul Ifill.

So there you have it! All 10 teams covered in time for the big kick-off, with more coverage to come throughout the campaign.

It’s the most eagerly anticipated A-League season to date, and after 27 rounds of action gives way to the finals series in late February, plenty of questions will have been answered.

Do Melbourne Victory have what it takes to defend their crown?

Will Miron Bleiberg spontaneously combust on the sidelines at Skilled Park?

Is Robbie Fowler the most overweight player in the A-League, or will Charlie Miller have his cake again and eat it too?

Stick around to find out, as Season Five of the A-League gets set to grind into gear.

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