I accept everything you say but my only point is Syd were the better team and so its a relief they got the win. Nothing to be ashamed about. They could have racked up another 3 goals on the night easily.

Anyways, once we get our full team back we should put teams like FC away with ease. Not too worried so early on in the season, main focus now ill be the ACL where we will most likely lose again, but no one is really expecting us to win this time round.

Anyway, my main point was really just how great the Sydney derby has become... That was the highest attendance for any domestic football code at Allianz ever... Amazing. And you don't get that atmosphere at Rugby etc with 20,000 more fans anyway.

I don't believe in trying to politicise this rivalry... bs for me. I'm just glad there are 2 Sydney teams so we can experience this and watch football grow in this country, which is my interest.

Also... I would be very surprised if you put Sydney "away with ease" this season lol. The Sydney project is still very unripe but Arnold's clearly got them on the right track and this is the best Sydney squad I've seen yet. They will definitely be in the running. I'd say they should win the whole thing, but history says otherwise lol.

Once you have somebody but Santalab up front that will help. Huge credit to Popovic for making a lot of previously rubbish players pretty useful.

BarcaKizz wrote:Anyway, my main point was really just how great the Sydney derby has become... That was the highest attendance for any domestic football code at Allianz ever... Amazing. And you don't get that atmosphere at Rugby etc with 20,000 more fans anyway.

I don't believe in trying to politicise this rivalry... bs for me. I'm just glad there are 2 Sydney teams so we can experience this and watch football grow in this country, which is my interest.

Also... I would be very surprised if you put Sydney "away with ease" this season lol. The Sydney project is still very unripe but Arnold's clearly got them on the right track and this is the best Sydney squad I've seen yet. They will definitely be in the running. I'd say they should win the whole thing, but history says otherwise lol.

Once you have somebody but Santalab up front that will help. Huge credit to Popovic for making a lot of previously rubbish players pretty useful.

I don't really get where your coming from here, are you tryna say you don't buy into this East vs West shit, you know the ONLY and when i say ONLY, it's 100% ONLY, reason this Derby has such an atmopshere because there is this East vs West thing. I don't expect you to really grasp it if it was your first sydney derby.

This is going to be the strongest season of the a League yet, that's a big call

Like i said before once we get our full team back Santalab will be fighting to make the bench, let alone start.


Juric
Castelen Saba Ruka
Poljak La Rocca
Adeleke Spira NTS Mullen

With the bench being only 5 players, we'll have 1 GK, Defender, Mid and 2 versatile attacking options from Bridge, Haliti and Santalab. So I've got full confidence in our attack.

End of the day we've got this far because Popa knows how to organize our squad so we can get to the important games with the right players, other coaches would of risked some of our current sidelined players in yesterdays match.

I'm not too worried about this "project" Arnie has at FC. That coaching job has a revolving door at it and no ones ever given the chance to actually go through with a project. Popa's easily a better coach in my mind then Arnie anyways.

It'll now be interesting to see how the FFA deal with the shit we saw from the game, we'll see if they punish their love child or not.

1. Of course. I get that. There is East-West rivalry and that is channelled through sport, which is why it works. Its not political or historic though like in Europe and I like it that way. While El Clasico etc are all fantastic, its also nice to be able to walk up to the stadium without actually fearing for your safety. El Clasico and pretty much all those massive rivalries are built and play off horrible historic events and societal divides. I wouldn't ask for that simply to make a football game better. Yeah there are a couple of fights, but thats pretty standard. You'd see that at an NRL game or Origin too.

What I mean is kind of what you've said at the end there calling Syd FC they FFA's love child as if there is some grand conspiracy in the league. The Wanderers are a product of the FFA itself... How are Syd FC favoured by the FFA? No idea what you mean.

2. Yeah its a big call. This year should be great. There isn't really a standout for me yet, it depends on what works out for some of the teams. But a few teams look very strong and Sydney (and the Wanderers now after that excellent signing of Ruka) are one of them. It just needs to pan out for once and perhaps Arnold is the man to do that, whether Popa is better or not doesn't take away from the fact that Arnold is a great A-League coach and organiser.

3. Indeed, team should be very strong.

4. I'm pretty aware of your last point. Syd FC is a sh*t club managed horribly, which is why despite having a ridiculously good squad this season there is still a good chance it is screwed up as it normally is. But I'm not a band-wagoner so I'm stuck with them and from an FC perspective there is some hope things are changing. I mean, it seems very obvious to me what they need to do... I'm not sure how deep the the pool of idiots is, but someone has to eventually realise whats up.

By the way. I'm not sure but I assume you were not an A-League 'fan' initially and the great thing about the Wanderers is they've drawn more people to the A-League that weren't already there. But those people who went for Syd FC then jumped ship because Wanderers turned out good and FC have had so many problems don't get much respect from me. I have a few friends like that. The worst kind of fans. I don't mean yourself at all just making a point.

I'm going to disagree with you on point one, i think the rivalry is built on societal divides, i.e Bling FC.

I think Roar, Victory, Sydney and WSW all have an equal or good chance of taking out the league, the only thing that will really piss me off will be the fact that it will be decided by 2 or 3 games rather than the whole season. I get the whole fascination Australia has with Grand finals, but i think we should strive to what most football leagues do in terms of deciding a winner, and no it's got nothing to do with our choking in GF lol.

I was aware of the a-league and used to watch it on TV, once they brought in WSW i became a member and started attending games, i don't like the fans who turned for our success but i think anyone from the west who turned once we started is fine by me, i think our club does a great job getting involved with the community and trying to represent us. I'm actually hoping we get rid of the type of bandwagon fans your talking about from our club soon, yeah they help bring in extra money but *bleep* me, it's these bandwagon fans who come in and sit in active areas with their phones out and standing there doing nothing who are wrecking the atmosphere just so they can take a video and upload it on social media.

How long have you been following the A-league for? For some reason i thought that was your first game, my mistake.

Plus that tifo the cove made yesterday, was the message as shit as i thought it was? Didn't really get it.

Might i add, I'm actually liking the fact some discussion is going on here, i really did wish all the other aussie guys would watch the A-league and contribute.

I'll be going to a couple of Melbourne City games during late November and December and I'll try and see them when they're on TV as well. Unlikely to watch games in which I'm a neutral though in all honesty.

Well I'd say first season, but while I followed it I didn't really get into it until the second season. So like 6 seasons before Wanderers even existed. I've been to the derbies before but I missed last season's because I was living in Barcelona. It seems last season they continued to improve and I can tell you this one was light years better than the first year's ones. Indeed the A-League as a whole is going incredibly well, partly a bit of post-WC hype perhaps, but I think they've also just picked up their game in marketing etc because before the A-League was very poorly marketed and organised much like Syd FC but I guess its a learning process.

Actually I just realised how funny that question is since I started this section. Unfortunately nobody really wanted to talk to me about the A-League so good to see there is now somebody else with an interest lol. All these other boneheads have ruined my baby

I don't really come on GL anymore though, just saw this today.

Oh and I agree with you from a football purist perspective on the league structure... but I also understand why they're doing it. The finals are crucial to the theatre of the league and getting it to compete with other Australian sport. Same deal in the MLS. I think they could balance it by trying to make the Premiership more prestigious though, rather than a second-rate trophy.

dostoevsky wrote:I'll be going to a couple of Melbourne City games during late November and December and I'll try and see them when they're on TV as well. Unlikely to watch games in which I'm a neutral though in all honesty.

I'll be heading down around then on business to cover the Villa story.

You can't have two major trophies in 1 league, won't work, the premiership will always be second rate.

Beat Sydney in the FFA cup earlier in the week. Pundits were all saying Adelaide didn't deserve it, but that's bias for you. Sure, it wasn't a red card decision, but you can't blame Adelaide for that. Furthermore, Jeggo had arguably the best chance of the second half just minutes earlier (apart from Sydney's goal). Therefore, to make the assumption that Sydney would've gone on to win is poor form. I should add that little was said about the definite red card that should've been given to Sydney's GK for handling the ball outside the box. Ultimately, I'm just glad that we survived an away trip.

Awer Mabil's Miss

Cahill to China

God save us from the "it's not about the money and wanting to give back to football speech"

Pls, he just wants to grow football from its grassroots








It's Chinese grassroots...

https://l.facebook.com/lsr.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fj.mp%2F1MliQtD&ext=1423911574&hash=AclRwkK_nWawMy0EYc1POKrDmMXZyc23NjPa8TBXRlIrferE

Should be banned retrospectively, absolutely disgraceful call from the ref.

dostoevsky wrote:https://l.facebook.com/lsr.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fj.mp%2F1MliQtD&ext=1423911574&hash=AclRwkK_nWawMy0EYc1POKrDmMXZyc23NjPa8TBXRlIrferE

Should be banned retrospectively, absolutely disgraceful call from the ref.

just comes up blank when I click the link

http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/a-league/match-centre/match-live?matchid=HAL2014-151704SYDMVC&videoid=HAL2014-151704SYDMVC_MVC_PNCON_4253823_10589230

Try that.

He's getting absolutely destroyed on twitter.

https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=seb+ryall

dostoevsky wrote:http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/a-league/match-centre/match-live?matchid=HAL2014-151704SYDMVC&videoid=HAL2014-151704SYDMVC_MVC_PNCON_4253823_10589230

Try that.

That's disgusting. I don't like Melbourne Victory and it's definitely better for Adelaide if Sydney win, but that was one of the most awful decisions ever made. The ref should take a leave of absence and Seb Ryall should be ashamed.

It's also worth noting that Ryall is a rubbish WB who constantly gets away with multiple yellow card offences when after being beaten by his man, but rarely gets sent off. From a football fan's perspective, I have little respect for him.

I came across this article by chance on the guardian website. It's a detailed tactical analysis of an A-League game (Adelaide v WSW) that happened on the weekend.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/feb/24/a-league-tactics-adelaide-switch-formation

The only question is this: why does an English newspaper have more in-depth reporting on the substance of this ordinary A-League game than any Australian paper has reported on any sport ever?

I saw that, too. If only the world game produced stuff like that.

Well it is the Australian edition of the Guardian.

Also the pundits who write about good old 'soccer' in Australian newspapers are straight up morons.

dostoevsky wrote:Well it is the Australian edition of the Guardian.

Also the punditsare straight up morons.

Fixed.

The tactical discussion on TWG is nowhere near as good as it once was. About a decade ago, TWG had an entire Sunday afternoon TV show every week where they covered everything. It went for about 4 hours. These days it's all about "individual brilliance", "momentum" and "clutch players". There's no depth to the tactical discussion. Craig Foster doesn't even do those segments where he marked up diagrams and talked about tactics any more. The online content hasn't exactly raised the bar either.

As for newspapers, nobody pays any attention to them. The "soccer" section has been made completely redundant by the easy availability of raw information online and the generally high football literacy of young fans who can interpret this information for themselves without some guy with "connections" pretending to add value by presenting the information in a tabloid article format.