Melbourne Victory's Kevin Muscat is tackled by John Aloisi of Sydney FC during their A-League major semi final leg1, played at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. Melbourne beat Sydney 2-1. (AAP Image/Joe Castro)
As much as the grand final clash between Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC on Saturday excites me, part of me feels slightly disappointed that the A-League’s biggest match will be held on a ‘cow paddock’.
Make no mistake, the March 20 event is the A-League’s true event to the mainstream public.
Perhaps football purists prefer to concentrate on the regular season (and the Round 27 Premiership decider between Sydney and Melbourne was an event in itself), but to the unconverted the Grand Final is the one event likely to grab their attention.
Indeed, the grand final is also the A-League’s opportunity to showcase its product to a larger audience.
But unfortunately the patchwork quilt of a pitch at Etihad Stadium leaves that product at risk of being below par.
It really isn’t conducive to quality passing and entertaining football which is a great shame.
This point shouldn’t be under-estimated as the standard of a surface plays a big role on the football which is produced.
I’ve learnt from various visits to the UK, that English football groundsmen take great care of their pitches and shower the surface with a light amount of water before any game for the sake of providing a surface conducive to good football.
In Australia, unfortunately our A-League clubs have to accept second-best.
Melbourne Victory’s Archie Thompson said this week after his side’s AFC Champions League loss at Etihad to Seongnam Ilhwa (where the Koreans scored their two goals from set-pieces): “I didn’t think anyone could score in open play because there’s just nowhere where you could get a good bounce out there.”
Thompson added the surface was the ‘worst he’d ever seen it’ and continued: “It was a cow paddock. For a Grand Final you can’t have a pitch like that. I’d rather play out at Green Gully’s pitch.”
Even Victory’s typically reserved coach Ernie Merrick labelled it bumpy, whilst praising his side for not resorting to the dreaded long-balls in the conditions.
The woeful state of the pitch is a result of the ‘wear and tear’ from a number of recent AC/DC and George Michael concerts at the venue.
Those events are behind us now, but the Etihad Stadium ground staff don’t have much time to improve the pitch before the March 20 A-League grand final.
And it is very unlikely the surface will be much better for that date as ten days isn’t enough time for a pitch to rest or be re-layed, especially with a NAB Cup grand final played on at Docklands last night.
Unfortunately, that’s the situation which Football Federation Australia and the A-League face at the moment and there isn’t a lot they appear to be able to do about it.
Of course, life will be better for the Victory when they move to their new Rectangular Stadium on Swan Street, but you fancy they’ll continue to play finals football at the larger Etihad Stadium where they can fit more people into the stands.
But it is not only about those in the stands, but also those watching at home on their TV sets.
Indeed, you wonder how long the FFA will accept these ordinary surfaces because the A-League grand final is a product which needs to be as glamorous as possible if the game wants to win over new fans.
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