Slick contest a credit to the managers and players

 
Tony Tannous Columnist

By , 22 Aug 2010 Tony Tannous is a Roar Expert

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John van 't SchipFriday night’s five-goal thriller at Hindmarsh Stadium was as captivating an A-League game as we have seen this season. Despite a bevy of defensive errors on a pitch that at times resembled an ice skating rink, this was a quality match full of contrasting styles and the united desire to demonstrate the finer technical aspects of the game.

For that, both managers, and the players who have adapted to their mantras, should be applauded.

While their was obvious physicality in the way Adelaide steamed with pace into forward transition, there was very little reliance on the brute force we sometimes get in the A-League, and it certainly made for a match very pleasing on the eye.

There was none of the Jacob Burns type disruption of the game we saw last week at AAMI Park and none of the negatives tactics we saw employed by the Central Coast Mariners in the season opener.

This was a game to enjoy, a clash between the contrasting technical styles of the Melbourne Heart, who demonstrating their want to get the ball down and possess, and Adelaide United, who preferred to wait and then react rapidly.

Adelaide may have won it and gone top of the league thanks to Iain Ramsey’s late finish through the legs of Clint Bolton, the second such finish of the match, but the Melbourne Heart needn’t despair.

After a poor beginning to the match, John van’t Schip’s men started to dominate from about midway through the first period, and for a good 25 minute period, either side of the break, showed how they intend to control games through possessing the ball and integrating their fullbacks.

It was a pity for them that errors, at the start of each half, meant they had to chase rather than control the game as they want.

Irrespective, this was their most impressive performance on the ball yet and it is clear from the way they got the ball down and played their way back into each half that the manager’s ethos is sinking in.

While their work without the ball requires much attention, for much of this match it was the work of the central midfield, with the ball, that caught the eye.

Especially impressive was the work of Nick Kalmar, a player out of the Victorian Premier League, who made some wonderful decisions on the ball, linking well with the likes of Matt Thompson, Wayne Srhoj, Gerald Sibon and Rutger Worm.

Thompson, meanwhile, was back to his driving best, while there were signs Worm is warming to his responsibility.

Listening to van’t Schip post-game dissections has been a lesson into the finer technical aspects of the game and his summaries have invariably been spot on.

None of the tired football rhetoric we often get.

He admitted his side still had plenty of work to do, especially in the defensive aspects. For all their good work on the ball, it was ultimately their errors that meant they had to chase.

Van’t Schip also spoke of the need to remain calm when they got the ball into the front third, and this is a feature of the A-League that everyone can heed.

Too often there were rushed decisions and a lack of composure inside or near the box. What van’t Schip wants is more of the calm that Thompson demonstrated in teeing Eli Babalj for their second and the composure on the edge of the box that Sibon showed in holding-up the ball and spraying it left and right.

He wants less of the rash shooting from deep we sometimes saw from the likes of Aziz Behich.

The manager also spoke of how his team were caught out for the winner because they were chasing a result, the inference being that clear heads are required.

As for Adelaide and their Dutch manager Rini Coolen, there was also some fascinating insight in his technical template.

He admitted that, while he ultimately wants his team to control games by possessing the ball and creating more opportunities, this will take time, and in the meantime he is happy to adapt and play reactive football, based on the pace into transition of the likes of Mathew Leckie, Lucas Pantelis, Ramsey and Inseob Shin.

They are all players that like to drive forward with or without the ball, somewhat dictating the way he has to play.

Having started so late and having little input into his squad, Coolen is showing he can adapt, using the players at his disposal in the best way possible. There were good signs for much of last week’s match in Gosford and even better signs last night.

Ultimately, you feel, the style of Coolen’s team will evolve, but there is already a slightly more open feel to this Adelaide team, with more bodies in forward motion and more support at the pointy end.

Here, for example, Pantelis was always close to Leckie, while the two left sided players, Ramsey and Cassio, got forward well.

It might make them a little more vulnerable in the middle of the park, where Thompson and Kalmar dominated at times, but it meant they could get bodies into the box and take advantage of any Heart slip-ups, which were in abundance last night.

With youngsters featuring on both sides, and a desire to play, this was all round a good night for A-League.

Follow Tony on Twitter @TonyTannousTRBA
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