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On Sunday the runaway team from version six of the A-League, will play on the league’s best pitch in front of the biggest crowd of the season.
It’s not a bad finale for a competition that appears to be stuttering it’s way towards a significant crisis.
While I’ve found the last few A-League Grand Finals lost some of their lustre as the respective sides met for a sixth time in the one season, heading into this year’s showpiece event the intrigue will only increase for a battle that has developed with each successive meeting.
The last time Brisbane Roar and the Central Coast Mariners met two weeks ago we saw further evidence of how Australian domestic football has grown over the last eight months as Mariners coach Graham Arnold posed his counterpart, Ange Postecoglou, a tactical problem he struggled to counter.
It was the latest chapter in what’s been an absorbing rivalry this season and leaves us with a number of questions to ponder going into Sunday’s blockbuster.
Will Brisbane be able to remain patient as they try to breakdown the Mariners yet also exploit the space left in front of them the few times it appears (Something they struggled to do throughout most of the game the last times these sides met)?
And the Central Coast’s speed when transitioning from defence to attack will inevitably create chances, but can they take advantage of these unlike in the first leg of their major semi-final three weeks ago?
Yet while this is all mouth-watering stuff, with Brisbane’s owners about to return the club’s license to Football Federation Australia, the most important answer from Sunday will come from off the pitch as the Roar looks to build off the back of a stellar season.
It’s a point that was well made by my SBS colleague Vitor Sobral earlier this week. (http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/vitor-sobral/blog/1047881/Brisbane%27s-second-chance-to-get-it-right)
“Whatever happens on Sunday, Brisbane Roar can be proud of what it has achieved in this record breaking season on the pitch and a re-connection with the football family off it,” wrote Vitor from Brisbane.
“But the club and football in Queensland cannot, and must not, rest on their laurels. Brisbane has had a 40,000 plus crowd at a grand final before, yet the following game just over 6,000 turned up.
“From there the Strikers were never able to fully engage the football community again. Football can ill afford to repeat the mistakes of the past.”
The first step for Brisbane will be to ensure they don’t make the same mistakes as the Victory did who, after sweeping all before them in season two of the A-League, managed to fire blanks with the majority of their recruiting, offer up tripe on the football pitch and alienate their fans off it the following year.
In my opinion, the atmosphere at Victory games hasn’t been the same since and it would be devastating to see a similar thing happen in Brisbane.
It’ll be about six months before the A-League returns and we find out whether the Roar can avoid these pitfalls but Sunday’s Grand Final might just throw up enough excitement to ease the long wait.
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