A-League needs to entertain more consistently
Columnist By Mike Tuckerman, 27 Jan 2012 Mike Tuckerman is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- A-League, football, Melbourne Victory, Sydney FC
While much of the focus was on former Sydney FC defender Mark Milligan, there was some symmetry to the fact it was ex-Victory defender Sebastian Ryall who proved the man of the hour in the “Big Blue” yesterday.
Ryall’s goal was symptomatic of the match: unexpected and scrappy, but thoroughly entertaining.
Not for the first time this season, Victory will view a draw as a loss and Sydney FC coach Vitezslav Lavicka will be relieved all the attention is not on him.
In terms of the latter, the Sky Blues might as well start planning for next season because they don’t have the personnel needed to put up a fight in the finals this time around.
They simply don’t have the pace to trouble any but the most panicked of defences and it was instructive that both of their goals against Victory came from defensive blunders.
Victory are a more interesting prospect, if only because they do possess the sort of players who can challenge for the title – not that Jim Magilton seems to think so.
He’s already brought in Mark Milligan on loan, but the Victory defence still looked all at sea against their bitter rivals, particularly when the bustling Bruno Cazarine lurked.
Victory’s campaign has been fascinating to watch but fans of the Big-V must be growing increasingly nervous as the clock ticks down on the regular season.
They’ve still got difficult away fixtures against Brisbane Roar and Sydney FC to come, as well as the derby and another difficult home clash with league leaders Central Coast, and so far they haven’t shown any signs of sparking to life under Magilton.
That shouldn’t take away from what was an entertaining clash at AAMI Park – the kind we need more of on a consistent basis in the A-League.
I watched Newcastle Jets draw with Adelaide United a day earlier and maybe it was the neutral surrounds of Carrington Park in Bathurst, but the whole encounter was a ho-hum affair.
It’s a shame pre-match showers evidently kept some fans away but so far these community round fixtures have been a real mixed bag in terms of intensity.
At times the clash between the Jets and the Reds had a social kickabout feel to it and it wasn’t until Newcastle started to throw everything at Adelaide over a frenetic finale that it finally started to resemble a genuine A-League match.
It’s been one of the few downsides of the A-League this season: the fact entertaining fixtures are often bookended by the sort of dreary encounter which leaves casual watchers turning off their TVs and has others thinking twice about attending a game.
It’s a shame there hasn’t been a little bit more consistency because the quality of football on display has generally been quite high.
We just need a few more games like “the Big Blue” and a few less like “the Big Bore” in Bathurst to keep interest ticking over.
There should be a bit of interest in this weekend’s fixtures and now that the rain has eased in Brisbane, it will be fascinating to see how the Roar fare without suspended striker Besart Berisha.
Adelaide versus Perth is always a feisty clash as well, and hopefully we see some high-quality football to go with the lusty tackling and buzzing atmosphere.
Because it’s not just big-name rivalries which gets punters through the gates and fans watching on TV.
It’s also entertainment, and that’s something we could stand to see on a little bit more of a regular basis in the A-League.
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January 27th 2012 @ 3:16pm
Bondy said | January 27th 2012 @ 3:16pm | Report comment
Mike.
You can argue the toss about the quality and intensisity of the A League but what should be taken into consideration is that the A League is the fairest league in the world ” i cant find a evener competition of our kind ” if you look at La Liga it’s a boat race between the two giants another case in point the E.P.L. has recently been simply a boat race up the Thames between Chelsea @ Man Utd .
Enjoy your football .
January 27th 2012 @ 3:39pm
Axelv said | January 27th 2012 @ 3:39pm | Report comment
? In a very broad summary, Mike wants more games like that at AAMI Park yesterday, and less of those like Bathurst and Gold Coast.
It’s more entertaining for the neutral viewer and better for the A-League to have intense games with atmospheres, than those of flat uninspiring boring games.
For me personally, as a Victory fan when I watch neutral games I love the atmospheres that Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Newcastle often give. The football goes hand in hand with it. And I also enjoyed the occasion of Perth vs Victory, they got 4k more fans than their average for that game and the stadium looked to be quite full (2/3). at NIB despite the agonizing torture of my beloved Victory. Hopefully Perth can bounce back and attract crowds and atmospheres like that more often, Perth’s football on that day matched their crowd and they delivered.
January 28th 2012 @ 10:40pm
jbinnie said | January 28th 2012 @ 10:40pm | Report comment
Mike – Have just finished watching one of your “hoped for” entertaining fixtures and it was like watching paint dry. Oh the pundits will praise the Jets for the way they defended and the way they got 3 unexpected points, but how it was achieved could not,under any circumstances, be described as “entertaining”. So how are you going to change this tactical ploy of getting a goal on the break and defending like the “siege of Mafeking” for the next 65 minutes?. Italian football fell into this trap 50 years ago and it took them another 30 years to try and win back the fans they had chased away.It could be argued they have yet to succeed.
On a brighter note,the HAL passed it’s 1,000,000 fans attending games this season (despite those mid-week horror figures) with1,004,585 attending 91 games. Last season it took 123 games to achieve a like total.That means we are 32 “match crowds” ahead of last season and with a 91 match average, at this point 11,000, when we reach 123 (1,011005 last season) we could be at a figure of 1,356.585 thus showing an increase of 34%. So keep up the pressure Mike ,lets have entertaining football first and foremost.That will keep them coming. jb
January 28th 2012 @ 11:08pm
Bondy said | January 28th 2012 @ 11:08pm | Report comment
jb.
I watched that match just then , that yes we can debate the technical quality and bus parking, but do you think the roar went into that match psycologically thinking the three points are our’s it’s Newcastle away so “uno” .
I think also Broich is two runs short of best form,the roars football between rounds 1-7 was very good and i couldnt fault it “and i tried”.
Newcastle grabbed an unlikely win and if they win at home next week that will be 7 out of a potential 9 points .
January 28th 2012 @ 11:56pm
jbinnie said | January 28th 2012 @ 11:56pm | Report comment
Bondy -Don’t know how to answer you.You talk about ” technical quality and bus parking” (a terrible phrase describing organised defensive play) and to be honest there was not a lot of either on show.
If, as you say, Roar went on the field thinking the 3 points were there for the taking then they got what they deserved but to be honest I don’t think they had that mindset. Brioch may well be 2 runs short of best form but he and Adman are so obviously ahead of the others in basic football talent that they actually show up where it is all going wrong at the moment.
Ange plays a system that is based on quick,accurate,passing and for that to take place players also have to move quickly, constantly giving the ball “player” a target to pass to. This is just not happening and opposition players,now well versed in what Roar are doing ,simply move men back into defensive positions making it much harder to keep up the quick accurate passing game.
I lost count of the number of times in the first 15 minutes where young Fitzgerald passed a first time ball in to his midfielder and took off like a rocket into space only to find the midfielder had turned inside and,finding the way blocked, passed the ball backwards granting the Jet’s defence more time to organise.That is NOT good play even in a team playing possession football.I am starting to think there are players in the team who are not capable of playing and completing the high standard of “pass completion” that Ange’s system demands.Hope I am wrong, but???? 3 games lost by a single goal hurts. jb
January 29th 2012 @ 12:31am
Midfielder said | January 29th 2012 @ 12:31am | Report comment
Jb
Astute observation you make …. I recall a game I played in two or three years ago… we only had 9 players for the last 75 minutes with a send off and an injury when we had no replacements… we made a decision to defend the box and 15 meters out from the box towards the half way line….
It takes a lot of skill to do this and I think many folk under rate the skill needed to stop an attacking team breaking tho…
IMO and ha I am just a hack and so my knowledge compared to AP … for me the Roar need to break things up a bit … I would have the odd shot from 25 to 30 meters out just to draw the defence out a little… But JB that the entire squad is not at the same level is very true…
January 29th 2012 @ 7:28am
Stevo said | January 29th 2012 @ 7:28am | Report comment
I saw the second half of this game and to me it encapsulates where the HAL is at this stage of its development. The excellent possession style built by Raw has worked wonderfully well and teams have taken a while to organise themselves defensively to counter it – parking the bus it could be called, or “the flood” in AFL terms or simply a MVFC style reliant of counter-attacking movement – it worked really well for them in the early seasons with Muskys defensive smarts, and Fred/Carlos pulling the strings for Archie/Allsopp.
For the Raw, what has appeared this season is that they can fall into a rut and their ball movement is not sharp/quick enough to break through a well organised defence. They also lack creativity amongst enough players to solve the puzzle during game time – this I think has exposed some players who looked pretty good when things were working for them. However, all this is terrific as it gets coaches thinking/adapting to changing plans and helps to raise the quality of the play and entertainment for fans.
January 29th 2012 @ 8:43am
j binnie said | January 29th 2012 @ 8:43am | Report comment
Mid. – Under the circumstances your team’s decision was probably the right one as long as all you were seeking was a draw. You see “organised defence” is not so much a “skill” as a “discipline” for it only encompasses “half” of the “skill components” of the overall game.When a player,or group of players, are asked to “defend” all they have to concentrate on is how to stop their opponents build up and advance with Herrera taking this aspect of the tactic to a new high when he encouraged his players to use any “minor infringement” to break that flow. Hence the referees are left to “punish” every one of these” nudges,shirt pulls, feigned injury and cramps” as a method of achieving these same ends.Needless to say it can be an “entertainment killer” but who cares about the paying public?. That is the real question that Mike is examining.So Roar’s problems are not confined to Ange’s system of play it also encompasses how other highly paid coaches approach the job at hand and that is a question not so easily answered. jb
January 29th 2012 @ 12:46am
Griffo said | January 29th 2012 @ 12:46am | Report comment
I was unable to watch much of the second half due to technical difficulties but from what I could gather from the Roar blogger covering the match, the Jets seemed to run out of legs.
This would not surprise me with this being the third match in eight days for the Jets.
I hope to catch as much highlights as I can to judge for myself, but with the team flagging a defensive posture could have been the best chance for three points.
Not entertaining compared to end-to-end open play with crisp passing for sure, but I think entertainment is relative here.
Mike’s article might be aimed more at the non-football fan and how entertainment entices them to more games: would they find tonight’s Roar vs Jets entertaining? Who knows. Same answer as the Roar vs 9-man Victory earlier in the season I expect – maybe Victory gained more fans that night?