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How will ACL affect the A-League finals race?

17th April, 2014
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Japan fans celebrate after winning the AFC Asian Cup Final soccer match. AP Photo/Kin Cheung
Expert
17th April, 2014
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Just how draining is it to play in the AFC Champions League? We’ll soon find out, when Melbourne Victory and Central Coast Mariners take to the pitch in their sudden-death A-League finals this weekend.

Watching the Spanish league highlights on Fox Sports this week, I was struck by the odd statement that Getafe were hoping to take advantage of their opponent Atletico Madrid’s “tiredness,” after the latter had been involved in midweek UEFA Champions League action.

What seemed strange about the statement – and quite honestly, the English language La Liga commentary is nothing short of hilarious at the best of times – is the simple fact that Atletico’s squad is so vastly superior in every way to that of their local rival.

Could a midweek fixture really make such a difference? Would Atletico simply collapse because they’d already played earlier in the week?

Naturally nothing of the sort occurred, as Atletico swatted aside their unloved neighbour on their relentless march towards the Spanish league title.

But the big difference between the A-League and Spanish football – of course – is the salary cap, which means that clubs like Victory and the Mariners can’t buy up the best talent in the league and simply park it on the bench, to bring out as required for ho-hum league fixtures.

Instead, as has often been the case in the ACL this season, we’ve actually seen Australian teams send out ‘understrength’ squads on the continent and hold back players in reserve for A-League duty.

But what does the notion of being understrength even mean?

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I’ve always been a firm believer that football is a squad game and have never been overly perturbed by teams choosing to rotate players for certain fixtures, particularly when it affords young players a taste of first-team action.

That’s not going to happen this weekend, but it’ll be interesting to see how both Victory and the Mariners recover from their vastly different midweek experiences.

The Victorians, of course, are coming off a fantastic 2-0 win over defending Asian champions Guangzhou Evergrande and will go into tonight’s Good Friday blockbuster against Sydney FC in the most buoyant of moods.

Even if they are fatigued from their midweek exploits, surely the result itself should give Victory a psychological edge?

Conversely, will the manner of Central Coast’s 1-0 defeat to FC Seoul on the back of a stoppage-time own goal from skipper John Hutchinson act as an added disadvantage to the Mariners?

Or will the results in midweek have absolutely no bearing on what are admittedly the two most important matches of the season to date for both clubs?

You’d have to think Victory will start strong favourites against their bitter rivals from Sydney, although stranger things have happened than a Sky Blues win before.

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But the Mariners could be in a spot of bother against an Adelaide side which just renewed the contract of popular coach Josep Gombau.

Whatever transpires in the A-League this weekend, it’s nice to see all three A-League teams in with a genuine shot of progressing in the ACL.

Mariners defender Eddy Bosnar pulled no punches in an insightful chat with John Davidson for FourFourTwo during the week.

Bosnar, whose delivery is about as blunt as his approach to free-kicks, reckons Australian teams over-estimate the skills of their Asian opponents.

“We’re starting to learn how to play against these teams and we’re starting to think that, look, we have to be confident against them,” said the veteran defender.

“It’s not like you’re going to play against Barcelona. They’re Asian teams, they’re not as good as we think they are.”

It was a refreshingly honest statement from a player who has been there and done it in Asia, and one who probably can’t understand what all the ACL-related complaints are all about.

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So will the continental competition have a bearing on the A-League title race? Or does adrenaline take over when it comes to finals football?

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