After a six-and-a-half months of the A-League campaign we’re down to the last four. These four sides compete in a straight knockout to decide who contests the 2014 grand final.
Remarkably, in a league with a salary cap designed for equalisation, and in a competition which is notoriously difficult to predict week-to-week, it is the same four clubs as last year in the semi-finals.
Here is your lowdown on the contenders.
Brisbane Roar
Winning the premiers plate while showcasing a sumptuous style of football, Brisbane has been the stand-out team of the A-League in 2013/14 and that shouldn’t be forgotten, regardless of what happens over the next two weeks.
Mike Mulvey led his side to the season’s first prize with three games in hand, making the small section of Roar fans who once held aloft that ‘Mulvey out’ banner look foolish. The Roar topped the table by scoring more goals and conceding fewer than any other side, with Tommy Broich providing ten assists, more than any other player in the competition.
Strangely, mediocre Newcastle got the better of Brisbane on all three occasions. Take those games out, and Roar have lost just four of 23 matches.
They aren’t the unbeatable force of yesteryear, however, as Central Coast showed in the final round. Adelaide United and both Melbourne teams also knocked the Roar off on single occasions.
Brisbane’s weak spots include a propensity of receiving red cards. In good news for Melbourne, they’ve managed just one clean sheet in their past twelve matches.
Brisbane have lost only once in their last 11 A-League matches against the Melbourne Victory, winning six and drawing four. Keeper Michael Theo is up against his old club and aiming to play in a fifth A-League grand final.
Having wrapped up top spot so early, it’s been over a month since Brisbane played a match with anything riding on it. Could that be too long?
Melbourne Victory
Where to start with Melbourne Victory? In short, they’re a wildly inconsistent side who somehow finished a point behind second place with a negative goal difference.
On their day, Victory is a seriously good team whose style is tremendously attractive to the eye.
The weakness – as it has been for the best part of four years now – is in defence, where individual faults, concentration lapses and a lack of closing down in midfield contributed to an unwanted fact: only Wellington conceded more goals in the home-and-away season.
Victory lost 5-0 to Sydney, 5-0 to Phoenix, 4-0 to Heart and 3-0 to Brisbane in the space of two months. Since then, however, the rearguard has tightened. Nathan Coe lost his spot before regaining it and has proved himself worthy in April.
Melbourne are in form, with just four losses in their past 18 games. One of those defeats was away to Guangzhou Evergrande, reigning champions of Asia, and another was only because of an injury time thunderbolt from the right foot of Brisbane’s Luke Brattan.
An air of magic has surrounded the team in recent weeks as it scored one of the great A-League team goals in routing Wellington, memorably defeated Guangzhou in the return fixture and eliminated Sydney FC from the finals with a 90th minute winner last Friday.
They’ve built up a head of steam at just the right time.
A tough schedule featuring half a dozen midweek matches culminated in being narrowly knocked out of the Asian Champions League in Korea on Tuesday. Key men James Troisi, Pablo Contreras, Mark Milligan and Gui Finkler were all rested or ineligible for that game, meaning they’ll be fresh and ready to go on Sunday.
In the betting market, Victory are rank outsiders for the championship but I can’t imagine that phasing Kevin Muscat one bit.
No team from outside the top three has ever reached the grand final, but will happen one day, and my money is on Victory going one better than last year, when they went out at this stage.
Western Sydney Wanderers
Like Melbourne, Western Sydney has endured a gruelling schedule with a smallish squad and appear to have come out the other side with form intact. Wanderers blew away Chinese opponent Guizhou Renhe on Tuesday, which followed crucial away wins to Ulsan Hyundai and Melbourne Heart.
They’ve netted seventeen goals in eight games.
Western Sydney haven’t quite enjoyed the Cinderella run of last season and have been especially patchy since the turn of the year.
Still, they’ve kept a league-high ten clean sheets and have seen off most challengers on the way to finishing second on goal difference in the league and being the only Australian club to progress in Asia this season.
Tony Popovic has kept the same core squad together since inception and, with home advantage on Saturday, his men are primed to reach a second successive grand final.
Central Coast Mariners
Outside of Gosford, who didn’t write the Mariners off when they lost five in a row in February?
Seven of their grand final XI and manager Graham Arnold had departed before that slide begun, and Central Coast were playing some dismal football. It seemed a fait accompli that teams such as Heart, Adelaide and Wellington, who were all coming, would take their spot in the six.
In the nick of time, and with injuries continuing to mount, Central Coast got their act together to finish third. They’ve won ten and lost ten of their past twenty games in all competitions.
Mariners boast a handsome record against Western Sydney but have been undermined by a cruel schedule which sees their match played just after they arrive back from Japan. They have 24 hours less than Western Sydney to prepare for the game on top of the travel factor.
Tips
Western Sydney 2, Central Coast 0
Brisbane 1, Melbourne 2
Twitter: @simmo_melb89
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