The 2014-15 A-League is a competition for attacking teams, which is why it will be a huge shock if Melbourne City beats Melbourne Victory in the first semi-final at Etihad Stadium on Friday night.
There is more chance of the outsider winning the second semi-final at Allianz Stadium on Saturday night, but Sydney FC should prevail. Adelaide United can score goals, but rarely have they done so in big chunks.
Sydney has scored three goals or more on 11 occasions this season. Adelaide has done it just three times – and one of those was when it whipped Newcastle Jets 7-1 in the first round back after the competition’s Asian Cup break.
What the Jets dished up that day was easily the worst performance by an A-League team this season. A couple of non-A-League clubs that lost to A-League clubs in the FFA Cup put up better performances.
One of the other two times Adelaide scored three-plus goals was in the final round of the regular season, when it beat Melbourne City 4-1.
City is an enigmatic team which knew it was going to finish fifth regardless of its results in the last two rounds and it played like the results didn’t matter, losing 3-1 to Perth Glory before getting hammered by Adelaide.
But in an elimination final against Wellington Phoenix last weekend, City improved considerably and won 2-0. It still wasn’t the sort of form that should seriously threaten Victory, though, and we’ll come back to that.
The other game in which Adelaide scored at least three goals was in its 3-0 win over Sydney on Boxing Day.
Looks good on paper, but remember how badly affected Sydney was by season-ending injuries to key players at that stage?
That result came in the middle of a seven-game run for Sydney which went draw, loss, draw, loss, loss, draw, draw. It didn’t score a single goal in the last four games of that stretch.
Sydney coach Graham Arnold scoured the world looking for injury replacements he could bring in during the January transfer window and he found the right ones.
It has been a rejuvenated team ever since.
Adelaide has a number of goal-scorers but it doesn’t have a dominant scorer. Pablo Sanchez is its leading scorer with eight, which puts him equal eighth on the season list.
It doesn’t have that player who is often still a chance of scoring a goal even when things aren’t going particularly well for his team. It doesn’t have a Marc Janko or a Shane Smeltz and that has cost it several games in which it was the better team.
Sydney striker Janko is the competition’s leading scorer this season, with 16.
The only reason Smeltz isn’t in the Sydney starting side is Janko, but Smeltz, the A-League’s all-time second-highest scorer, has still scored eight goals despite coming off the bench in the vast majority of cases and sometimes not seeing action until well into the second half.
Adelaide has beaten Sydney three times at Allianz Stadium this season – twice in the A-League and the other time in an FFA Cup quarter-final. That could mean something or it could mean nothing.
Brisbane Roar had a great recent record in Adelaide before last weekend’s elimination final against United, but lost 2-1.
Adelaide beat Sydney in Sydney as recently as April 4, 1-0, but Sydney was clearly the better team that day. Adelaide goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic was the best player on the field. He brilliantly stopped numerous shots and Sydney also wasted some other opportunities.
You get what you deserve and Sydney paid the price for not making the most of its opportunities in that match, but a repeat of the way that game panned out just doesn’t seem likely.
Based on overall form this season, if Sydney creates opportunities near as well on Saturday as it did in that previous clash, it won’t be finishing on nil.
When you compare this season’s figures with those of recent seasons it is clear there has been a major shift in terms of what is getting results.
Attack is king.
The top six teams in the regular season scored 56, 52, 47, 45, 36 and 42 goals respectively. Last season it was 43, 34, 33, 42, 40 and 45. The season before that it was 41, 48, 48, 38, 33 and 29.
No team conceded under 30 goals this season. Victory was the best, conceding 31. Last season, the top two teams on the ladder conceded 25 and 29 respectively. The season before that, the top two conceded just 21 and 22, and the fifth-placed team conceded 29.
City is the lowest-scoring team in the top six this season. It scored 36 goals in the regular season. Victory is the highest-scoring team, with 56.
Midfielder Aaron Mooy is City’s leading scorer, with seven. Almost half of those goals (three) have come from the penalty spot.
Former Socceroo striker Josh Kennedy has gradually looked more dangerous since joining City and scored an opportunistic goal against Wellington last weekend.
But Kennedy will find it very difficult against Victory’s central defence – primarily the vastly experienced Matthieu Delpierre, who is bound to make it his particular business to keep Kennedy scoreless.
City has scored three or more goals four times this season. Victory has done it 11 times.
Victory has a genuine go-to man for goals in Besart Berisha, who finished the regular season as the second-highest scorer in the competition, with 13.
But it also has numerous other enormous threats, including Fahid Ben Khalfallah, Gui Finkler and Kosta Barbarouses. Archie Thompson has mostly come off the bench but has still scored 10 goals to be the competition’s fifth-highest scorer.
Wellington made enough inroads against City last weekend, but just couldn’t finish off moves. It looked tentative when it got close to goal, probably as a result of its confidence-denting poor finish to the regular season.
But the fact Phoenix was able to put itself into position to do something was not a good sign for City.
Victory, with its brigade of in-form, confident attackers, will put City under a lot more pressure in the penalty box than Wellington did.
It will be too much pressure for City to withstand.
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.
Here is the way the Roar expert panel sees all the action unfolding across the final weekend of play prior to the semi-finals.
The real concern comes down to football's growing trend of big corporations taking up slices of the world game at the expense of smaller teams.
Mathew Leckie played a pivotal part in Melbourne City claiming an 8-nil win; playing a role in several of his team's goals.
The loser of the Sydney Derby will be under immense pressure entering the final three matches of the season.
Anthony Caceres is a player with immense talent and has a fantastic work rate, broke the deadlock against the Mariners in the 74th minute.
Plenty of Aussies impressed in the final week of March, showing their talents off abroad and in their backyard. Here's the best XI of…
