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Guillermo Amor saved his best coaching performance for last. The way he had his Adelaide United players approach the grand final against Western Sydney Wanderers was tactically brilliant.
Particularly during that crucial period for about 20 minutes through the mid-to-late stages of the second half, after Wanderers, trailing 2-0, had pulled a goal back through Scott Neville.
Wanderers came at Adelaide hard, and United, rather than continue to play their typical high-pressure game right up the field, backed off.
A few times then, as Wanderers began attacks from inside their own half, they were running at an Adelaide side that had everyone behind the ball and clearly inside their own half.
It looked risky, because it was basically a case of Adelaide inviting Wanderers to show us what you’ve got, but it soon became clear it was no panic reaction born out of fear or fatigue, or any combination of the two.
It was obviously by design, a further tightening of their block defence that was meant to see off an anticipated fight-back.
As Wanderers worked the ball into Adelaide’s half, United set up to cut off the channels and make the necessary one-on-one challenges.
Rarely was there any confusion. Everyone knew his role and played it very well, making it difficult for Wanderers to thread the needle as they would have liked and were more than capable of doing under the right circumstances.
They couldn’t get the clear shots in that they wanted, but when you’re able to put as much pressure on as Wanderers were invited to apply in that time there are inevitably going to be moments where you go close to getting what you want.
But Adelaide backed themselves to handle those moments and they backed a winner. Several times, the last line of defence stood tall with interceptions of the ball that were absolutely necessary to deny the opposition a crack.
A desperate, outstretched leg on the ground inside the penalty box to just get to the ball first, or a frantic dash to block the path between the player with possession and the player making the dangerous run into a potential shooting position.
In a way it was a bit of rope-a-dope from Adelaide. A goal up, they were confident enough to handle whatever Wanderers threw at them in the knowledge that if they held firm the steam would probably start to go out of the fight-back eventually.
They might even then get the chance to finish the game off in style and that was how it turned out, with substitute Pablo Sanchez pouncing to blast a terrific shot past Wanderers goalkeeper Andrew Redmayne in the 89th minute to cap a 3-1 win.
Adelaide didn’t defend well early in the season, when they were trying to perfect their new approach to that side of the game under Amor.
Missed assignments have the potential to prove very expensive when individuals are being asked to apply a lot of defensive pressure.
You’ve got to understand your job perfectly and know when is the right time to put the heat on in defence and when is the right time to back off.
It’s about hard work and good decision-making and once United got the hang of what the coach wanted them to do they turned their season around.
Grand final day was a great spectacle and the game itself was a tremendous advertisement for the competitive nature of the A-League.
These things are always a matter of opinion, but I enjoyed this season more than any other.
The many intriguing twists and turns it took and the overall quality of the football made it very interesting and entertaining from start to finish.
This season has only just ended, but I’m already looking forward to the next.
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