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We sometimes used to wait years for a meaningful football game in Australia, but with the Socceroos to face Japan on Tuesday night, we now have two in three days.
Saturday night’s Sydney derby was a triumph for the A-League, and the good news for football fans is that the party continues when the Socceroos host the Samurai Blue at Docklands tomorrow.
There’s no doubting the fact Japan are our biggest regional rivals and with Vahid Halilhodzic’s team currently struggling for form, the opportunity is ripe for Ange Postecoglou’s men to claim another major scalp.
The Japanese don’t sound like they’ve done their homework, with star midfielder Keisuke Honda telling Japanese news agency Kyodo over the weekend that the Socceroos “don’t have the big names like they used to such as… (Tim) Cahill”.
Honda may be in for a rude shock should Cahill start in Melbourne, but whatever first eleven Postecoglou sends out, there’s no denying this is the biggest home qualifier of the campaign.
It’s a bit surprising then that tickets are still available, with Football Federation Australia no doubt hoping more than 50,000 fans show up, while Channel Nine executives will be keen to see a big TV audience tune into the prime-time blockbuster.
It’s rare for Sydney to upstage Melbourne in a sporting sense, but that’s exactly what happened at an enthralling Sydney derby on Saturday night.
It wasn’t great viewing for Wanderers fans – and I’ve made no secret over the years that my allegiances lay with the Sky Blue side of town – but the sheer spectacle was truly something to behold.
The record crowd of nearly 62,000 helped create a new single round attendance record, with both sets of supporters contributing to a genuinely world-class atmosphere.
If there was one complaint – and it’s a minor one – it was that some of the noise emanating from each end of the ground tended to travel up into the open-air surrounds rather than echoing around the ground.
Nevertheless, the two sets of supporters both contributed to a truly absorbing encounter, although the Wanderers fans who ripped flares in the active area risked costing their team a points deduction.
On the pitch, it was the Sky Blues who ran out deserved 4-0 winners, and one pleasing aspect has been overlooked in the analysis.
Filip Holosko is the sort of player who needs five chances to convert one, but more importantly for the Sky Blues, he linked up seamlessly with new Brazilian striker Bobo.
And with Bobo clearly the sort of technically accomplished striker most A-League clubs are crying out for, Holosko’s usefulness to the Sky Blues has been magnified, since it was the Slovakian who encouraged his former teammate to make the switch to the harbour city.
It may seem like a small thing, but watching the two former Besiktas players terrorise the Western Sydney defence in unison was to witness the sort of football fans in Europe take for granted.
On the other side of the coin was Jumpei Kusukami, who was full of the sort of flicks and tricks for the Wanderers we’ve now come to expect from Japanese imports.
Kusukami’s was undoubtedly one of Western Sydney’s best, but what does it say about the quality of the A-League when a player who struggled to make an impact in Japan walks into an Australian team and becomes an immediate stand-out?
Whatever the reason, Kusukami may have got the better of Michael Zullo on a few occasions but, with Josh Brillante running the show for Sydney FC in midfield, it was Graham Arnold who tactically outmanoeuvred his counterpart Tony Popovic.
While the Sydney derby stole all of the headlines, the Central Coast Mariners deserve plaudits for their stirring comeback against a shell-shocked Perth Glory.
It bodes well for a stellar campaign, on a weekend in which the A-League deservedly wrote itself into the record books. (Click to Tweet)