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One of the biggest problems in the A-League is one we generally don’t like to acknowledge – the fact we are second-class citizens at our own home grounds.
I watched Brisbane Roar flog Adelaide United 4-0 alongside long-time Roar contributor Ben of Phnom Penh yesterday, and one of the most obvious facets of the game was the rutted pitch at Suncorp Stadium.
The pitch might have been independently rated “four out of five” before kick-off, but the self-evident reality was that the midweek Coldplay concert at the ground had turned the surface into a cow paddock.
Yet for all the complaints about the poor surfaces A-League clubs are expected to put up with, the simple reality is as follows.
Concerts like Coldplay’s sell out Australian stadia, whereas A-League games do not.
In other words, until Brisbane Roar start shifting 50,000 tickets for their games against Adelaide United it’s no good fans complaining about the state of the pitch, since it is obvious which event generates substantially more revenue.
The same goes for Sydney FC, who were forced to play their ‘home’ game against Melbourne City at ANZ Stadium on Friday night.
The shift clearly hurt the Sky Blues at the gate, yet the reality is the English rockers will draw almost as many fans to Allianz Stadium over two nights as Sydney FC will do in half a season.
Until A-League fans start turning up in substantial numbers, it’s no good complaining about concerts cutting up the playing surface when it’s clear these major events are more or less paying the bills for the vendors.
The alternative is for rich owners like David Traktovenko or the Bakrie Group to build their own stadium, however, given the prohibitive cost of land in Australia, it’s perhaps understandable why this particular option has never seriously been put on the cards.
So it is that we’re left with the sort of playing surfaces that pass for A-League pitches, and it’s little wonder so few clubs are capable of playing an attractive passing game.
In the case of Brisbane Roar, they dominated defending champions Adelaide from start to finish but effectively scored all of their goals from hitting the ball through the air, rather than passing it on the ground.
They’ve done wonderfully well to have unearthed a footballer like Thomas Kristensen, who like so many imports from Europe has proved to be a clear cut above some of the local talent on offer.
The same can be said of Besart Berisha, who despite supposedly being out of form helped himself to a treble against the Western Sydney Wanderers on Saturday night.
Brisbane fans will cringe at the thought that Berisha remains one of the A-League’s greatest imports, but his perfect hat-trick against a one-speed Wanderers is surely proof of the old axiom that ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’.
If there was one striker most A-League clubs wish they had it would surely be Berisha, and the Victory front man remains the competition’s go-to player when it comes to scoring vital goals.
The same can’t quite be said of Sydney FC’s Brazilian striker Bobo, but the marquee man will be relieved to have swept home a penalty against Melbourne City on Friday night.
The bustling striker inadvertently cost his side a goal when a Rhyan Grant effort which hit the back of the net clipped the offside Brazilian on the way through, but the much-travelled front man made amends by converting the spot-kick he won in contentious circumstances in the second half.
The Sky Blues will no doubt be glad to return home to Moore Park in three weeks’ time, having not for the first time been forced to play second fiddle to a concert at their usual home ground.
Simulation may be the current cause celebre in the A-League, but that’s probably because it’s a problem we can control – unlike shoddy pitches.