They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

So, no disrespect to Evan, but his attempt at a new MVFC logo is awful. It made me want to vomit as soon as I saw it. When you have to explain a badge to justify the imagery you’re doing it wrong.

Ok. Maybe the typeface used on the Victory badge can do with updating. But, the emblem & the message & the imagery needs no change.

I don’t care if other clubs change their logo every 12 years. I don’t want my club changing anything.

If the emblem looks old fashioned to artistic minds – too bad. To this football fan who is a Member of MVFC, the badge is fine.

FBK at his best is fantastic.

FBK when he’s pouting is a waste of space, immature & not required at Victory.

Sadly, apart from Season 1, the majority of FBK at Victory is all about FBK. He’s not a team player any more.

Give me Ingham or Austin every day. They want to learn. They’re happy to work hard. They want to be part of MVFC.

I’ll never forget the 3 trophies he helped us achieve during a wonderful 12 month period, but I don’t want him at the club next season unless he improves his work ethic during matches & stop pouting. FBK can go to another ALeague club, I don’t care.

I’ve attended every MVFC match this season. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest that the old North Terrace has disbanded. A new group is now in the space formerly occupied by the NT and this new group is providing vibrant match day support. Additionally, when we play at AAMI Park, the whole stadium is now much more involved than it has been in the past. In fact, the match against Brisbane was the loudest support I’ve heard at an MVFC H&A match.

The club is far more important than a group of 500 teenage & 20 something fans.

Vukovic: was dropped from the MV starting spot b/c he was rubbish last season. For sure, he’s playing well this season. I would have Lawrence Thomas starting before Vukovic.

I don’t watch enough SydFC but those 3 players are serviceable but no better/worse than the 3 MV players you have them replacing.
Hlosoko. No way I want him anywhere near my team.

I’d have Ninkovic ahead of Bozanic playing next to JT as 2 attacking midfielders.
I’d have Wilkinson next to Baro.

That’s it. Victory dominated Sydney last night & created enough chances with 10 men. There is nothing about Sydney FC that would bother Muscat or any of the MV players.

I’ve now watched every team live in the Stadium.

WSW are the most dull team this season. Sydney are also boringly dull. If it wins them matches – good for them.

I’m ok with my team being dull & winning tournament or cup matches.
I will not accept my team playing dull football for 27 matches to win a title.

None of the SydneyFC, other than Ninkovic & Wilkinson, I would want starting for MVFC.

From what I saw last night, Sydney FC are a disciplined, efficient, hard-working team.

They are not inventive.
They are not creative.

After the first Melbourne Derby, I realised MVFC had been smashed – not just beaten, totally humiliated – by a much better football team. The opposition frightened me with the quality of football they played for the full 90′.

The next time we played the Melb Derby, I realised that opening Derby was a flash-in-the-pan. City were a decent team, but they’re lazy.

After last night, I’m just annoyed. MVFC lost the match; Sydney didn’t win. Vuckovic had 3 world class saves plus 1 shot hit the cross bar. Other than the goal, Thomas didn’t have to make a save all night.

Sydney’s game plan is to bore the opponent into making an error then strike. Fair play to them. They implement this Game Plan better than opponents implement their Game Plan.

But, Sydney FC is not a team I’d enjoy watching for 90 minutes every week, which is why a team that hasn’t lost for 17 consecutive matches can’t even attract their own fans to matches at home.

Dull football can win you trophies.
Dull football will never win hearts & minds.

Brilliant work, Mike Tuckerman.

One of your best opinion pieces to date. 100% endorse every sentence you wrote.

It’s quite bizarre behaviour on this website. Only the Football discussions attracts a huge number of people who actually hate the sport & they feel compelled to come here to tell us they hate the sport. This deranged attack on football is not replicated by those who don’t watch Rugby, or don’t watch AFL, cricket, netball, motor sports, etc.

Fouls 2016/17

1) Brisbane 20 – 11 MVFC (Brisbane had player sent off)
2) MVFC 14 – 16 MCY (In the opening minute Cahill elbows Baro in the head & Baro has to leave the pitch with blood streaming from his face. Cahill doesn’t even get a caution)

So yeah. MVFC decided we’re not going to take this rubbish any more & went in hard. Hope they do the same for the next 24 matches. Ansell got elbowed in the head by Guardiola. Nothing given.

@Perry Bridge. I had a chuckle reading your post.

From how you’ve described yourself & your family, my observation would be: you and your kids should stay away from A-League matches.

Unless you lighten up a bit, you are not, nor will you ever be, the sort of people I want to sit next to at the A-League. I don’t want the A-League to be for everyone. I want ALeague to be for people who understand football culture. Both the culture on the park and the culture off the park and your posts clearly demonstrate you do not want to embrace our football culture.

Rather you expect football fans to change our culture to suit you. The suggestion “go back to where you came from” seems apt.

Great article, Middy.

Some of us have been banging on about the FFA should focus their marketing on the Football community not on those who either hate Football, or have no interest in Football.

Forget trying to convert people to the Game. We have enough people who are involved with AUS football (i.e. they already buy the product). What the FFA needs to do is get them to occasionally, or routinely, choose to watch ALeague (ie. buy our brand of football).

Sounds like FFA have finally listened and they’re now chasing the True Believers; rather than New Believers.

Middy, some of us have been banging on for sometime that LiveStreaming football was a vital piece of the broadcast puzzle that the FFA has neglected for too long.

The latest I’ve heard is that the new deal will be:

Cable: Foxtel

FTA: Ten Network (Saturday 7:30 pm all the marquee matches) plus every match broadcast LIVE into a club’s home state. So, most weekends 2 HAL matches on FTA Tv into the 5 major capital cities each week.

Digital: YouTube & Twitter are in play (all FFA content: HAL, W-L, NPL, FFA Cup, etc.) but Optus is also very keen which is why they’ve been broadcasting Australia’s u19 AFF and Futsals WC recently.

Enjoy the HAL season.

Not just the result.

Overall performance I’d rate as the best ever against Iraq since we’ve joined the Asian Confederation. I don’t ever recall AUS dominating an Iraqi team before, like we did last night.

I know dominating isn’t enough. We need goals, but we did score 2 and we did create enough chances to score half a dozen more.

I’d be very concerned if we won 1-0, created nothing and possession was 50-50 or slightly in favour of the opposition. This is how it was under Pim Verbeek & Holger.

Australia hit the woodwork twice, Juric missed a tap in & the Iraq keeper blocked about 4 shots that were heading in – including a shot within the opening 10 seconds of the match.

Australia totally dominated proceedings. Compare that to the way we were generally out-played against Iraq in June 2013 to qualify for Brasil World Cup.

Do we need to be sharper? Yes.
Do we need to be less sloppy with passing? Yes
Do we need to be more clinical with finishing? Yes.

We won 2-0 in a home World Cup Qualifier.
Job Done.

Of course they are Qualifiers for the World Cup finals.

That’s the whole point.

The WC Finals are in Russia in 2018. These are the Qualifiers for the World Cup Finals.

Wow.

You still don’t get it?

There’s no such thing as World Cup Finals Qualifiers.

The World Cup consists of 2 stages:
a) The Preliminary Competition (aka Qualifiers)
b) The Final Competition (aka World Cup Finals)

This is basic stuff.
It’s not complicated.
How can people not understand?

Spot on!

Lagardère Group owns the rights to all the AFC content. Lagardère sold the rights (according to a report last week) for Australian broadcasts for this stage of WCQs to FoxSports.

Now it’s up to FoxSports. It was reported FoxSports wants is willing to onsell the matches to FTA Tv but the commercial networks want to buy a complete package of HAL Tv rights and WCQs. However, HAL TV rights are not yet available for selling.

It’s very annoying for fans, who always like to blame someone but – if what has been reported is correct – such timing issues cannot be foreseen unless the one party owns all the rights being sold.

Same football illiterates, hanging around the Football forum like love-starved groupies doing whatever they can to grab attention.

Pathetic behaviour that is commonly seen amongst socially immature and isolated adults.

SMELL THE FEAR.

This is the sort of low-brow input that hijacks intelligent discourse on this forum.

I’m off to MVFC.net – discussing football with people who watch the Game & are fully committed to the Game in Australia.

@John From Melbourne

You’ve obviously given this considerable thought (since you’ve been saying it for a while), so to convince us, can you identify which metrics your vision of an Australian Premier League would surpass the A-League?

We know it can’t be average crowds, or broadcasting dollars, or sponsorship dollars, etc.

So, please let’s know your deep thinking on this issue.

A useful discussion, Nick

For those of us, who do engage with A-League, we know there will be expansion and such brainstorming, planning & exchange of ideas is critical.

I think 14 teams would be ideal; a 2nd tier of 12-14 teams with promotion & relegation within 10 years.

Totally agree Bondy. I switched to Coppa Italia straight after the FA Cup and found the match to be very good quality and, surprisingly, played at a higher intensity to the English Cup match.

Both matches thoroughly enjoyable. I didn’t watch the Copa Del Rey, or DFB Pokal.

Caught a bit of the Scottish Cup final towards the end – Hibs making it another football fairy-tale for 2016.

Good luck to the (mythical) multi-sports fans. I couldn’t keep up with the smorgasbord offered by football last weekend.

“How’s new recruit David Villa doing?”

Not very well from what I gather.

I don’t watch much MLS, but Villa, Pirlo & Lampard all played over the weekend in the Hudson River Derby against NY Red Bulls.

High priced recruits that Strayian football event-watchers would salivate over.

Alas, these celebrity recruits lost 0-7.

Come on Mike, that’s not what occurred & you know it.

United hit the woodwork twice & scored twice. None of those 4 attempts were from hoofing the ball to Fellani.

Rather, it was a deft flick by Rashford, superb Ronaldinho circa WC2002 type run by Rooney, persistence down the right flank by Valencia .. that led to these chances.

It’s so disappointing when football people repeat the glib “they hoofed it to Fellani” analysis. Makes me wonder if people watch the match objectively, or with preconceived ideas.

“life is infinitely better when you have a plethora of sport to watch on the weekend with friends.”

Can think of many other ways to enjoy time with family & friends on week-ends than sitting on a couch watching sport. Do people not go to dinner any more on a Saturday night? Are there no other activities people enjoy other than watching Television?

You’re right, Caltex.

Fadida is one of those football fans who likes to hold hands with the Egg Ballers & join the “clap clap clap”.

Multi-sports fans .. who try to convince us each week-end they’re watching 9 AFL matches, 8 NRL matches, (however many SuperRugby matches), EPL, Bundesliga, LaLiga, SerieA, netball, etc..

They’ve obviously got fascinating social lives.