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Despite a great overall contribution, and roaring support from the stands, Harry Kewell missed a bagful of opportunities on Sunday. In his heyday at Leeds he would have scored three or more and surely walked away with the match ball.
The fact that this touch let him down all afternoon and he was unable to finish any of several charging breaks tells you that for skill and touch, the A-League is well short of the EPL.
But let’s look at the other side of the coin. Let’s not look at the misses of the weekend but for a moment let’s look at the ones that didn’t get away.
If Jeremy Brockie was wearing number 10 for Man United in front of full stands at Old Trafford, there is no doubt that we would be waxing lyrical about his goal against Sydney. Had Rooney scored with such a wonderful volley from a looping header that gave the player possibly too much time to think, the scribes would be talking about the balance, the poise, the superb execution of the shot and the sheer class of the player.
But it wasn’t from the EPL goal of the week reel; it was one of the A-League’s own and certainly one for Brockie’s ‘best of’ video collection.
Maceo Rigter’s rifling stunner against Adelaide from just outside the box left Galekovic rooted to the spot and the crowd stunned as it hit the back of the net in a flash. It was a Drogba-like strike that would have had a Chelsea crowd in awe at the timing and execution.
Matt Thompson’s burst to clear space in the box before thumping the ball into the net was the icing on a well played break down the left hand side for Heart that started in their own penalty area. Any EPL side would have been delighted at the passage of play and the resultant goal.
And on Sunday we saw Diogo Ferreira’s short back-lift jab from hip height. It was perfectly executed and going nowhere but the back of the net from the moment it left his boot.
Sure the A-League players stumble and bumble from time to time and the overall quality, while constantly improving, is often uneven. But when it comes to scoring goals, A-League players have shown in the past, and shown again on the weekend, that despite getting fewer plaudits than their EPL counterparts, the quality of the finishing is often equal to anything that other leagues in the world can deliver.
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