Last week, Ange Postecoglou sat down and put on his favourite hip-hop record, “3 Feet High and Rising” by De La Soul. After suffering five successive defeat, the Brisbane Roar manager needed to get his off football.
The worry beads he received for Christmas had helped, but he needed to clear his head before the massive pressure game against Melbourne Victory on New Year’s Eve.
Postecoglou put the needle on the record.
He put on his Bang Olufsen headphones and sat himself down in his Danish designer leather chair. He closed his eyes and De La Soul’s “The Magic Number” drifted into his learned football brain.
“3
That’s the magic number
Yes it is
It’s the magic number
Somewhere in this A-League community
Was born Miron, JVS and me
And that’s the magic number”
It was an epiphany.
There they were, three central defenders standing in a line – Matthew Jurman, Matt Smith and Sayed Adnan. No longer did defensive midfielder Erik Paartalu have to sit in a hole between two central defenders.
He could push into attack, harry the Victory midfield and give young pass master, Luke Brattan, the confidence to spray the ball around.
On the flanks, Shane Stefanutto and Ivan Franjic were pushed into midfield and given the license to attack. Striker Besart Berisha, who had been too isolated during the losing streak, pulled closer to the middle of the park and became a marauding offensive workhorse.
New Year’s Eve arrived and everywhere he looked the omens were good.
Only days earlier, John Van’t Schip’s Melbourne Heart went from a back four with an out of position defender in midfield to a back three of central defenders (Hamill, Madaschi, Colosimo) to not only wrest control of their match against Sydney FC , but to also humiliate them 4-0 in the process.
And only just minutes before Postecoglou’s men marched into battle in their new 3-4-3 formation, word came in that Gold Coast United with the help of Miron Bleiberg’s back three had held the table topping Central Coast Mariners to scoreless draw.
Encouragingly for Postecoglou, both Sydney and Central Coast played a similar 4-4-2 formation with a midfield diamond and were kept scoreless.
This happened to be the same way Melbourne Victory were to line up and he expected to get the result by strangling the life out of them in midfield.
What he did not account for in the New Year’s Eve blockbuster was Harry Kewell scoring in the second minute with a dazzling strike. With a sixth straight defeat staring him in the face, Postecoglou’s men got to work with a purpose and enthusiasm not seen for weeks.
By the time Ivan Franjic had scored Brisbane’s third goal in the second half it had become clearly apparent that the Brisbane Roar had rediscovered their attacking mojo. They finished the game having their lowest possession count (59%) for the season. Proof positive on how Brisbane had sideways passed themselves to five successive defeats.
For the two vanquished managers last week, Mehmet Durakovic and Vitezslav Lavicka, they came out of their emphatic defeats feeling as dazed as Curly and Larry from the Three Stooges.
In a competition as tight, and with the limited squads, of the A-League it now looks like tactical flexibility and innovation will have a major bearing on which team will win this season’s title. This is a welcome development.
“3 – That’s the magic number”
According to De La Soul and a few A-League managers, it certainly was the case last round.
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