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January 15, 2013. Write that down. It will go down in history as the day that, for all intents and purposes, the Roarcelona era officially died.
Erik Paartalu’s sale to Chinese Super League outfit Tianjia Teda is the symbolic moment that confirms what we’ve all known for months, and seen with our own eyes in a football sense – Ange Postecoglou is well and truly gone from Brisbane.
Paartalu was his lynchpin. The guy who brought it all together. The perfect No.6 for the system that won two championships and a premiership.
To imagine that string of success without him is impossible, from the many hundreds of passes he sprayed around the park from in front of the defensive four, to the header that led to the penalty shootout that ultimately launched the Roarcelona legend.
A limited player he is, but in this environment and under Postecoglou’s tutelage he became one of the best midfielders in Australia.
In many ways, he represents the transition between Postecoglou’s defection to Melbourne Victory and what happened next in the Sunshine State.
Paartalu had a very specific role to play before this season. Then, as Rado Vidosic took the reins and tinkered, he was asked to do more, to venture forward.
He had freedom from the shackles of being the guy he had been typecast as. Only he struggled. And the back four struggled. And the more they struggled, the more he did.
Then the whole team struggled, and, well, pretty much straight after the 5-1 false dawn win over Victory it’s been one big fat struggle for Brisbane.
Vidosic was incapable of carrying the torch. It looks like Mike Mulvey might have trouble as well. That means Postecoglou’s designs for an orange dynasty are all but trash.
So, there’s really no better time for Paartalu to take up an enticing offer abroad and challenge himself once again. More power to him.
But where to now for the Roar?
Who replaces him? A better question – does it matter? Well, it does, but not as much as it would have some months ago. Overall, the Brisbane machine is broken.
Vidosic and now Mike Mulvey have both tried to put their stamp on this side.
But the former lacked the dressing room respect needed to force a champion team off their backsides and fight again, and the jury is still well and truly out on the latter.
In all, the collapse at Ballymore just highlights how brilliant a manager Postecoglou really is.
In just a few short months, he has turned Melbourne Victory from a dictionary definition rabble to a suave, sophisticated side that attacks with all the effortless potency of Don Juan DeMarco.
They have effectively traded places with the Roar, who are unfathomably fumbly in the final third and uncharacteristically complacent everywhere else.
Thomas Broich and Besart Berisha, for so long the barometers of Brisbane, appear disinterested. Both are tied to long-term contracts, so Mulvey – or whoever comes after him – has to find out how Postecoglou pushed their buttons.
Matt Smith has no partner in the centre of defence, and he’s starting to look bad as a result. Jade North isn’t a bad buy and he might work out, but given Michael Thwaite was on the table in pre-season, it shouldn’t have come to this.
Mitch Nichols is up and down, but mostly down. Ben Halloran has gone backwards, largely because the team he joined has. Michael Theo isn’t stopping the shots he used to.
Now Paartalu, the mortar between the bricks, is gone. Luke Brattan would be licking his lips if there weren’t such concerns at Brisbane over his workrate.
The vacancy in defensive midfield will probably be filled by Massimo Murdocca, but that’s more of the same at a time when the Roar needs a makeover.
Brisbane. A makeover. Who’d have thought?
To think Vidosic was described as ‘the brains’ of the operation.
Perhaps the Roar’s meltdown is a timely reminder of not only the fallacy of planning ‘dynasties’ in the A-League, but of the importance of Melbourne Victory’s off-season poaching of by far the best coach in Australia.
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