As soon as the euphoria subsided, the analysis began. Which exhibition match better served Australian football – Manchester United v the A-League All Stars, or Liverpool v Melbourne Victory?
Such is the nature of football in this country that even in the off-season, fans have their thinking caps firmly on.
The answer, if some of the more recent commentary is to be believed, is the latter – Liverpool’s first ever game on Australian soil, in front of more than 95,000 fans at the MCG.
Despite the unprecedented swathe of publicity United’s visit brought along there was something special about that Wednesday night in Melbourne.
And, conversely, there was something missing on the Saturday night prior in Sydney.
What, exactly? Good question. There’s a few answers. Top of the agenda is, of course, You’ll Never Walk Alone, the song which left far more of an impression than anything the 90 minutes might have thrown up.
The hair-raising rendition of Liverpool’s anthem set the tone for a very special evening, one that the supporters on hand will never forget. Many of them treated their first up-close encounter with Liverpool like a religious experience.
Combine that virgin passion with the honour of gracing the MCG – a venue with far more character than the concrete monstrosity ANZ Stadium – and you can understand why it felt so different to what came before.
But that feeling didn’t last for long in Melbourne. Truth be told, as soon as YNWA finished up, the atmosphere wasn’t all that different to the one at Homebush.
There were probably as many Victory shirts at both venues.
It helped that Melbourne was far more cohesive than the slapdash, third-choice A-League All Stars who took on the English champions. But that’s to be expected from a club side, even if they were perhaps equally depleted.
That contrast in performances doesn’t take away from the All Stars concept. It’s one that should be persisted with, despite it copping a few pretty significant whacks from some of the game’s most important voices in Australia.
Nor did the All Stars detract from the United game. The reality is this – it doesn’t matter who the opposition is. It’s about the visitors, not the hosts.
Your correspondent is a Manchester United fan, so this is hard to say, but Liverpool is a far less ‘plastic’ football club, so to speak.
Years of painful (or glorious) mediocrity may have weeded out the bandwagon element, and those who remain – the types who turned the MCG into a southern hemisphere Anfield – are either truly devoted, or mad. I prefer to go with mad, but good luck to them.
The Manchester United match felt more like a broader celebration of the hugeness of football, in all its facets.
They’ve been here before, but not since Premier League fandom truly blew up in Australia, and certainly not since Australian football itself stepped out of the abyss.
It could have been Liverpool and the All Stars and United taking on Victory and it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that these exhibition matches are purely marketing exercises.
If any of it felt plastic, that’s because everything about it is – the plastic in the millions in cash the FFA and the clubs earned, the plastic bottles melted down that made up the thousands of shirts that were moved, the plastic in the microphone Channel 7’s Jim Wilson was holding as he used every fibre of his being to avoid saying the word ‘football’.
In case it wasn’t clear enough when David Gallop openly described off-season friendlies as a “sugar hit”, it’s not exactly as if the title of Undisputed All-Time Best Club in the Entire World was on the line.
Trying to glean any kind of deeper meaning out of them is akin to churning out a 1500-word tactical analysis of a FIFA ’13 match, complete with diagrams. It’s just not there, no matter how hard you try to look for it.
At best we can hope for a showpiece that will sell the game and the A-League to the unconverted. It will be hard to measure which match delivered the goods in this department. Both may have.
But clubs are entitled to organise their own big-money friendlies, as Melbourne Victory did. The All Stars is the FFA’s toy, and they’re entitled to play with it for a little longer.
As the little girl in the Old El Paso ad so thoughtfully argues, why can’t we have both?
There are pros and cons to each type of fixture. The good things about the All Stars concept include that it’s different, it gives the media lots to talk about and it engages every A-League club – and, by extension, hopefully every fan.
There wouldn’t be a soul in Australia who wouldn’t readily admit the whole process needs some serious improvement.
Yet most critics have ignored its good elements. For instance, what a dream it would be to have Ono deep in midfield with Del Piero playing behind Heskey, for one night only.
We didn’t get that. But the MLS equivalent will be held later this week in Kansas City, where AS Roma will take on a selection that includes Thierry Henry, Landon Donavan, Robbie Keane and Marco Di Vaio.
Tim Cahill would be there if he wasn’t injured.
Now, excuse me if this is a heathen declaration, but that’s freaking incredible. Real life fantasy football. Why not? It ultimately doesn’t matter anyway, and we’ll never see it any other way.
It might just happen for us in 12 months – the FFA has shoved a new clause into the Standard Player Contract to ensure marquee men won’t so easily skip town the next time there is a high-profile opponent ready to go.
So it would be fair to reserve ultimate judgment until such time as a full-strength A-League All Stars runs out onto the pitch, in a week when the Socceroos aren’t involved in an international tournament.
It’s a nice idea. It’s not going to change the world, nor will it destroy it. It’s just nice. Can’t we have some nice, different things sometimes?
Johnny
Guest
Like I said, when you throw a bunch of players together, you are going to lose. MLS All Stars had one training session, the A-league all stars had only a few.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Roma won that easily, barely got out of third gear, which, considering the MLS AllStars usually win this game, probably means Roma is going to have a shocking season
pete4
Guest
Interesting times ahead for the game in the USA... hearing the MLS commissioner announced it's plans during its All-Star game that they will be expanding by another 4 teams by 2020 (to 24 clubs)
Towser
Guest
Passion, atmosphere,connection, who for ,West Sydney fans. As a Roar fan it would have zilch passion/connection from me,in fact I'd be more interested in watching the World class ManU, whereas I was more than passionate about the Broich/Berisha combo goal in the All Stars concept. Allstars means that all clubs have a chance of seeing players from their team on the park against the best clubs in the world. There will never be a chance of A-League clubs from Perth,Adelaide,Central Coast,Newcastle even Brisbane because clubs like ManU/Liverpool bring in bigger dollars for all concerned in the biggest cities,so that means Sydney & Melbourne in Australia.
AZ_RBB
Guest
been watching the MLS All Stars v Roma match this arvo. predictably Roma dominating the match. but interesting to note the crowd was near silent when Roma first scored and the home town Kansas City fans have been singing for 90mins and creating great atmosphere. but it's being held in Kansas which is already football centre in the US. once AS in Aus becomes popular in its own right i would prefer it to be taken to the smaller growing markets.
Worlds Biggest
Guest
scrap the All Stars concept, a Man U v Wanderers fixture would have generated far more passion and atmosphere. Not many if any were supporting the All Stars and why would you, there is no connection.
Klive Palmer
Roar Rookie
A-League All-Stars is un-Australian. Vote for me and I'll get you a soccer competition bigger than the A-League, yes sir I will,
Cameron
Roar Guru
Yeah, all good jb. :)
j binnie
Guest
kellett - you make it hard. but I'll try to satisfy your problem At any given weekend it could be said that an HAL "home' game in Sydney attracts,on a good day,35,000 (Sydney FC's best crowd for last season) OR 19000 (their average gate for every home game). If I used WSW figures it becomes 20,000 (their best crowd) or 13,000 their average crowd. Now it could be argued that if a game were to be held between Man Utd and a "mixture" of Sydney FC and WSW players,one could expect at least 55,000 to turn up to support their teams ( the good day maxmums added together). Now that figure is still 30,000 less than did turn up so------- there is a potential market to be aimed at.Get it????jb
Griffo
Roar Guru
In Newcastle, apart from an Olyroos vs Yemen game a couple of years ago, I think it was 1988 when we last had a NT match. Still I can't complain as much as I was a couple of months ago before the Asian Cup announcement - have four games coming up Jan 2015 here, one of which might feature the Socceroos. A bit of a test for the Hunter maybe. Hope we help fill Hunter Stadium with some of our fellow Asian fans :-)
Cameron
Roar Guru
Will I don't disagree. I just don't follow. But that's ok, I'll try to figure it out.
mahonjt
Guest
Spot on. That is the hope.
mahonjt
Guest
Top article on this matter Vince. There is no need to 'pick a side'. Each of these games bring something different to the table - and collectively they made the long Australian off season just that bit more bearable for football fans. Clearly the AS game needs work and that work is already underway. I genuinely look forward to the match next year - but as a Melbourne snob my view is keep it in Sydney or Brisvagis. It’s a better 'fit' up north!
j binnie
Guest
Kellet - Don't try to read something into figures that is not there. There are 2 clubs in Sydney and I simply used the larger of the home (Sydney) crowd figures to back up the discussion point about where there were probably many attendees to the game who were not regular HAL followers.I could have used WSW ,20,000 (largest) and 13,000 average figures or even a combination of both to arrive at the same aim but I think you will find the 85,000 who did attend would still far outstrip the regular or top Sydney attendances from last seasn. ok? That to me is an indication of a "potential "market. Agree????jb
Ian
Guest
The A-League used to start late August. It's only the last couple of years it switched to early October. Sometimes the first few rounds in terms of coverage got lost in the finals of NRL/AFL, from memory of the reasoning. so they moved the beginning to October and as the season got longer it ended the first few weeks into other codes seasons. As the A-League grows in popularity, and the season is longer with a cup as you mentioned for example, perhaps it will cross over both the end and beginning of other codes seasons.
nickoldschool
Roar Guru
Fair point fuss. It's true it doesn't help when the pre-season is almost as long as the season itself. I think this will/should change in the future with more teams, a cup etc. I also don't think we are that far from a time when it will be viable to have the A league start before the afl and NRL seasons are over, i.e late August. All the people I know who attend football games in this country do not follow league or afl and just want one thing, the football season to start. Would be curious to see how many people who have watched an afl or NRL game in a given year have also attended football games in the same year. I have simply no idea about the real crossover.
King Robbo
Guest
Ha yes, also a new head of sport and rec, both are well known to be anti football. Unfortunately WA politics is like federal politics, the alternate govt is not much better. I kind of agree with football united in that we do not have a decent stadium, so we can not expect a big team such as Barcelona to fly all the way here and play in a 22,000 seater stadium (and subiaco is a no no) or host an important WC qualifier. However surely Perth could of got some of the asian cup qualifiers last time or one of the first stage world cup qualifiers. 2 socceroo games (no olympic qualifiers or anything) in 2 decades is a joke. We got more games in the bad old days of Soccer Australia.
Griffo
Roar Guru
Isn't it more the local media's responsibility to telecast these games? Still, any A-League action in the long dark of the off-season is good. Hoping there is a stream running on the interweb somewhere...
Titus
Guest
Yeah, I'm far more interested in the SFC pre-season in Japan and Italy. It would be great if Fox could show a couple of these games.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Bringing big clubs to AUS requires big money. In general, it will require financial backing of the local State Government & a private entity. ManU required backing from NSW Govt & FFA. LFC required backing from Vic Govt & Tribal Sports Management (Lou Sticca's company). Other tours: Celtic, Fulham, Juventus, Boca Juniors, Everton, Blackburn Rovers, AEK, Olympiakos, LA Galaxy have all required private backers. Most of these tours made significant losses.