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Congratulations to Brisbane Roar, who are by far the best football team in Australia. They have a trophy to prove it, but could Adelaide United ambush them in the finals?
It took a goal of real quality from Luke Brattan for the Roar to shake off a stubborn Melbourne Victory and deservedly claim the Premiership at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.
It was fitting that Brattan should score it, for the young midfielder represents much of what coach Mike Mulvey has done in taking a talented team lacking a killer touch, and transforming them into one of the best sides the A-League has ever seen.
Brisbane’s dynamic passing football is so far ahead of the rest of the league that the only real surprise was them somehow registering six defeats in winning the league at a canter.
And it’s that statistic which should give the rest of the A-League – especially the unpredictable Adelaide United – some hope going into the finals.
Roar were all class in winning the Premier’s Plate, but they won’t look back too fondly on their Round 14 clash at Suncorp Stadium, when the Reds mugged them for a 2-1 win thanks to substitute Jordan Elsey’s late header.
It’s true that other clubs gave the Roar more headaches throughout the campaign, notably the Newcastle Jets, but if any team is going to beat them in the finals, one might reasonably hope it’s a side which espouses a similar attacking ethos.
After a decidedly slow start under Spanish coach Josep Gombau, the Reds have gradually developed into one of the A-League’s most entertaining outfits.
They were far too strong for an outmatched Sydney FC at Coopers Stadium on Friday night, and there’s surely an argument to suggest Adelaide’s foreign contingent of Marcelo Carrusca, Isaias, Fabio Ferreira and Sergio Cirio is close to the best in the league.
Ferreira’s superbly taken opening goal against the Sky Blues was more Chelsea than Dulwich Hill, while Cirio’s dinked finish for Adelaide’s second smacked of a player who has learnt a thing or two on the battlefields of Europe’s lower leagues.
Certainly the likes of Thomas Broich and Besart Berisha will be wary of facing the Reds in the finals, for no other reason than that Adelaide possesses the firepower to unsettle even the steeliest defence.
There’s one other reason A-League officials might hope that the Roar and Adelaide meet at some point in the finals, and that’s for entertainment’s sake.
For all the strides domestic football has made in Australia in recent years, one prickly issue is that the quality of football hasn’t always matched our collective enthusiasm for the game.
In fact, some games have been so boring this season that only the staunchest of die-hards have managed to sit through them without heading for the beer queue or switching the channel.
Sunday afternoon games have been a repeat offender, though fortunately that wasn’t the case in Parramatta yesterday.
The hapless and at times hopeless Perth Glory were no match for a slick Wanderers side, who belatedly recorded their first A-League win in a month against the same side they last beat in Perth.
More than the commanding performance, led as it was by the potentially Perth-bound Youssouf Hersi, coach Tony Popovic will no doubt have been relieved to see his team win again with the finals just around the corner.
The Wanderers might be in the box seat to claim a second-place finish, but whether they can beat Brisbane in a knock-out showdown is another story.
Of all the teams bound for finals football, perhaps it’s an enterprising Adelaide outfit that possesses the best chance of upsetting the Roar.
They got off to a slow start under Gombau, but the Spaniard may just have the Reds firing on all cylinders at the right end of the season.