“The circus comes to town and then leaves.” So said Scott Munn, the chief executive of the club then known as Melbourne Heart, more than three years ago.
He was referring to Harry Kewell, who at the time had just signed with crosstown rivals Melbourne Victory in one of the biggest coups the A-League had seen.
Thanks largely to the hardball tactics of agent Bernie Mandic, it was the competition’s first proper transfer saga. Victory’s courtship of Kewell went for an eternity as Mandic and the number-crunchers at both the club and FFA tried to come up with a contract that suited all parties. When it happened, there was as much relief as celebration.
No part of this “circus” impressed Munn, who scoffed at it all, but those prophetic words came back to haunt him. Two years later, the big top rolled back into Melbourne, Kewell was wearing red and white, and the Heart was scrambling after performing a backflip that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Cirque du Soleil.
Yesterday, we learned the David Villa circus has just two weeks left before it packs up and moves to New York City. Assuming he does not return after next weekend’s home clash against Adelaide United – and, let’s face it, suggestions that he might come back feel like a Larry David-style empty gesture – Villa will leave having played the same number of A-League games as Romario.
It’s disappointing to say the least. New York City, the club which owns his contract, can do what they like. Football is a business, and after seeing their other prized recruit Frank Lampard stretchered off against Tottenham while playing for Manchester City at the weekend, you could forgive them for wanting to wrap their star Spaniard in cotton wool until the new MLS season kicks off.
Melbourne City are powerless, which says much about their ranking in the City Football Group food chain.
Fans have a right to feel disappointed, and they have a right to ask questions. And not just Melbourne City fans. When a club brings a big name to the A-League, they have a responsibility to share the love.
Sydney FC away games over the last two years became events purely because of the presence of Alessandro Del Piero. He gave the competition a lift, and so has Villa, only nobody expected him to bail so soon. It’s not a good look.
While loan deals are cancelled prematurely as a matter of course in football, this is not your ordinary loan. For one, Melbourne and New York share 80 per cent of the same corporate DNA. And it’s not like Villa is going back to his parent club to play games, or even train – pre-season doesn’t start until late January, and NYC won’t play their first game until March. That’s why the full quota of games were expected from him – what else was he going to do with himself until then? The calendars matched up perfectly in a rare win-win.
Thus he became the first face of Melbourne City. It was not by accident that the club announced his guest stint at the exact same time as they unveiled their new name, logo and colours. Villa has been their leverage, the human realisation of the petrodollars that now power them.
That’s no disrespect to Damien Duff, but as I wrote two weeks ago, he’s not a headline act. Neither is Robi Koren, who has clearly been struck by the same unfortunate injury curse as Orlando Engelaar. Memberships and merchandise have been sold on the premise that Villa would be playing 10 games in the A-League.
That any ‘promotional’ work in New York is considered more important to the City Football Group than building a fan-base in Melbourne feels a little disrespectful. There is more money to be made in New York, but there is more work to do in Melbourne. The stench of the Heart still lingers with every game City dominates and fails to win. Everyone wants this reborn club to stick the landing, and having Villa on deck until Christmas would go a long way to ensuring that.
Just four games? Not enough. Villa is entitled to go back and check on his family, if that’s what he wants to do – and man, it must be tough settling into a place like New York on a World Cup winner’s wage. However, if the Melbourne arm of the sky blue empire knew all along that he would go back this early, even if it’s only temporary, they should have been clear and let their fans know it was on the cards.
Honesty is always the best policy, and in this instance, it would have placed an even greater importance upon each of his appearances. By holding this information back, by speaking in maybes and possibilities, the club has used up some of its goodwill, and many fans have been left with a bad taste in their mouths.
In the meantime, Munn will be crossing his fingers, hoping the circus comes back into town once more.
Sydneysider
Guest
Obviously fans from south of the border give no recognition to a certain ADP when it comes to the best we've seen in the a-league
Andy From NZ
Guest
So let me see if I got this right? Big ongoing announcements about Damien Duff, Frank Lampard jnr and David Villa coming to play with Melbourne City, the club now owned by Manchester City and first up, fat Frank says no and stays at City, Now Villa gone after only 4 games and Duff left holding their attractions. Fans sold into the idea of seeing some former decent footballers in their midst and buying up jerseys and season tickets and are now left gutted with an average team to show. Talk about how to lose fans and alienate those who are hardcore. What the hell did Hearts/City fans do to deserve that? Nothing, they have been bullshitted at the highest level. They rightly should be gutted, angry and annoyed and their clubs management should be doing something to replace the missing two. Not just disrespectful to the Hearts/City, or even to the A League, but also insulting and a Con.
JR Salazar
Guest
And that's why I support Melbourne VICTORY and NOT City.
AZ_RBB
Guest
City are set to sign Josh Kennedy in the coming days. Will be a long term contract.
Justin Mahon
Roar Rookie
Are you an A-League/City fan or a David Villa fan?
LUCA
Guest
I guess it makes more sense why Villa snuck into melbourne in the middle of the night. He was only ever going to play a few games, at best. A couple of nice goals though.
SlickAs
Guest
It is not a signal of where the A-league sits in the pecking order, it is simple business and an obvious decision. The current population of the New York metropolitan area is 23,484,225 which exceeds the population catchment of all of the A-league clubs put together. You understand? All of them together. More than the population of Australia. Not all US cities are like this however. Melbourne is bigger than Seattle or Columbus or Kansas City for example. Having Villa in Melbourne causes Melbournians to sign up to become members of Melbourne City. The members of Melbourne City are signed up and can not have their money back, and each additional David Villa game does not significantly increase memberships, yet each additional David Villa game does put him at risk of injury. They want to similarly use him as bait to get New Yorkers to buy season passes to New York City. So he is valuable to them uninjured. Extremely valuable. Once the next MLS season starts and New Yorkers have bought their non-refundable season passes he will be less valuable, his value now being the goals he scores with a winning team causing a bandwagon effect of higher attendances, etc. So it is a clear decision to pull him back. He's done his job in Australia ... he has increased memberships. Now the other cost that Man City wears is that they are signalling that they are unreliable in their promises. Lets face it, there was an implicit promise that he would play 10 games even if not explicitly said. The next guest player will not have the same membership multiplying effect since we now know that the Man City group are essentially doing what is called a 'bait and switch'. They bait in the customers to purchase with one product (a team that includes David Villa), and then switch so those customers are receiving a different product (a team without David Villa). Customers will not be similarly tricked again by Melbourne City, that was a one-time deal. They have evaluated all their costs and benefits and decided that that the best rational decision is to pull him home to New York. It is hard to begrudge them that when you, if you were the operator of the Man City group in some sort of football manager video game where you could take control, would make exactly the same decision. Don't pretend if playing such a video game you'd be some sort of Mother Theresa, you wouldn't. And as for people saying we would be better off if he never came, what sort of sour grapes are blinding your rational judgement? It is like saying if you can't marry that outrageously hot girl, you would be better off not sleeping with her.
Adrian none
Roar Rookie
I think more of the A-league then to flaunt a guy who playing 300 min you obviously see the A-league as still a weak League , that need to flaunt a guy playing 300 min
Leonardo
Roar Guru
Well Mr Football, a lot of people are trying to make this a bigger drama than it really is to try and discredit the FFA and the A-League blaming everyone from Melbourne City to the Carbon Tax. David Villa is going to New York because of the Carbon Tax man. :) If you want to blame someone blame David Villa's wife and tell her to grow up and get used to the idea of living in the big apple.
Realfootball
Guest
Lot of people on here trying to make the Villa debacle alright, but its not. Not even close. The dog ate my homework. Sure.
Isaac Nowroozi
Roar Guru
Should be playing 10 games, but what can you do!
Punter
Guest
Don't really care so much about City's title hope actually, so 3 goals to Villa this weekend would do fine by me.
Punter
Guest
Steve, I agree that Villa is not at the top of his game anymore, but could still play for any of the top competitions in the world & in his prime he was pretty special & played for what some would say the best club side ever, but he is has played for the A-league which is amazing, even if it's for 4 games. I saw what Ronaldo did to Liverpool this morning, so I would have a pretty good idea of what he would do to an A-League defence.
AR
Guest
"Don’t talk nonsense about watching 100 LaLiga matchesl." Maybe Steve's talking about watching every La Liga game, the same way the Fuss claims to have watched and attended more AFL games than anyone on the Roar.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
@Steve "I watched every single Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid game last season" Do you live in Australia? How did you watch those matches? I know Foxtel broadcasts 1-2 La Liga per week. So what were you getting up in the early hours of the morning every week-end to watch a pirate streaming of La Liga? We're talking about over 100 games you claim to watch. David Villa's last club match before coming to ALeague was starting in the Uefa Champions League Final. That's the pinnacle of club football for every footballer on earth. He could still walk into 99% of teams in Europe. If you hate the ALeague - just come out & say that. Don't talk nonsense about watching 100 LaLiga matches & claiming David Villa is no longer useful.
Steve
Guest
All good, so you basically agreed with everything I said, and it wasn't "a load of rubbish". Of course he is still too good for the A-League, all that does is show the difference in quality. What do you think Ronaldo and Messi would do in the A-League week in week out? We will always struggle to bring out the best players in or close to their prime, simply because these players will command salaries and the prestige of playing in the UEFA Champions League. We need to accept that and be content with our league having former greats, or even better, developing future Australian greats.
Shaun
Guest
How dare Villa put the A-League in the spotlight right? I mean, all of those tennis players should knick off too rather than promote the game down under. And F1 drivers - what egos right? They come here once a year - yet were have our own race that Ricciardo and Webber should have been involved in all along. Similarly, I'm tired of frickin' horses coming to steal the Melbourne Cup, gifts passing through like our nation is a turnstile, and skiers who bugger off overseas in warm months. HAVEN'T YOU SEEN GRASS SKIING YOU AIS FUNDED (EXPLETIVE)S! And don't get me started on the Sydney Olympics...
Leonardo
Roar Guru
OK we all know the situation with Villa, now lets move on. Lets bring on the biggest weekend in Australian domestic football history - SFC to beat the Roar and move top of the A-League, an Asian Champions League final at Parramatta and a sold out Melbourne derby. I will really enjoy my "soccer" this weekend.
Punter
Guest
I too watch a lot of the La Liga, I admitted he wasn't the player he was, but he was still good enough to play for the La Liga champions, champions league runners up & able to make the Spanish squad for the WC. Did you see his performance in the CL final when Costa came off injured. That level is still well above A-League level. As for Ronaldo, I thought you would understand the tone, I did say in 3-4 years he was still scoring a goal every other game, for mere mortals than would be out of this world, but for Ronaldo now, a goal every other game would not be at his peak. That was the comparison I wasn't trying to make, not that he would be playing in the A-League. Simply, enjoy the 4 games & accept this is what it is.
Dean
Guest
I knew this would catch people like you. I'm a Victory fan. All my friends are Victory fans (and mostly members) and we all went and watched City play and went berserk when he scored, even though we'd been quitely barracking for the Jets all game. My friends and I realise that a healthy and strong Melbourne City is vital for the A-League (and even good for Melbourne Victory) and Villa has done more for them than anything else they've done their whole existence. Nobody expected Villa to make their season, certainly not the 4 City fans I know, two of whom have bought their first memberships this year and aren't disappointed at all. They'll have a very good squad when Koren is back and I look forward to a strong Melbourne rivalry, may it become a massive fixture of the Melbourne sporting calendar. In case you hadn't noticed, here in Melbourne, you need extraordinary, sustainable content to win fans. City is vital for that in Melbourne, or in 10 years time, it'll be basketball all over again. Remember when they used to sell out the Tennis Centre?!