It was like going back to the future last weekend, as Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers played a pulsating, passionate, top-of-the-table clash at Docklands in front of a marvellous crowd of 25,445.
Post-match, it’s all about the flares.
Not an allusion to some sort of 1970s throwback fashion sense, but that frankly irritating spectacle of someone deciding the rules don’t apply to them.
Instead of a dissection of another great A-League match, media discussion, predictably, was on the ripping of flares by sections of the crowd. Why feed the dragon, folks?
Easy to forget then, that we have been fortunate to witness a string of truly fantastic matches in the league this season.
Melbourne City 2-1 Melbourne Victory. Sydney FC 2-4 Melbourne Victory. Melbourne City 3-2 Western Sydney Wanderers. Western Sydney Wanderers 4-3 Melbourne City. Central Coast Mariners 3-3 Melbourne Victory. Perth Glory 3-2 Melbourne Victory.
Three clubs are the common thread in these matches; the two Melbourne clubs and Western Sydney. City, Victory and Wanderers have been front and centre in the best games this season, and the fact all look likely to occupy higher places in the top six come finals time is a mouth-watering prospect.
While some bemoan the lack of marquees in the league this season, the key players and coaches at City, Victory and Wanderers are ensuring fans are served great football most weeks.
Melbourne City are the most entertaining team to watch since Ange Postecoglou’s Brisbane Roar revolution. The combination between Aaron Mooy and Bruno Fornaroli has been a goals smorgasbord all season. No one has worked out how to stop them over the course of 90 minutes. Mooy is the best player in the league right now. His transformation from a central midfielder to an attacking number 10 has added value to his game (not to mention his earning potential) and is a position Socceroos coach Postecoglou has not got as many options in as he might once have had.
Fornaroli is an A-League version Luis Suarez without the propensity for nibbling on opposition players. His fleet-of-foot and ability to switch the ball from his right to his left in the twinkle of an eye is captivating.
Others have contributed to City’s attacking prowess, not least Harry Novillo, one of the most colourful and flamboyant players in the league. However, I just wonder the sense in letting Erik Paartalu move on. Paartalu is one of this country’s unheralded players, a box-to-box midfielder who can add steel in front of a back four and pop up to score at vital times.
Victory have seemingly navigated their mid-season slump, where they were playing as well as ever but losing. The reigning champions have quality all over the park, and in any other Aaron Mooy-less season, Besart Berisha would be a lock for the Johnny Warren Medal. Simply put, Berisha is the MVP of the A-League. Three premierships for two different clubs, a consistent goal-scorer in his five seasons in Australia, a burning desire that sometimes threatens to tip over into mania – what’s not to like about this guy? I just wish he’d been naturalised as an Aussie.
I’m not overlooking the contributions of Gui Finkler, Kosta Barbarouses or Fahid Ben Khalfallah. Indeed, that is possibly the most lethal front four in the history of the league, but Berisha is rarely out of the game and has a workrate and energy that would power an electricity grid for a month, to go with his close skill and sleight of foot (witness his turn, shot, and goal against Perth Glory two weeks ago).
Tony Popovic has performed a conjurer’s trick at Western Sydney. A poor season followed the club’s amazing Asian Champions League success. In truth, the Wanderers were, in their early stages, a pragmatic team, short on flair (no, not a pun), long on workrate, defensive tenacity and collective smothering of the opposition. The Wanderers crowds were far more entertaining than their team a lot of the time.
They are now a side transformed and playing some of the league’s most entertaining football. This is despite misfiring marquee striker Federico Piovaccari, whose barren goals return has seen him fall out of favour as a first XI choice. Testament to Popovic’s coaching nous that he has managed to get more out of Mark Bridge and Romeo Castelen than in previous seasons. Bridge is in career-best form and his movement across opposition lines has caused havoc with defences since he has made the number 9 role his own.
The new boy in the fold is Mitch Nichols, who has given the Wanderers the kind of attacking impetus they have lacked since the departure of Shinji Ono. He scored within 15 minutes of his debut for the club (against former club Brisbane Roar) and hasn’t looked back. A stunning strike in December, again against the Roar, gave the Wanderers a 2-1 victory, which helped launch their surge to the top of the A-League ladder.
Nichols is on target to produce a double-digit goals contribution this season, invaluable for an attacking midfielder. He may be a reason the A-League grand final could end up at Sydney’s Olympic Stadium in Season 11.
Realfootball
Guest
Ultimate A League stats section, jb. If their figures are correct, my statement stands correct. Your figure of 13630 includes finals. If you exclude the finals from last season, as you should, the two seasons are within a hundred or so of each other in terms of average. I have been watching the figures, and there is an steady upward movement in the average. You do need to be careful of not trying to pick holes of doom and gloom every time someone posts a positive comment on attendance. I see no reason to doubt the website's stats. I repeat: both my statements are factually correct.
apaway
Roar Guru
Thanks JB, I have been MIA for a while so I did miss that debate. It's funny, I think we have some top-notch local talent playing in the A-League at the moment, but for whatever reason, they are not occupying positions on the pitch that attract the most attention (ie striker or attacking midfield). Jamie McLaren is an exception to that rule and is knocking them in regularly for the Roar. I mentioned my admiration for Paartulu in the article. I'd have lauded Alex Gerschbach as a top A-League talent but of course he's now in Europe. Stefan Mauk, Josh Hingert, Scott Jamison and Mitch Austin have impressed but they are largely defenders or "engine room" midfielders. Danny Vukovic is in career-best form in gals for Melbourne Victory. Are we, as a nation, pre-disposed towards producing players valued for their workrate in the first and second third rather than their skill and flair in the last third? I'd assess our three finest players of the "golden generation" as Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell and Tim Cahill, all attackers, so it hasn't always been thus. But the predominant formation these days is 4-2-3-1 and the two central midfielders (the 6 and 8) are pivotal to it's deployment. To this end, we are well served; Mark Milligan, James Troisi, Carl Valeri (until his unfortunate illness), James Holland, Paartalu, Mauk, to name a few.
Athos Sirianos
Roar Guru
The standard of the league has certainly come a long way and it's also good to see the table being really tight this far into the season. What's exciting is that we are still unsure who the 'best' team in the league is this season as there at least four to five teams capable of taking out the premiership.
j binnie
Guest
Real - Can you help me ? Where are you sourcing your crowd average figures from?.You say they are matching last season. My figures show that at the closing of game 90 last year the code had entertained 1,226,732 giving an average per game of 13,630.This season,at the same cut off point,game 90, the HAL has attracted 1,114,246 for an average per game of 12,381, hardly what I would term "matching".Hope you are right but????? When you go on to say they "are ontrack to pass them" this also has me confused for over the last 40 weeks the game average has seldom moved from between 12,000 to 12,500. so there is little indication of "improvement" or for that matter "backsliding" Cheers jb
Aaron
Roar Rookie
City have been doing well (more so in the front third than in defence) but I have the feeling Brisbane can see things out from here even with their own problems on the field. I must say I do like the west v rest agenda at Perth where they're trying to put as much of a home town/home state influence into the team as possible.
FIUL
Guest
jb I find numbers, trends, projections, etc. very very interesting. Over the 18 rounds this season, the PayTV ratings each round have been averaging 59-63k per match, which is the tightest spread I can recall. To me, this means, whilst the ALeague no longer attracts the casual watche as it did during the ADP years, it has a loyal 60k core fans who have PayTV & tune in for nearly every match. FFA has annouced it has now opened the tender process for the next TV rights deal, which will begin in 2017/18. FFA has hired blue chip European media consultancy firm "Oliver & Ohlbaum" to assist with negotiations. O&O's clients inlcude EPL & Bundesliga. The target is $80m/year. Full story: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/broadcast/tv-rights-aleague-takes-shot-at-tv-windfall/news-story/a528f7233ce49528954cd3ff8f4ab53f
Jeff Williamson
Roar Pro
There have been some very good games this season. And a lot of good goals.
Realfootball
Guest
Absolutely! Some fantastic games this season. Crowd averages are now matching last season and are on track to pass them. From a position of working in the screen industries as a content creator, I would suggest that the ratings are the result of the football being buried on SBS2. As you may recall, I was dismayed by the decision to give the FTA games to SBS. This was always going to happen. Still from a screen industry perspective, the quality of the product is now at a level where there will most certainly be an audience for the A League on a commercial FTA network. The problem will be convincing a network to take what is essentially a leap of faith, thanks to SBS's dismal performance. The best thing to have happened, in this regard, to the A League is China's spending spree on players. The ACL may end up being the sweetner the deal needs.
j binnie
Guest
FIUL - Please believe me when I say I hope fervently that you are correct in your forecast, in fact I have never anywhere stated that you are wrong,I simply stated that there was a dangerous trend in vogue that unless things changed the overall attendance to HAL fixtures would show an alarming drop. The good news is that the "trend" has slowed somewhat and that is good but overall it is still sitting near your foreacast figure after 90 games,hitting a 12,500 average back at game 44 and holding (up and down) to 12,300 today.Last season the same time frame showed a drop in average of 1600, so the fact that we appear to have stabalised can only keep our hopes up that we may even see growth in the coming 45 matches. Last year that same 45 game time frame showed a further reduction in average by another 1,100 and if that were to happen again the forecast would be an overall match attendance average of 11,300. So you see my friend we are not in disagreement over our hopes for the coming 9 rounds and I fully appreciate that week by week we have to watch to see where the average is at,any given time (my forecast for this round's aggregate attendance is 77,000 with a derby and 3 of the better supported teams all playing at home) but that figure ,if achieved, will only increase the season's aggregate average to 12,500 per game after 95 matches and to offset that gain the next 2 rounds (10 matches) have a derby, 2 x Victory home games, and,4 or 5 games with the "under 10,000" clubs on show at home. Cheers jb ps. You will note from comments made here we may be boring some with this line of communication but I for one find it mildly interesting to try and match my figures against the unknown. Hope you are of the same fame of mind. Cheers jb
j binnie
Guest
Fadida- Thought as much. So why pass comment at all ?.Let it go and leave it to people who are interested in such things instead of trying to act the comedian,which you are not. I too much prefer to read your articles when they contain debatable comment.instead of insipid attempts at sarcasm. Won't be hearing from you again when someone mentions crowds Yes ? No?, after all you have just stated you are not interested.jb. ps Who told you I was "worried"?,It is no skin off my nose whether there is 25,000 at a game or 5000 for that matter,but it might interest those who have budgets to set for next season,but then again that doesn't interest you either does it?????jb .
FIUL
Guest
jb This season has been very very different. We started slowly: in fact after R1 we were 36% lower than 2013/14 (the season of the record high ALeague attendance), which caused some to get concerned. Against last season (which was the 2nd highest season for crowds) we were 28% down after R1. Of course, R1 was only 1 data point, so I felt it meant nothing. Since R1, the crowds have steadily closed that 28% gap from R1 last season. Now, after R18, the gap is only 8% and given the way crowds fell off last year in the final rounds, it's reasonable to expect crowds this season to exceed last season. My prediction in October 2015 was for a total of 1.65-1.70 million people to attend H&A matches. My current tracking suggests the total will be 1.67m .. not bad, if I say so myself. But, still 45 matches to play & i'm only taking it 1 game at a time.
Fadida
Guest
There was no smiley among your comments on crowds simply because I don't study them and I skip over them. I'd rather watch the games,study the tactics. What I see often impresses me,and regularly entertains me. Crowds will go up an down. I don't let it ruin my enjoyment, and I don't waste my time studying them, or worrying about them. I shall leave that to you jb
j binnie
Guest
Fadida- Knew you would surface somewhere with your "smiley ' friend. Actually Fuss has put his" cards on the table" here for which he has to be admired and it is going to be interesting to see how his forecast will pan out for in the last 4 seasons the HAL has attracted the following. Season 11/12 after 135 games -1,414,180 Season 12/13 after 135 games -1,666,315 Season 13/14 after 135 games - 1,763,499 Season 14/15 after 135 games - 1,689,540 Now the interesting thing to be considered is that in all these years the figures at game 90,where we are today are Season 11/12 after 90 games - 995,292 Season 12/13 after 90 games - 1,125,515 Season 13/14 after 90 games - 1,234,344 Season 14/15 after 90 games - 1,226,344 Season 15/16 after 90 games - 1,114,246. Now even if you have a limited comprehension of statistical analysis you will see that a trend set over the last 4 seasons is showing a "rise and fall" trend which is being "mirrored" in the figures to date,and it is that "rise and fall" pattern that has caused the debate between myself and FIUL. Your thoughts?, or is it you just don't care about such mundane matters. Cheers jb ps, two weeks ago I forecast for you the total attendances for the latest 2 rounds of the HAL My forecast for round 16 was + or - 60,000. The actual was 58,848. My forecast for round 17 was + or - 66.000. The actual was 63,419. I was wrong on both counts and missed your "smiley comment" but I'll try again just for your sake basing my figure on "home game" averages. My forecast for round 18 is + or - 77,000. Why the huge difference????.There is a Melbourne derby in these figures plus 3 of the better supported teams also have home games. Cheers "your dry as dust mate" jb.
j binnie
Guest
Apaway- Nice to have you back in harness writing interesting analyses about our game and from the reaction so far most people seem to agree with what you have written.What I took out of your thoughts was the amount of overseas players you mention who are contributing to the better points of our game, a ratio 9 imports to 4 locals,one of whom has just departed our shores, making it actually 9-3 and when one adds Garcia and Nordstrand (Qantas's thoughts) that ratio blows out to 11-3. Now in your absence you may not have seen much of the recent debate on how our young local players are developing in the HAL. This article,while not aimed precisely at that area ,actually highlights the perceived problem and I for one would like to read your thoughts on why it is "imports" are still lifting the standard of our game when ,as you rightly point out,,none of them are actually "real marquees" in the true sense of the word. You also appear to have the "master critic" onside when FIUL points out that "Perth have found form" but omits to mention the influence of Keogh and Garcia,another 2 recently arrived "imports".(lifting that ratio I mentioned to 13-3). As you say there has been some great entertainment this season so far and long may it continue but there are still some worrying parts of our football that need addressing and you will read some interesting comment from "deeper thinkers" in these columns who have come on the scens since you were a regular contributor. Keep up the good work,it is nice to read reasoned debate on the finer points of our game though it does little in the way of easing the problem areas that exist. Cheers and welcome back. jb
Fadida
Guest
Agree. The football is brilliant and far overshadows the few idiots who go to WSW games. I take no Interest in tv ratings, or crowds when evaluating my enjoyment of what counts most, the on field action. And it is bl00dy great!
Fadida
Guest
Agree Brick. One stinker in 5 is above par for most leagues (the EPL will have 3-4 out of 10 at least)
Fadida
Guest
Agree Fuss, the best I have seen in the league. Glorious games. I await jb's response re the crowds. :) (the smiley was for you jb)
Fadida
Guest
Agree Qantas, a fantastic season of football
Realfootball
Guest
Thanks Apaway. Great read and sorely needed.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Very clever title. I was just listening to a replay of Offsiders, and they were all very complimentary and positive about the standard and quality of the A-League this season, even if it is not reflected in the ratings. If soccer fans haven't come across it yet, I encourage them to watch it: http://www.abc.net.au/sport/offsiders/