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It’s been an incredibly emotional year in the world of football for 2016, with a mix of historic highs and tragic lows as the round ball game continues to captivate.
Leicester completed one of the greatest fairy tale wins of all time, while Adelaide United made a magical comeback of their own in the A-League.
Tim Cahill made his long-awaited arrival on Australian shores and Sepp Blatter continues to fight against his insanely obvious guilt.
Let’s take a look at all the talking points from football in Australia and abroad for 2016.
At the back end of the last year, Adelaide United had failed to win a game in the opening eight rounds of the 2015-16 A-League season, sitting in dead last.
By season’s end they had finished on top of the standings and won the grand final in front of a 50,000 strong home crowd.
Adelaide embarked on an incredible comeback in 2016, losing just one of their last 21 games into the new year, winning 16 of them to win the club’s maiden A-League title.
They finished just a single point ahead of the Wanderers and Brisbane Roar after the regular season, before walking over the competition in the finals, scoring seven goals to two in the semi and grand finals.
Despite conceding 14 goals in five losses at the start of the season, the men in red kept 11 clean sheets and conceded just 11 goals in the last 19 season games, finishing with the best defence and goal difference in the competition.
Something clicked in Guillermo Amor’s side leading into Christmas and they ploughed through their competition as if it were a completely different side.
When you think of Australian football, most would picture Tim Cahill and his noggin, yet for years and years… and years, Cahill eluded the A-League.
But no longer.
After a financially beneficial stint in the MLS with the New York Red Bulls and two short but underwhelming appearances in the Chinese Super League, Cahill was released early from his contract and just like that, the door had opened for a trip home.
Despite showing a lack of interest to play in Australia in the past, Cahill finally signed with the A-League’s richest club, Melbourne City.
It wouldn’t take long for the goal-scoring machine to make an impact, netting one in his second game for the club during the FFA Cup.
He made his presence known in the A-League as well, firing home a spectacular long-range volley on debut, sending the media into meltdown.
He’s a legend of Australian sport and one of the greatest Socceroos of all time. Having a figure like him in the A-League has already done massive business for the competition and aided the growth of the league.
The crowd numbers not just at home, but on the road as well have been up from past years. He’s a natural draw and the competition has been given a breath of fresh air with his just his presence, let alone his performances.
Memberships are up as well and young kids are looking to him for inspiration as the next generation of players come through.
It’s been a long time coming and the benefits of Tim Cahill in the A-League transcend the results of Melbourne City.
At 36 years of age, there’s still plenty of time for Cahill.
The FFA Cup has been a revelation for football in this country since its inception in 2014. The idea is nothing new, there are Football Association Cups held all around the world, but it had never really kicked off in Australia.
There was briefly an Australian Cup in the 1960s, before the NSL Cup took over in the late ’70s.
It lasted 20 years but never had any more than 36 clubs in the competition. The FFA Cup this year had 704 clubs compete.
The beauty of having such an immense amount of clubs is the opportunity for upsets and fairytale type runs if a lower tier club can beat an A-League side.
This year the big story was arguably Canberra Olympic, who made it all the way through to the semi-finals against the A-League’s top side in Sydney FC, having kept three clean sheets through the finals series.
The biggest upset of the tournament was easily Redlands United’s heart-stopping 2-1 extra time win over Adelaide United, who just happened to have won the A-League grand final less than two months prior.
Green Gully was the only other side to knock off one of the top teams, slotting two goals to one over the Central Coast Mariners in the Round of 32.
The support and revenue that comes the way of the lower tiered clubs are huge in tournaments like this, especially if a side can progress a long way.
The FFA Cup in 2016 was so successful that there’s already plans for expansion of the A-League with the inclusion of two new clubs for 2018-19.
| Position | Team | Played | Won | Draw | Lost | Goals for | Goals against | Goal difference | Points |
| 1 | Adelaide United (C) | 27 | 14 | 7 | 6 | 45 | 28 | 17 | 49 |
| 2 | Western Sydney Wanderers | 27 | 14 | 6 | 7 | 44 | 33 | 11 | 48 |
| 3 | Brisbane Roar | 27 | 14 | 6 | 7 | 49 | 40 | 9 | 48 |
| 4 | Melbourne City | 27 | 13 | 5 | 9 | 63 | 44 | 19 | 44 |
| 5 | Perth Glory | 27 | 13 | 4 | 10 | 49 | 42 | 7 | 43 |
| 6 | Melbourne Victory | 27 | 11 | 8 | 8 | 40 | 33 | 7 | 41 |
| 7 | Sydney FC | 27 | 8 | 10 | 9 | 36 | 36 | 0 | 34 |
| 8 | Newcastle Jets | 27 | 8 | 6 | 13 | 28 | 41 | −13 | 30 |
| 9 | Wellington Phoenix | 27 | 7 | 4 | 16 | 34 | 54 | −20 | 25 |
| 10 | Central Coast Mariners | 27 | 3 | 4 | 20 | 33 | 70 | −37 | 13 |
Is it the greatest underdog victory of all time? Possibly. Did everyone who said they put 10 bucks on Leicester to win as a joke before the season started actually do that? Probably not.
Even though they were stuck battling to avoid regulation the season before, Leicester City miraculously, someway, somehow won the English Premier League for the first time in the club’s 132-year history.
Despite being undefeated after the first six rounds and sitting in the top three, very few gave them a chance to stay in the top six considering it was only their second season in the top flight.
But they continued to chug along and win games, surprising everyone when they beat one of the big clubs.
They lost just a single game from their last 20 fixtures, and three in the entire 38-game campaign, holding off Arsenal and the Spurs to win the whole show with two games to spare, kicking off wild celebrations.
Jamie Vardy became an overnight success, finishing second top goal scorer for the year and booking a ticket into the English squad.
Kasper Schmeichel cemented his spot in the Danish national side thanks to 15 clean sheets for the Foxes, also second in the league.
It was such a monumental achievement for any club to pull off but Leicester did it with a financial budget nearly eight times smaller than the bigger teams.
The longevity of their success over an entire season was remarkable for a side that has fallen in and out of relegation for a long time.
Unfortunately, that longevity has since disappeared in the new season.
Big things were expected of the Foxes this season after their historic win, especially after retaining key striker Vardy from a barrage of offers across the world.
Their title defence has slumped considerably early on, slipping down to 16th and once again having to fight off relegation. Three wins from 14 games has them already out of the title picture.
All the glory and excitement from earlier in the year has been replaced with all-too-familiar memories for Leicester fans in just over six months.
The entire FIFA World Cup fixing saga has been such a mess as more and more information comes out by the day on corruption within one of the biggest and most powerful organisations in the world.
At the head of the snake has been Sepp Blatter, the former President of FIFA for 17 years before the whole thing unravelled in 2015.
The heat hasn’t let up in 2016 and Blatter continues to be investigated for every wrongdoing in the corporate book for years of shady dealings.
Incredibly, despite having overwhelming evidence against him, Blatter continues to appeal the decisions handed down to him, bringing his legal might and financial backing to the table in an effort to clear his already tarnished name.
Blatter was not caught up in the initial indictment of countless FIFA officials in June of last year, but has become embroiled as his name continues to rise in evidence.
He currently sits on a six-year ban from all football due to ethics violations regarding $2.7 million worth of payments he made to former European football boss Michel Platini, resulting in a ruling of “undue gifts” that didn’t come under the umbrella of contractual payments.
There’s an Everest-sized mountain of claims and evidence against the man and the saga won’t be complete for many years to come as the investigators sift through the rubble of FIFA.
At 80 years of age, there’s not a lot of sense in fighting all of this. The chances of him serving jail time are slim and the financial loss he’s looking at won’t make too much of a dent into his empire.
His reputation is the only thing on the line but that has been dragged through the mud and beaten with a flaming stick at this point.
The circus will continue though.
The year came to a shocking end for the football world in late November after a plane crashed in Colombia and killed 71 people, including nearly the whole Chapecoense football team.
The Brazilian club side were on their way to play in the Copa Sudamericana final, but the plane ran out of fuel and lost altitude, crashing into the side of a hill.
Of the 77 people on board just six survived.
The club lost all 23 coaching staff and 19 of the 22 players on the flight. One journalist survived out of the 21 that were also present. Two members of the nine-person flight crew were the only other survivors.
The final that the team was scheduled to play was immediately suspended indefinitely.
Through the darkness the footballing community rallied around the club, the survivors and Brazil as a whole.
Their opponents for the game, Atletico Nacional, forfeited the tournament final and requested that the Chapecoense be awarded the championship and all the subsequent prize money.
A host of Brazilian clubs and others from around the world gave up their players free on loan to support the club and help rebuild a new team.
The Brazilian FA have been backed by all the clubs in the domestic league to allow immunity from relegation for the next three years as the team recovers from the incident.
An estimated 100,000 people braved the rain for the memorial service in Chapeco as the deceased were brought into the home stadium and coffins laid across the length of the pitch in highly emotional scenes.
Tributes have been flowing all around the world as the world as a whole mourns a tragic situation and the loss of so many young lives.
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