Melbourne City vs Sydney FC: A-League live scores, blog

JB - I totally agree. It's so frustrating seeing otherwise excellent footballers regularly choose the wrong pass or play the right pass poorly. For Sydney, O'Neill and Zullo are also guilty too often. Hopefully Ninkovic will teach them how to do it right before he leaves. Equally frustrating is watching poor crossing from fullbacks and wingers, when that is their primary attacking role. They mustn't do enough focussed skills training in the off-season. I'd have them repeat practicing 'sprint 30, cross while at full speed, hit target'. I''d also stick a 2mtr dummy between them and the target - it's amazing the number of crosses that hit the first defender. At night, they'd be watching Beckham highlights - first the early years to see how it's done, then the late years to see what happens when opponents work out you can only bend the ball from right to left.

Wrong language.

No worries Eddie, we just see things in different ways, because even in the dark days of Frank Farina I never thought of ever joining a AFL club. You see MV (2nd best team last year) played a very aggressive, cynical way in the GF, they did again this year, MC (top of the table before last night), did the same yesterday, trying to nullify our superior play & played a very cynical game & outside of Fitzgerald had nothing in attack. SFC combats this to win the game.

JB, this is the same question I have been asking about Australian football for the last 50 years. Even in the so called 'golden generation' we had very few players with this basic skill, yet many of them were playing in the PL.

Redondo - You get very near to pointing to a "flaw" in our locally bred players. Brillante is not alone in having a problem in "poor passing in tight situations". If you measure the "unforced errors" in any team's "passing game" you will find it is a problem endemic to most of our young local players. That takes us back to grassroots football in our country and the coaching at that level, It also poses the question why is it that imported players appear to be better at that basic skill than our Aussie youngsters battling to make their mark in the HAL. Cheers jb.

Yes and probably you and Arnold are the only ones excited. A game of predicatable bring football with a second half of Sydney cynical tackles and time wasting. Boring and FFA does FA. If Arnold ever got Socceroos I think I would join an AFL club and just give up.

Good point but also to the south and inner city suburbs... Around St George and the whole area around it ... its Football first .... Two teams have shown how and the second team copied the first... Nick Tanna at Perth Glory way back in the bad times of the NSL had huge crowds as he connected with the local associations.... The Northern Spirit copied his methods and even through The Northern Spirit had four other Sydney clubs to compete against drew crowds similar to SFC in their first couple of years ... and they did it via the associations... In case you think Nick Tanna was crazy I listed to a speech he made once when he said if you have limited dollars to spent in promotion then spent it where the players are as they at least have an interest in the game...

The eastern suburbs is an obvious problem. Over time I've walked away from Allianz in 3 directions; towards Bondi Junction, towards Kings Cross and towards Central. I'd swear that at least 95% of the foot traffic after games heads to Central. I can't believe everyone from the east drives to games, because getting out at the end of a game is a grind. It'd be quicker to walk 3k than drive. There's no point going to Central to catch a train to the eastern suburbs - you might as well walk to Bondi Junction. I don't know how much effort Sydney has put into connecting with the eastern suburbs but whatever they've done hasn't had much effect. It would be interesting to see the postcodes for memberships.

Stuart You have Eastern & Southern Sydney plus the inner city ... IMO the league needs to solve the SFC problem in lack of crowds given IMO what it has to draw upon... SFC have connections most clubs would die for yet its inability to get more mainstream media and capture the vast Football culture around it is a huge worry moving forward.... to me has always shown a management team capable of running BHP or a major bank ... but would struggle to run the local canteen for a park team... I have always been of the opinion that A-League clubs need to connect to their local district associations and SFC have failed badly at this. To me professional Football in Australia whether Hal, NSL or Pre NSL has not build the sport .... SBS go on about Sydney United etc ... but never about Southern Districts ie the association they play in. AS I see it again our reporting history has given the professional side of the game credit it does not deserve in the building of the player base.... the player base was build by the regional associations their local park teams and community volunteers. There is no connect between the professional game and the player base ... why we only have somewhere between 18 & 20 % of the player base connected to the A-League whereas the others codes this percentage is around 86%. Its not location for SFC its an inability to connect to its local player base... BTW this same thing applies to most clubs... but if we can solve SFC we can solve it for all...

Fair enough. If you SydFc fans are content with how the club is engaging, that's all that matters. From the outside, it looks like there are major problems. Remember, SydFc is currently the Double Champions & in FFA Cup Final. They've lost 1 in past 35. Imagine if they started losing? What happens then?

Stuart - maybe the lack of appeal in the vicinity of Allianz is a marketing failure on Sydney's part. A good part of the booming crowds at Football in the US are students/youth/hipsters attracted to football because it's European/cosmopolitan and not ethnocentric, like gridiron/baseball. Just the kind of crowd living close to Allianz. I walk past them all in Elizabeth Bay, Potts Point, Kings Cross, Darlinghurst, Paddington on the way to games and feel like I should be handing out Sydney FC brochures as I go past. I understand the travel issues but that's why Sydney should be pushing harder in its current area - lots of scope to sell an international sport to young people as NRL and Rugby decline.

Mental floss is very useful sometimes

Nemesis - plug the A-League and Sydney's average attendances since 2011 into excel and you'll see Sydney's are trending up better than the rest of the A-League's. Over the life of the A-League Sydney is going up and the A-League has flatlined.Perhaps some focus should be on other clubs to lift their game.

MV people who live in glass houses ... hhhmmm... To me and Punter will back me up here I in the first say six years of Hal SFC drove me mad ... how could a team with so much going for it ... in the heart of a Football area get such poor crowds... I have mellowed in my criticism but SFC as the club has improved its management ... but while we bang on about the appeal of our game I look at SFC and ask myself why don't you draw much bigger crowds .... Moore Park is a traffic nightmare as and Central station to Moore Park is a very decent walk starting up a reasonable hill... but it can't be that simple... I sometimes thing many posters want things to be different ... and think simplistic solutions will drive change... I hope I am wrong, I pray I am wrong, but dramatic changes to structures and competitions, based on I want it this way and think it will happen, without due diligence, will lead to more sorrow and heartache and we will blame the newly appointed management team. I think its important we find out why SFC don't draw 23 to 35 K regularly....

If a win is all that matters, Sydney FC fans should be flocking to games. The team has lost 1 match out of the past 35. Perhaps, there's more to attracting fans to watch a team than simply winning. Having said that, this match far exceeded my expectations. I'd expected a 0-0 score. So, to have one goal was hugely exciting.

Peut-être elle essaie de vous faire venir au lit. Trop de football ce soir.