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The football over the weekend was absorbing – not for the first time this season – and best of all it was on when fans might actually watch it.
Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer Sunday afternoon kick-offs to any other A-League timeslot.
Much like the NRL reserves one of its marquee fixtures each round for Sunday afternoon, it’s a bit of a surprise the A-League hasn’t done more to try and promote the day as an ideal time to sit down and watch some football.
Perhaps it’s the result of all five games being broadcast on Fox Sports – making it difficult to differentiate between the fixtures – but it just feels right to settle in and watch a game as the weekend is winding down.
And it helps when the football is as entertaining as yesterday’s two encounters.
Central Coast Mariners will wonder how they didn’t come away with all three points against ten-man Melbourne City, although the visitors deserve some credit for hanging on in the face of real adversity.
Yet City remain a genuine enigma – they’re like a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a haphazardly-constructed playing roster – and they needed an 86th-minute equaliser from a player many fans might reasonably have assumed was already back in Poland.
Marcin Budzinski’s goal was not without its controversy, and it took the intervention of the VAR to overturn an offside flag for the goal to eventually be allowed to stand.
And in Harrison Delbridge, City have a defender who might have been signed as a player for the future, but who in the present is staring down a deserved suspension for a truly horrific tackle on Blake Powell.
Is Budzinski a decent player? Who knows? Did Delbridge deserve to be sent off? He sure did. Is Warren Joyce a good coach? Maybe.
Perhaps the biggest riddle of all is when Melbourne City will start to show the sort of form you’d expect from a team that has sat in third place for most of the campaign.
Marco Kurz certainly looked chuffed with his youthful charges, and the combustible Adelaide United coach celebrated like his team had just won the league as the Reds held Sydney FC to a scoreless draw in the Sunday evening fixture.
(AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
It was a gripping contest at times, as clashes between these two sides often seem to be, and undermanned Adelaide could rightfully come away pleased with having taken a point.
Stand-in goalkeeper Daniel Margush was undoubtedly Adelaide’s best, even if a couple of his saves came on the back of his own misplaced clearances.
The Sky Blues wasted a string of chances, and there’s a growing sense that when Bobo fails to get on the scoresheet, there’s not a lot of striking options available in reserve.
Meanwhile, Sydney’s star duo Milos Ninkovic and Adrian Mierzejewski were at the centre of an unseemly first-half fracas, as both flew into challenges which prompted a push-and-shove between Jordan Elsey and hot-headed Sydney skipper Alex Brosque.
It all added to the impression that Sydney FC weren’t particularly enjoying their day out in Adelaide, and perhaps their march to the premiership isn’t such a sure thing after all.
The Olyroos are another team sweating on results going their way, after following up a 3-1 win over Syria with a disappointing 1-0 defeat to Vietnam in the AFC U-23 Championship in China.
There was simply no way through against a Vietnamese side that stood resolute to a man in defence, and it means Ante Milicic’s side must get a result against South Korea on Tuesday to have any hope of progressing to the knockout stage.
Déjà vu, anyone? Playing in Asia is difficult.
At least we had plenty of A-League to watch on Sunday.
It’s the perfect day for football. Let’s see more of it, please, Football Federation Australia, not less.