“Do you think Phil is going to come out and see his shadow?” “Punxsutawney Phil!” “That’s right, woodchuck chuckers it’s… Groundhog Day!”
North America’s favourite rodent just predicted six more weeks of winter, but there was no word on his predictions for tonight’s clash between Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar.
Not to worry – these two clubs have faced each other more than 40 times in the A-League, Besart Berisha has scored no less than seven competitive goals against Brisbane Roar including the winner in last year’s semi-final – and when Victory ended Roar keeper Michael Theo’s record run of clean sheets in 2010, his name was still Theoklitos.
(AAP Image/George Salpigtidis)
Kevin Muscat and John Aloisi know each other so well they could probably swap hairstyles and still look familiar on the touchline.
If you think you’ve seen this fixture before, well, you have. Over and over and over again.
Weirdly enough, this is only the eighth meeting between the pair at AAMI Park, with the majority of the fixtures either taking place at Etihad Stadium or in Brisbane.
So that’s something.
If, however, you’re tired of seeing the same teams play each other on an endless cycle of repeat, unfortunately you’re out of luck.
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You’ll just have to console yourself with watching Melbourne City take on Sydney FC for at least the 25th time – including FFA Cup fixtures.
Western Sydney’s rescheduled Round 7 fixture against Wellington Phoenix on Sunday means they’ll have faced the Kiwi side on January 13th, February 11th and again on March 10th of this year alone.
And the pair faced off in the FFA Cup Round of 32 last August for good measure – with all four games set to take place across four different grounds.
The roulette wheel of scheduling has spun up ANZ Stadium as the latest venue of choice for the eternal grudge match that is Western Sydney versus Wellington, where a Category A ticket will set you back a mere $38, plus a $6.90 handling fee.
Don’t worry though. Football Federation Australia has got expansion sorted.
“I don’t think we’ve lost enough ground because we’ve done all the work,” A-League head Greg O’Rourke told AAP sports reporter Murray Wenzel at the launch of the W-League finals on Monday.
“The question is, when do we go into the public domain and ask for bidders?”
Um, like, today?
Or better yet, maybe get on the blower to Marty McFly and see if we can go back in time and kick off expansion proceedings when they were first needed about five years ago.
Are Brisbane City in with a shout? Could Brisbane Strikers steal their thunder? Is Southern Expansion still a thing?
Despite Wenzel’s pointed enquiry – and at the launch of the women’s finals, it was a question about the men’s game that garnered most of the media attention – we know no more officially about the prospect of expansion than we knew last week or the week before.
That’s despite an excellent midweek podcast from The Daily Football Show in which they chatted to Brisbane City and Brisbane Strikers chairmen Rob Cavallucci and Bruce Atterton-Evans – where both men spoke passionately and intelligently about the prospect of their respective clubs joining the A-League.
Vince Rugari then followed up Wenzel’s line of thought with a piece about “Brisbane pushing for a boutique football stadium” as part of Australia’s bid to host the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
It’s an idea Brisbane Roar seem happy to support. Along with, it should be noted, the prospect of a much-needed Brisbane derby.
So why are we waiting? What economic conditions will change between now and next year? And what difference would it make if expansion clubs were tried and failed?
Could it be any worse than watching the same ten clubs play the same three fixtures ad infinitum?
If the A-League is stale, then how could we describe FFA’s handling of expansion?
With one word: moribund.
chris
Guest
A bit like your posts. Same old whinge everyday. Why post on something you clearly dislike so much?
chris
Guest
Tommo 100k could turn up. It still doesnt hide the fact that its low quality, provincial game that is nowhere in the world and going nowhere fast. And the womens version is not much better.
Grobbelaar
Roar Guru
you can't choose your relatives, but many of us choose to follow the beautiful game, even if in small numbers
BrainsTrust
Guest
The facility that is also being funded by the Blacktown council. I don;t know whether the rubbish players they have is something to do with cut in funding by the owners or maybe something else, but the spending isn't being shown in the A-league. The owners were taken for a ride by Popovic who cost them about 20 million. Popovic made them play all their games at Parramatta including the ACL final. That funded the Parramatta Eels leagues club. While at the same time Eels took the money at ANZ. Then Popovic took the money in Turkey. The AFL is able to extract a lot more from governments, there biggest trick is to make a small contribution to stuff to disguise they are getting free rent for eternity from that point on. Now with Perth and Adelaide stadiums they have even avoided that initial contribution. So if the AFL gets all the great deals, why should the A-league which pays the highest rents in the country expand.
Nico
Guest
As a Brisbane fan I'm all for inclusion of South Melbourne to add something resembling a nod to the game's history. The closest we get to that with the a league is Perth glory - founded in 1995. I could see Lakers being everyone's second favourite team, much like the Rabbitohs in the NRL
Nemesis
Guest
Certainly, the Crash & Carry Ball fans like yourself have more interest in discussing ALeague than the rubbish on display in your own sports.
valhalla
Guest
now now ..... no need to be like that youre fast approaching the gobsmacked tearful hysteria that characterised your posts in the immediate aftermath of the failed world cup bid ..... you dont want to traverse that territory again do you???
Rolly
Guest
More than half came from interstate .i don't see canberra in the A league .who would their local derbys be against .new teams need to be able to play local derbys to generate interest .
Churchman72
Roar Rookie
It’s not about that, so much as the demographic reality of Australia today. The average age of the first generation European migrants who founded and supported the “ethnic” clubs is between 65 and 75. They are literally dying out, as their grandkids aren’t so invested in the clubs as the previous generation. After the post WW2 recovery completed in Europe, emigration from the continent decreased rapidly as conditions improved at home. Then when the EU formed and the Schengen Agreement for movement within its borders, out migration from the EU almost ceased. We haven’t had strong European migration since the early 1990’s. Those NSL clubs that had depended on the stream of fresh arrivals from the old country, found their supply cut off, and started to decline first the Hungarian and Jewish backed teams, whose main immigration phase was in the 1940’s and 1950’s, then the Dutch and Italian backed clubs whose population base mainly arrived in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, then the Greek clubs whose main migration wave was on the 1960’s and finally thise clubs from the nations that made up the former Yugoslavia. These days there are more people in Australia born in Asia than Europe and of the non-British/Irish ancestry groups of European backgrounds, only the Italian and Greek communities of Sydney and Melbourne are large enough to back a fully professional football team at the A League stanards. Even then, the level of resources they would have wouldn’t be able to match the bigger A-League clubs and it wiuld beg the question ad to whether it would be worthwhile including them at the expense of a team from a place like Wollongong or Geelong that would be able to draw from a similar sized base without being tied to a particular ethnicity.
Rolly
Guest
No more than the nrl or afl same thing same teams going round every week just with lesser teams all codes of football crowds are down some more than others .so what's your point .
Tommo
Guest
Still 3 times more turned up to watch a woman AFL match than the men soccer. So much for the so called most popular sport in Australia. Exactly that . So called
Doc Disnick
Roar Guru
Who cares? They have more money than god.
Nemesis
Guest
Is AFLW a pre-season game? Interesting. I thought it was a legitimate competition for the best AFL women in the world.
Nemesis
Guest
Excellent. ALeague is not for casual fans. Go back to where you came from. This is an ALeague discussion, you're not interested in ALeague, but you're here every day to talk about it. People who don't watch ALeague still want to talk about it more than they talk about their miserable, insignificant little sports.
bobbym
Guest
This comment has been removed for breaching The Roar's comments policy.
bobbym
Guest
Agree. The longer the League. has gone on the more my interest wanes.
Tommo
Guest
42,000 vs 14,000. Still 3 times the number for a pre season game vs a home and away fixture
Nemesis
Guest
Yet another ALT-Fact from Mr AFL.
Nemesis
Guest
8000 fans in ALeague will be a bigger crowd than the majority of attendances the players in Europe play in front of each week. Nick Ansell plays in the Portuguese top league. The same league where Ronaldo started his career. The club where Nick Ansell plays has a home crowd average this season of 2,230. Last season, the ALeague club where Nick Ansell was playing had average crowds of 22,000. Awer Mabil plays in the same league, his club's average attendance is 2,716. When Mabil was playing ALeague, his club's average attendance was over 12,000 Goggol Mebrahtu is playing in the Czech Republic top league. His club's average attendance is 3,018
Tommo
Guest
Where are the quality players then? Season is long enough now. Grounds are used by other codes, namely the RU and RL. Go any longer than currently and the whinging about bumpy grounds comes to the surface. (Like that) Bumpy/surface. LOL