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It’s not every weekend you watch a round of football so entertaining you don’t even know where to begin, but that’s exactly what the A-League just served up.
Was that the best round we’ve seen in the A-League this season? It must have been up there.
And for a competition that doesn’t always serve up a surplus of talking points, it’s hard to know where to begin analysing an absorbing three days of action.
Let’s start with the Melbourne derby. Not only did Victory remind their little brother who’s boss, they did so with a compelling display.
Yet the best part of Victory’s 2-1 win was not Kosta Barbarouses brushing off a disallowed goal by the VAR or the sparkling form of Leroy George, it was the fact an entire away end of Victory fans celebrated the win like it was a title decider.
No flares, no walk-outs, no police intervention – just good old-fashioned football support, even if the chants aimed at the FFA rang through loud and clear on TV.
Yet Victory’s pulsating derby day win wasn’t even the match of the round. That mantle surely belongs to the ten-men Newcastle Jets and their backs-to-the-wall 2-1 win over league leaders Sydney FC.
Did Roy O’Donovan deserve to be sent off? He sure did, in my opinion. No matter how soft the contact, you simply cannot raise your hand and strike an opponent.
As for Jordy Buijs, he may be a cult hero, but he looked like an absolute prat rolling around on the ground as though he’d been hit in the face by a Mack truck.
Buijs instantly made himself a target of the boo brigade – David Carney no doubt thanked him later – but in true cult fashion, he then laid on Bobo’s equaliser with a free-kick of stunning accuracy.
You expected Newcastle to crumble – O’Donovan had been dismissed in just the 10th minute – but instead of shutting up shop, the Jets went ahead and won the game through another absolute belter from Andrew Nabbout.
(AAP Image/ James Elsby)
And it all played out in front a pulsating atmosphere generated by more than 18,000 fans inside McDonald Jones Stadium.
So why can’t we have this every week?
There wasn’t a huge crowd in attendance at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night, but those who were there were treated to an Eric Bautheac special in Brisbane Roar’s 1-0 win over Adelaide United.
The Roar have been a better side this season than their points tally suggests, and although you could have driven a bus through the gap left by Paul Izzo at his far post, Bautheac still had to be skilful enough to curl the ball around the wall and into the back of the net.
It was a free-kick that deserved to be witnessed by more than just the diehards in attendance, but crucially it keeps Brisbane Roar in the hunt for a finals place.
“Three highly entertaining games of football this weekend,” I tweeted on my way out of the ground. “Nothing wrong with the quality of football”.
“Great games but surely highly entertaining is not necessarily the same as high quality?!” replied ABC Grandstand commentator Tom Greenard to my tweet.
Fair point, but here’s the thing. I’m never too concerned with how the A-League compares in terms of quality to other leagues around the world, because I don’t really care what’s happening in countries I don’t live in.
No one wants to sit through poor-quality games, of course, but when the football is entertaining and the fans go home happy, I’ve never seen the point of splitting hairs over whether it’s the kind of football you’d see in Europe.
Support for the sake of support is a concept a few too many A-League fans seem to have forgotten this season.
And while Sunday’s game wasn’t all that much to write home about – except for Dino Djulbic’s brief stint in goal – it capped off a gripping weekend of football.
We need more of it. For the good of the game – and our souls.