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The race for the A-League's top six is as exciting as promotion and relegation

1st April, 2018
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Daniel Arzani of Melbourne City is congratulated by tream mates after scoring a goal during the round 21 A-League match between the Perth Glory and Melbourne City FC at nib Stadium on February 24, 2018 in Perth, Australia. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
Expert
1st April, 2018
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1158 Reads

Sydney FC are the greatest A-League team in history, but it will count for nothing if the Sky Blues fail to win the grand final in May.

On Thursday night Graham Arnold’s team finally did what they have been threatening to do all season – run away with the premiership at a canter.

Arnold’s side are not only the best team in the competition by a country mile, they’re better than even Ange Postecoglou’s double-winning Brisbane Roar.

But the Sky Blues never get the credit they deserve for two key reasons – firstly, because an army of critics can’t stand Arnold, and secondly because the Melbourne media and fans dislike the fact it’s not Melbourne Victory dominating.

Think the Herald Sun or The Age will lead the plaudits for Arnold steering his side to back-to-back premierships? Nope.

And although Arnold has a handful of Sydney-based commentators in his corner, the outcry on social media over his appointment as Socceroos coach – lead eagerly by Victory fans – shows how widely disliked the Sydney FC tactician is.

It’s not so much a case of the green-eyed monster as one wearing a navy blue jersey, although Arnold himself rarely cuts a particularly sympathetic figure.

And he won’t care about the fact that Bobo just set a new A-League goal scoring record, or that Adrian Mierzejewski is enjoying an even better campaign than Milos Ninkovic did last season, if Sydney FC fail to win the grand final.

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Bobo

(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

It’s here that the finals series really proves its worth.

“I no longer watch the A-League because there’s no promotion or relegation,” goes the familiar refrain on social media.

Yeah. But how about the fact that with two rounds remaining, there are still eight teams fighting for a top six spot?

Or that all five Round 26 games next weekend will play a vital role in deciding the outcome of that top six?

If the A-League employed a first-past-the-post system, the final two rounds of the season would be irrelevant – particularly with no promotion and relegation.

But the jockeying for positions between second and sixth is no different to the race to finish in the playoff places in The Championship or the lower leagues in England – with, perhaps, one exception.

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We rarely read trenchant critiques of the English playoff system on The Roar – partly, I suspect, because no one cares enough to write them, and partly because it’s assumed that anything they do in Europe is automatically better than what we do in Australia.

But the reality is that those who complain most vociferously about the A-League are also those who never seem to actually attend games or watch them on TV.

So we’re left with a silent majority who are happy enough with the way our champions are decided, but sneered at by online critics who can’t be bothered to support the A-League anyway.

At any rate, the sooner the A-League expands to a 12-team competition so that sixty per cent of the teams don’t end up in the finals, the better.

And if Football Federation Australia wants to pull a rabbit out of its hat, it could do worse than add a third expansion team alongside Southern Expansion and Brisbane City to replace Wellington Phoenix.

Nothing highlights the stupidity of the Phoenix’s football department like watching Dario Vidosic score twice for Melbourne City in their 3-0 win over Newcastle Jets yesterday.

This is the same player Wellington were happy to discard – along with his father Rado – because they supposedly didn’t get along with Darije Kalezic.

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And what did the Phoenix do shortly thereafter? Sacked Kalezic.

There’s no outcry in Australia over such bone-headed decisions though, because there’s so little interest in the Phoenix that no one even bothers to mention them.

They’ll finish stone motherless last this season.

Fortunately there are nine other clubs doing their best to make sure the final month of the season is as compelling as the first six.

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