Forget Usain Bolt, the A-League's latest imports are the real stars

Henrique is Australian

Usually the foreign players are the worst value for money in the A-league. The main reason is workrate, usually they are the laziest players in the side as well as being the best paid. If you want to look at last season Adelaide good Sanchez getting on not as good as previous years, but worked hard. Adlung reasonable player and put in bad Diawarra too lazy Absolonsen lazy and slow Matmour lazy and ineffective Brisbane Roar average Kristensen getting on was better previous season Henrique getting on. bad Maccorone old,slow, could have been ok if he had more pace and youth around him Bauthec generally ran only with the ball at his feet. Khaffalah old and lazy Mariners average Asdrubal it would have been better if one of the other foreign players left. bad Baro - hatchet man in slow lazy defense does not work Wout Brama - ineffective, slow and not hard working Hiariej - very lazy City good schenkeveld - fast central defender, good for Citys style. McCormak - good goal scoring, despite being chunky and lazy average Jakobsen - old and slowing Fornaroli only started playing well at the end of the season. bad Budzinksi - chunky and lazy, he could have been better value as a striker, too lazy for the midfield. MV good Leroy George - excellent in attack, lazy in defense Barbarouses - the only foreign player in the A-league that worked really hard and is good in attack. average Berisha - misfired with excellent service, and his workrate has gone down to average levels. bad. Matia Sanchez - misfiring passer in the midfield newcastle average Roy Odonovan - he is slowing down, hotheaded and a red card risk Wayne Brown - can put in a half decent game, his effort levels are variable. bad Patricio Rodriguez - another who only wants to run with the ball, lazy and ineffective in defense Ronald Vargas - very lazy Perth good Castro - getting on while still effective his work rate is dropping Average Keogh getting on Mills he seems to be slacking off lucky to be rated as average. Poor Torres - he looked worse because Perth already had two of the best midfielder passers in the A-league, perth needed a more mobile hard working to complement them not this guy. Andreu - same as with Torres the last thing Perth needed and he is getting on. Wanderers Average Riera - on the face of it you would think he did well in the team with 15 goals, but the flipside is he was lazy and didn't contribute otherwise. Llorente - decent left back Jumpei - not sure why he was given the cold shoulder, good sub, and the rest of the team had problems with lazyiness so not sure why he was singled out. Bonevacia - going downhill from previous seasons but still good value, needed to play further up to provide some movement and threat on goal instead of deeper. poor Cejudo - cejudo could have been more influential in another team, and he was lazy otherwise, along with the other lazyish players that brought everything down. Sydney Bobo -excellent finishing but he went from lazy to very lazy and walking once he had to play in the ACL Merjevski - great player , his work rate was okay before the ACL but went downhill from that point though nowhere near as bad as Bobo. Ninkovic - another great attacking player, his work rate didn;t drop as much as Merjevski did with the ACL but still noticeable. Bjus - good ball playing defender, apart from overplaying his hand. Phoenix average Rossi - okay defender bad Kaludjerovic - he scored a few but was lazy so the overall effect was negative Paracki - workrate and mobility not good enough Lucic - lazy you can see a lot of foreign players and not many good ones.

It isn’t just here that the Usain Bolt story has grabbed headlines and it isn’t just locally that it is sometimes difficult to find information on other aspects of the game. Since round 1 of the new EPL season the headlines and major articles covering the game have been all about Mourinho and Woodward and supposedly what is going on behind the scenes at M.U. I have downloaded podcasts supposedly providing a round up only to find 3/4 of the program was taken up analysing the latest press conference or what someone said about someone else that has made a situation worse. It does seem to be self perpetuating though. If people are talking about Mourinho or Bolt then more gets written and recorded and the stories continue to run. Ultimately, at least here in Aus, I’m happy that the story has been running for a while and is still generating interest as it keeps other garbage out of the news and I can search in peace to find useful information on transfers, latest signings etc. Besides, I have spoken to a handful,of people who professed to have no interest in the game whatsoever but love Mr Bolt and were interested in the whole story and the possibilities. One of them even attended the trial game on Friday evening as she just wanted the opportunity to view the record holder and be part of an event. Maybe more thought should be given to who could possibly be recruited to switch sports and make their way with a new career in the game and bring a new and very different type of interest to the game - suggestions?

Can only think of a couple of ACL floggins. Vuk have not won away, but we haven't lost by many either and often give a strong account. Victory's statistics are interesting because, quite frankly - they have so MANY campaigns to reflect upon as it seems that even in a 'bad' league year they find a way to get into the ACL.

The A-League clubs are starting to REPLACE quality imports better, at least much more consistently than in previous years. The case for a Honda style marque (or an Ono, Hesky, Del Piero etc...) remains sound - but by exception only now - not a requirement. The quality this year is as high, or even higher than ever, but it seems less 'hit and miss' to my mind than over previous 3 year cycles.

All my spacing, paragraphs and sentences, were lost when I posted.......is this a glitch?

This new format is difficult to negotiate. Many sports sections, such as hockey and even cycling, risk becoming graveyards now they are isolated. It feels a victory of form over function. Maybe it is popular with others. Site traffic will be the final arbiter.

No doubt MV's away form in ACL is awful. Not just bad, but a complete failure. But, the ACL competition format means if you win all your home games & grab at least 1 draw away from home in the Groups, you can go all the way to winning the title. In the knock-out phase in football, if a team wins all the home matches, it can lose all the away matches (obviously lose by fewer goals away than they win at home, allowing for the Away Goals Rule) & still be Champions of Asia.

To say winning away is a struggle for them is putting it generously. Around 20 away ACL matches and still not a single away win.

Victory tend to do okay in the ACL (although winning away is a struggle) and there’s no doubt last seasons title was kick started in the ACL in my mind. But the lack of depth in the squads is s challenge, they’ll be attempting it with only 19 adult players which is harsh

And once there is some more teams, a whole bunch more foreign talent. Its a tricky period at the moment in Australian football but the near-future looks bright imo.

Not necessarily. AUFC made the Final of ACL in 2008 with a squad that would struggle in ALeague today. WSW put a squad together in 3 months and the majority of that squad ended up being crowned Champions of Asia. Australia's geographical isolation is a burden & a strength. ALeague teams need to just focus on winning every home match. No draws. Must win every home match. That's all it would take to regularly be thereabouts in the ACL every season. MVFC hasn't lost a home game in the past 3 ACL campaigns. That's a good trend building and our squads have been much much weaker than the current squad.

Crickey, what news reports do you suggest Mike reads? Bolt has made headline news on all the major tv channels and radio stations, in one day alone Bolt featured on all Sydney’s radio channels. What tv and radio channels carried news of the other A League signings? Not many, if any, I’m guessing. Of course Bolt has made headlines, he’s huge news, and has he swamped other coverage - absolutely he has. The Courier Mail has 7 Bolt articles to 4 non-Bolt articles; the local tv stations have all carried Bolt stories, none have carried A League signing news.

Mike your final 3 paragraphs, ahahhaha. So much truth told right there. City Group are doing well from their Australian operations, it just comes at the expense of local success.

ACL requires depth of quality as well, not something either of SFC or Victory have in their squads due to caps on salary and squad size.

Roar have one more to come, a visa/marquee with protracted negotiations going on with Flamini. I’m not holding my breath but never say never ...

I don't think all the international signings have been 'largely lost' because of the Usain Bolt hype. I've read loads of stuff about the signings. I think you should widen your reading scope, Mike, and stop making statements that don't accord with the truth.

There are some decent imports this year. Hopefully the clubs involved in the ACL can translate this into an improved continental performance.

Very impressed with the new signings so far, I still think Melb City has a couple more signings up their sleeves. Hopefully so does Wanderers & Roar.

Must be the highest quality series of recruits the league has ever had. With a falling Australian dollar, and rising investment in MLS and SE Asia it's a credit to the clubs.