Six talking points from A-League Round 9

‘Tis the season to be jolly, but also enjoy another fascinating round of the season 2018-19 A-League season. This round threw up its share of upsets and thrills, so here are some talking points from Round 9 of the A-League.

Summer is just as competitive as winter

One of the thoughts behind bringing the national domestic football competition into a summer time slot was to protect it as it were from the intense and fiery winter battle with AFL, NRL and Super Rugby.

The thinking was that the domestic football league simply did not have the punch and drawing power to compete with deeply entrenched egg-shaped-ball winter codes with a century’s worth of good will behind them.

The move to summer was to allow football to dictate the sporting landscape, and give them a foothold in the national consciousness.

For football, though, it has turned out to be a case of being careful what you wish for.

The summer has not turned out to be the sport-dominating monopoly that the FFA would have hoped for.

While the threat of cricket was always something that the A-League appreciated would not be going anywhere, Test matches don’t generally steal too many numbers, and the domestic first class and one-day scene again was never much of a crowd puller.

But what nobody at the FFA would have planned for was the huge interest and behemoth that would emerge in the form of the BBL.

Then, the domestic basketball league re-emerged to enormous interest and huge numbers.

So football went from being the fourth string winter code to the third string summer code.

The poor A-League can’t seem to win a trick.

Still, the summer endeavour appears worth persevering with.

It is early days for the NBL and BBL, and while the A-League might be going through a bit of a lull at the moment in terms of attendances and viewers, they are still nonetheless building a following.

The A-League may yet get its dream of being the premium sporting product of the summer in Australia, but that is still going to take a lot more time.

As always appears to be the case with the A-League, we continue to watch this space.

Sydney FC, that mighty underdog

It says a lot about the league this season that Sydney FC defeating Perth is a case of one for the underdog, or at the very least, was a surprise.

It was literally only last season that Perth were struggling for finals, while Sydney appeared to be in a canter to finish another season with a major/minor double.

Glory supporters celebrate a goal. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

A mere eight months later, and it is (or was) Perth riding high on an unbeaten start to the season that saw them atop the league, while Sydney had to contend with an embarrassing home loss to Wellington and a hard fought win against the Wanderers thanks, in part, to playing against ten men for the majority of the match.

Make no mistake, Sydney are not, and will not be for a fair while, the David to anyone’s Goliath, and nor do I think they would want it that way.

Sydney are for all intents and purposes one of the biggest clubs in Australia, and whatever poor run of results may be going their way in the short term (and to be clear, Sydney have had a whole two losses in their first nine games this season), they will remain a big club for a fair while yet.

Friday night was by no means a case of the underdog travelling away for a hard fought, dogged win over the ladder leader.

It was a simple case of the monster re-emerging, of Goliath reminding David why he is feared.

It was a statement game from the big dog, reminding all and sundry, that you never underestimate giants.

The Phoenix is rising

After Round 1 of this season, I was critical of Newcastle as they lost their first up match, coming off hosting a grand final no less, for losing to the lowly Wellington Phoenix.

Nine rounds in, and a 2-1 loss in Wellington is looking like a pretty good result for a travelling team to NZ, when you consider the string of results that Wellington have put together in the first third of this season.

After that third of the way through the season, Wellington’s good form is no longer something you can ignore.

They are entrenched in the top six, they are playing great football, they had an amazing win over Sydney (in Sydney), and now have followed it up with a clinical destruction of a lowly Brisbane opponent.

Make no mistake, Wellington are the real deal, and with Nathan Burns still not yet in his best form, they can actually potentially get better.

Now, if only the New Zealand public would embrace them, Mark Rudan may be onto something.

Two points lost, one point earned

Draws, when you think about them, are intrinsically curious phenomena.

In theory, neither team should be happy or upset when a game finishes with spoils shared.

Melbourne City coach Warren Joyce. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

Nobody wins, nobody loses, and while everyone gets something, nobody gets everything that they wanted.

Of course, draws rarely end with both teams finishing the game feeling equally similar in their emotions, and Saturday night’s Melbourne Derby was the perfect case in point.

One team celebrating, one team distraught, yet 1-all she finished, with the spoils indeed shared.

Does it say much about Melbourne City that they celebrated a late draw like a win, equally, does it say much more about Melbourne Victory that they mourned the draw as if it were a loss?

Perhaps.

Of course, it probably says more about the fact that it was a derby, and City were as happy with the point as they might have been with proving to their cross-town rival that Victory would not be so victorious in this instance, and afterall, taking points away from your derby opponent can in itself feel like a win.

The Melbourne Derby is really coming along, particularly when that draw is celebrated by one side like a win.

Always the villain

Say what you like about Matt Simon, and from this card-carrying Jets member, I generally do, but one thing that everyone must say about Matty, is that he is good for the A-League.

As the mainstay of the A-League and a forever loved hero of Gosford, Matt Simon charged toward the voluminous numbers of Newcastle fans having headed in the go-ahead goal in the F3 Derby.

The hate and vitriol going his way was entirely real.

And the A-League needs characters.

Matt Simon is a character, who wears his heart on his sleeve and leaves his effort on the pitch.

He’s certainly not prolific, he’s hardly flashy, but what he is is honest, hardworking, and by gum is he passionate, and he loved every moment of scoring a goal against the most-hated Newcastle rival, for a team that is now winless after nine matches.

I can tell you the Jets fans hated his goal, hated his reaction, but then when the tables were turned later in the match, oh boy did they love giving it to him when the final whistle blew.

And Matt Simon loves to be that focal point.

He plays the part of the Melodramatic, Machiavellian villain with aplomb, because he is a character that the league, and right now his team, needs.

Nothing like a drought breaker

Goal droughts can be a deceiving beast.

You go a game without scoring, you think it’s not your day.

Two weeks in row, you hope that next week will be your game.

Then two weeks become three, three become four, and next thing you know you’re Jair celebrating your first goal in 12 months as if you’ve just scored the championship winner.

But when your whole team hasn’t scored a goal for 270 minutes (four and a half hours, six halves of football, three full games), players and coaches at Adelaide must’ve been looking over their shoulder for black cats they’d passed, ladders they’d walked under, and all the mirrors they had inadvertently broken.

Football, like any sport, is after all a crazy psychological creature, and when your last team goal was a 49th minute effort against the Roar three rounds ago, the nerves start creeping in.

At half-time against the Wanderers, still with no goals, Adelaide were not just faced with a scoring curse, but the ongoing difficulties of winning at home.

Fortunately for the Reds, Nikola Mileusnic broke that drought early in the second half, and in fact, scored two for good measure, to put the good ship HMS Adelaide back on the path home.

Those 270 minutes leading up to his second half strike must have felt, at times, much longer, but it doesn’t take much to change your club’s fortunes, no matter what has happened in the preceding five hours.

And just to prove that point, no sooner did Mileusnic have Adelaide in delirium with his drought breaking effort and then his lead taking effort, but the Reds were down to ten men and level on the scoreboard mere moments later.

It is a funny game, football.