The secret to success in the 2020-21 A-League season

By all accounts the two teams prepared for the match in contrasting styles. On the pitch, CCM played with blood and guts mixed in with a fair bit of pace and no shortage of fairly simple but effective skills - except for the 2 penalties. They approached it more as though it was a cup final and every second counted and by contrast, AU didn’t seem to be quite at the party for the most part. The two penalties were interesting in that both takers went for the less natural side of the goal. To me, if you want to increase your percentages you hit with the instep in the natural direction of your kicking foot and with the stronger foot the ball will usually travel faster and therefore have a better chance of hitting the back of the net even if not placed well. Both kickers went the opposite way and neither penalty was well struck. Whilst they were good saves, the penalties themselves were pretty average imo. Still, it made for high drama and the winning goal was a great lesson for junior players to learn in not giving up until you have to. That ball looked to be going out or into the goalkeeper’s arms but tenacity, willpower, stubbornness, whatever you like to describe it as won the day and provided a memorable cut back for a relatively simple goal.

I like now that the recruitment of international guys is logical and well targeted now. I thought the whole “marquee player” thing was silly, and something an Australian soccer comp shouldn’t’ve been doing, despite Del Pierro being great and some others doing ok. Guys like Gallas, Fowler, Heskey etc were over the hill, and paying big bucks for them as some some kind of promotional thing was silly in my view. Should always have been about promoting local youth, and been sparing with the international recruits.

Sorry to break it to you, Brainrust, but your first paragraph was incorrect. Adelaide were whipped into submission last night by a dominant team.

Punter - I'm not sure "relying" on KB is quite right. However, there appears to be more pressure to contribute even if it is only coming from the fans as the traditional strikers are not able to find that gap between the three posts with any great consistency and certainly not in the dame fashion that Le Fondre served up during his tenure. How much time will they be given is the question on my lips?

So it should be good fun watching it unfold. If it was an 8:00 pm kick off, I'd take a drive up the motorway and go and watch it in person but getting out of Sydney on a holiday weekend is just a bit tricky and makes driving down Hindley St and onto King William terrace feel like a country drive so I'll attempt to get home and watch it unfold on the TV! Travel, changes to fixtures at short notice etc etc has presented a fair few challenges this year and made it difficult or almost impossible to seriously plan. Not going to any away games interstate this year is awful - bad for the soul - probably good for the wallet though but they are so much fun and besides, they sell full strength Coopers (as they should) inside Hindmarsh stadium which makes it all the more palatable! Enjoy the game tonight - Yengi will!

I was more wondering why do you think SFC are ‘Relying on out & out winger as their main strike force’? I highlighted the other 2 as our main strikers & add Trent Buhariar as our main strikers. Never did we rely on Barbarouusas, but many wingers can & do score & Barbarousas has scored his fair share over last 2 seasons, but this year he has many opportunities & has failed fairly badly, but we not relying on him. We are relying on Bobo, old, Wood, young & Trent, no La Fondre.

Regardless of my views of the team and that coach in particular, I have no issues with mariners doing well; everyone loves an underdog. Id much rather see them leading rather than your usual (sydney/victory/city) however mariners are still part of the east coast bias this league has become (the lesser of the evil though lol) Football is a results-based industry, they finished bottom with the same coach last season. All of a sudden, he’s some miracle worker? Any other teams sacks the coach for finishing last (unless you’re foolish like victory are currently or in dire straits with no options like newcastle are) Last place coach is sacked anywhere in the world. I need to be careful with what I write next, but he is not the sort of coach I would want at my club due to his reputation. Regardless of the fact he was cleared, there is no smoke without fire as they say in relation to his matildas firing. They have benefited from also having a lack of injuries, every other team has picked up multiple injuries (we are yet to actually play our best XI this year) Look up the stats for clubs with most players missing days with injuries, you’ll find mariners near the bottom while victory/Adelaide/wellington are near the top. Let them get a few injuries and see how they cope. Travel is still a sore point for me, regardless of covid. The fixture list has been consistently altered this year. There is no way in the world mariners would have any momentum if the original schedule hadn’t of been changed. Yes, they’ve beat perth away (shock result) but they lost in Adelaide and are yet to play Brisbane away. Mariners have had a pretty comfortable fixture list thus far As for tonight, this is a pressure match for them (I would say it’s the toughest match they’ve had so far this year especially because they’re carrying that baggage from the controversial calls in adelaide) A loss tonight and they could get jumped by 2 teams with a game in hand on the mariners. The way their coach and players have spoken this week to the media tells me they’re going to play with a lot of emotion, compare that to how veart and the Adelaide players haven spoken to the media and it feels like one team is coming into this emotional and the other very cool and collected

AA - I reckon you are slightly muddled in your assessment of other fans/contributors in respect of CCM. It isn’t that lots of people rate them highly, it is more that they are surprise packet this season and many of us are happy to see them at the opposite end of the table than they have been for the past few seasons in much the same way that you obtain a certain amount of enjoyment watching MV and SFC not dominating and even struggling if you prefer. Commentators, journalists, pundits and supporters alike have struggled to come to terms with Mariners elevation this season. It is quite clear from the various narratives that many expect the bubble to burst at some point and for “normal service to be resumed”. I will be one of those watching the game tonight just out of curiosity as much as anything else (apart from the fact I watch most games). Alen Stajcic has requested more respect for the fact they are league leaders and deserve to be there. It seems that many just feel it is a fluke, an aberration or whatever and therefore don’t respect it in the same way as when SFC were dominating. However, unless they have played 12 or 13 games at home and not travelled anywhere, you can’t really argue against their results. Last time Manchester United won the EPL was SAF’s final season in charge and although they won it, they were a club in decline and the football was nowhere near the standard of previous victories and championships. You then have to look at the rest of the league to see why; maybe the failings are there? Maybe teams have become complacent and just expected to turn up and they would gain 3 points. At least tonight, whatever the result, Adelaide will know they have been in a battle - especially if Matt Simon takes the field.

AA - Again, so carried away with a counter argument that you missed the point being made completely, so I'll try and simplify. For various reasons, of which we are all aware , money, which has always been tight in our professional league, is reaching for new levels of availability. With the purse strings bein tightened so have a certain level of imported talent suffered and ,accordingly so has the standard of football being played. Many writers to these columns have stated how much they are enjoying the football being played this year without describing what has caused this rise in enjoyment. That is the point I was trying to make. Budgets, or to be more precise lack of funds, has resulted in a levelling out of the standard of football between clubs and it is this "levelling" process that has led to more competitive football (you'll note I have not said "better" football) being purveyed to a public sadly down in numbers. Forget the "long ball", east coast bias, referees, and diving, arguments and concentrate on what you see in front of you at game time. Young lads brought in to replace ex internationals or tradesmen players, trying hard to emulate what they see on TV, and, if the truth be told, are making the same mistakes that young players on learning curves often make. They will improve, of course they will, but until the money returns to our game we will have to put up with high error count which in turn leads to more exciting ,end to end play. Cheers jb.

Punter - Come on, you know very well what I meant, Barbarousas has, and always will be, a winger, and does not even warrant comparison with just 2 of the out and out goal poachers I mentioned. Sydney have always had good finishers and good finishing is what wins games, "Goals scored" by individuals is not a true measure of gauging how a player fits into a team structure as well you know. The boy Wood is a learner and Bobo has been brought back ,yes, for his scoring prowess but----- 3 years older. Cheers jb.

Relying on out & out winger as their main strike force????? Wood 3 goals & Bobo 3 goals same as Barbarouses 3 goals, both much less game time then this out & out winger.

i never said i hated brisbane, that's a misconception. I hate victory being the arch enemy but i am not celebrating there decline, its a warning to all the elitist clubs. I hate sydney for the sheer arrogance of the club and its fans and im thoroughly enjoying there struggles this season without money. I do hate what brisbane have become im terms of the football they play though. Brisbane were always a team that played attractive entertaining football (over the course of the a league they have been my favourite team as a neutral to watch funnily enough) However over the past few seasons they have gone british (coaching/players/style) which i said would be a massive failure and its turning our correct. we are in an entertainment business, brisbane don't play entertaining football. Its boring, languid dross; i dont know how any fan of brisbane or even a neutral would call the lower league long ball they play entertaining. Macarthur is perhaps the only other team that runs brisbane close in the snooze fest style they play. Where are the so called amazing youngsters i always here raved about? you have potentially the best young defender in the league (adelaide boy jordan courtney-perkins) warming the bench because of an over paid british journeyman. If you dont want jordan, i'll gladly have him back. We'll send that abomination caletti back in exchange lol i dont want to ruin an article about the mariners, talking about brisbane (someone publish an article about brisbane and i can speak freely lol)

CCM are going downhill, Stanjic puts NIsbet on the bench and they draw with MV. Nisbet is by far their fittest player he is the one guy you have on the field 90 minutes in every match. Against City they looked very flat I dont know why. Adelaide United their two key players are Mauk and Goodwin not the young players who havent contributed a lot. Mauk in particular his workrate is the best in the team, his horizontal work if you call it that has also been very effective. Their other most important is the refs thats the only old person that has been good for them. I think bringing in Juande another old guy if he went to the midfield along with their two 35 year olds in the backline then their season could have been wrecked. The teams operating on a budget are clearly Newcastle the most poor, then CCM and Brisbane. Phoenix and Sydney are in the middle. The rest have all suprisingly spent big given the climate.

AA -I think your opening sentence in this latest offering maybe the closest thing to reality that you have written. It is surely obvious to keen observers that the former top teams in the A-League have cut their spending on player improvement and are actively engaged in playing local youngsters in place of highly credentialed, (and paid) imports. Sydney are struggling for goals with none of their recent signings being of the same class as former strikers,Le Fevre and Brosque, and yet as the season progresses they seem content to use an out and out winger as their main strike force. Victory are the same ,with locals introduced to replace former international class players and, as results indicate, their loss of league leading standard. Your pet hate Roar have struggled since the departure of Mackay,Broich,and Berisha those players being replaced with a never ending (and cheaper) "failures" from local clubs. Your pet love, Adelaide ,have also been active in recruitment, not only picking up promising local talent while at the same time bringing back others who have been gaining experience elsewhere. So today we are witnessing a much higher inclusion of local talent but at the same time the standard of our football has fallen quite dramatically with a levelling out of "talent" spread across the participating clubs and, if one is clinical, can put the real reason back to lack of financial clout directly affecting our Australian game. Cheers jb

It is refreshing to see 2 out of the 3 teams with the lowest budget at the top of the league with the 2 youngest playing rosters. I have beated this drum all year! stop buying OAPs (sydney/thuggery united/macarthur) and play the local home grown talent. Teams that are done for the year (newcastle/victory, soon to be brisbane in the coming weeks) start playing your kids, there's no relegation you have nothing to lose. Heres the thing though, once we get through covid and everyone is vaccinated and the league goes back to 'normal'. The powerhouse clubs wont play any kids, they'll just buy players like they always do and wont play any kids I am probably one of the only few people who doesnt rate the mariners, even though theyre top. This is the team everyone picked to finish 11th (newcastle unfortunately was a given for 12th because of their off field issues) managed by the same coach who took them to last place (any other coach in the league would get sacked for finishing last.) That squad on paper definitely doesn't scream out top 6 to me, id go as far as saying its one of the worst squads on paper in the league. I will give them credit for hanging around in matches, the mariners of old would fold like a deck of cards, but they seem a lot more resilient this weird wacky wonderful season (i am still waiting for the fall). There are a couple of things that have definitely helped them; Scheduling has absolutely helped with the majority of there games in nsw this season (i would like to seem them travelling interstate every second weekend) + they have had minimal injuries. Regardless where they finish, they have had an amazing season. It is great to see the davids in the a league beating the goliaths, if only newcastle could some how join in the party

A large part of the success is playing in colder months where running is easier hence the younger guys showing up.

Fortunately for both AU and the Mariners, the A-League is currently in a position where it pays to play local lads.

Both clubs are potentially building something special long-term – having local players and managers can inspire the next generation. It's my big fear if WSW ever get their act together. They had it to some extent in the early days, and have always loved a local like Santalab or Duke, imagine they ever get a full quorum on the park of locals.

that’s the situation we’re in as United host the Mariners in the South Australian capital tonight Glad you're not in charge of the bbq, confusing Beerenberg with Masterfoods here..... Tut tut.

Do you think the story might be any different in that tonight’s game is in Gosford rather than Adelaide? I haven’t looked at the statistics as such, just curious as to whether the scenario feels different depending on location of the game?