Western United’s 2-2 draw with Melbourne City on Saturday may have been a classic, but it highlighted one of the glaring issues of a season that has generated more questions than answers.
Most critics seemed to think John Aloisi’s managerial career was over after he stepped down as Brisbane Roar coach in December 2018 after overseeing a catastrophic start to the season.
The former Socceroo had to bide his time before getting another chance at Western United, but he’s made the most of his opportunity and the team from Melbourne’s west – not that they actually play there – would have gone top of the table had they managed to hold on to a two-goal lead at AAMI Park.
Leo Lacroix has been one of the signings of the season and the former Sion and Saint-Etienne defender is yet another reminder that A-League clubs can sign high-quality professionals even if they don’t have the most glittering CVs.
The big Swiss defender stooped to head home his third goal in two games to give Western United the lead in front of 8127 fans at AAMI Park.
And when Slovenian international Rene Krhin coolly side-footed home his first goal in the competition, the nominal hosts looked well on their way to victory.
(Photo by Graham Denholm/Getty Images)
But Melbourne City are champions for a reason and having battered the hosts over the early stages of the contest, it was no surprise to see Connor Metcalfe pull a goal back before half-time.
They deserved their equaliser too, with Jamie Maclaren once again proving why he’s the most dangerous striker in the league with an unerring finish into the far corner of Jamie Young’s goal.
It was one of the most entertaining 2-2 draws we’ve seen all season and if you happened to be a Brisbane Roar or Wellington Phoenix fan, you didn’t see it all.
One of the most glaring problems with the way the A-League Men competition is being marketed is that those who run it can’t seem to understand why Brisbane Roar and Wellington Phoenix fans are not automatically tuning into a fixture between two Melbourne teams.
Brisbane Roar’s gritty 2-1 win over the Phoenix on Saturday was desperately needed, but it was watched by far fewer fans than in previous seasons because it kicked off at the exact same time at Western United’s clash.
That’s what Paramount+ wants. The only way to secure mass subscriptions is by capturing fans from every market.
But one of the unwanted side effects of this approach is that it effectively cannibalises the league’s own audience. I used to watch almost every game each weekend, but that’s impossible now.
And that wouldn’t be such an issue if fans could watch replays of fixtures they’ve missed in a timely manner, or pause and rewind games that are already in progress.
In fairness to Paramount+, they were reasonably quick to post a replay of Saturday afternoon’s Western United game, even if highlights of fixtures continue to elude us.
And the overwhelming tendency of the A-Leagues to favour teams from Melbourne and Sydney has infuriated fans from outside those two cities for years now.
Even when the A-Leagues continues to focus almost exclusively on just two cities, it’s not like it helps fans in those markets anyway.
Ticket prices at Macarthur FC are a disgrace, but the Bulls get away with robbing supporters blind because the Australian Professional Leagues have apparently thrown their hands in the air and decided that administering a football league is simply beyond their capabilities.
Now the Bulls are busy blocking anyone on social media who dares question their exorbitant ticket prices.
The APL deserves to have the book thrown at them for running a competition that makes the National Soccer League looks like a paragon of virtue.
Fans are growing tired of the litany of excuses and the overwhelming bias towards clubs from Sydney and Melbourne.
They’d better have a plan for next season, because this one has been a joke.
Football is Life
Roar Rookie
Paramount is building Mike. You're in the media, you must understand that it's not just a case of rock up with some cameras and start streaming a whole new tv channel. It takes time. But I agree in that the APL, who fought and whinged and carried on that they could do better running the game, instead of football professionals at FA. Now look what's happened. They've cracked it. Petulant children if you ask me. I have had this theory for a while now, that club ownership should be assessed rigourously before handing over the keys. Look at Man Utd, the Glaetzers continue t siphon off money for the NRL Team and the result is that one of the world's old, most famous and largest football clubs is a shambles. Owners and Administrators need to show they are invested not just monitarily, they need to show they're football people. That they are passionate about the game, and are keen to breed success
Blood Dragon
Roar Rookie
Coopers Stadium and HBF Park are the only Stadiums in the League Built/Converted for Football but HBF was upgraded a few years after the Rectangular Conversion for Rugby Union Every Other Stadium in the League was designed to either be Multi Purpose or built for another Sport
Ac
Guest
Universal ? when you get just 33,000 people watch a tv match like last Saturday over 5 city metros - then you know your in trouble. Channel TEN must wonder what have they done. No one cares about the a-league anymore. Sad for sure.
Christo the Daddyo
Roar Rookie
That's possible, but the point of this article isn't really about poor communication though, is it...
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
I admit, I don't watch much Ch 10. Will try to tune in more often.
Pro Rel NSD
Guest
Definitely needed. It’s annoying to have to wait till half time or the end of the game to see the goal. During the MacArthur game there is only one replay of a goal from a weird angle and than it was slow motion shots of the celebration and the player walking around which was probably due to an ad break somewhere.
Pro Rel NSD
Guest
Maybe. Or maybe the APL are doing a lot of good things behind the scenes but they are hard to communicate to the public when they have only been in charge for a couple of months.
Pro Rel NSD
Guest
A solid pre game show would be a start. Some games don’t even have a pre game show or it starts 10 minutes before kick off.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
Pause and rewind facility on Paramount +? How hard is that to implement????? How many times have I gone to get a cold drink only to miss an exciting moment or goal and no way to view what happened!!!!! Lolz
Christo the Daddyo
Roar Rookie
Just maybe FA wasn't doing all that bad a job at running the A League? A good lesson in being careful what you wish for...
Roberto Bettega
Roar Rookie
That's a good advertisement for having all three Melbourne teams playing out of AAMI. The most annoying aspect is that one of the reasons given for not allowing South Melbourne into the comp, with its marvellous boutique stadium was that Lakeside was too close to the Melbourne CBD - as if that was a negative! As for weekly talkshows, of course that would be a good thing. At one point, Fox had a couple of weekly talk shows, on top of that, TWG used to cover the A-League as well. Now, it's literally crickets.
Mark
Guest
Lot of negative Nellies on here. I'm going to give a pat on the back to WU and City. WU as home club allowed City members to get one free ticket for every membership to get to the game on Saturday night. Crowd was 8,000+ for the game and looked and sounded much better than normal WU games. Cracker of a game to with WU going out to a 2-0 lead then hanging on for dear life for a draw. I've found Paramount + okay considering they have to deal with all these changes in fixturing they've done an ok job. Admittedly we would prefer HD and replays etc. Can't understand why they don't do a weekly talk show on Thursday nights or something, but it's still early days.
josh
Guest
They don't want their side being the away team, just look at the match against WSW, it was about 90% Wanderers fans.
josh
Guest
In your opinion. Campbelltown is one of the 7 regions of Western Sydney, when WSW started they held a forum there to engage the community to make them part of the journey. Now Macarfur Bulls are here WSW are supposed to lose that area? This isn't a case of SydneyFC claiming the whole of the city but sticking to their little Eastern Suburbs bubble, WSW was part of the area. People claiming it's a growth area and deserves it's own team is rubbish, it should have been left to grow with WSW fans. I'll never stop wanting them out of my team's area.
jbinnie
Guest
Lionheart - Glad someone else has noted the total absence of "match reports" on our favourite football site, Football Roar. One is left to wonder if this is going to be a "constant", for Brisbane Roar have enjoyed 2 wins in two weeks and yet not a word has appeared o this site in the following days. That leads me to another thought, why does the new management team not have a long hard look at producing a football magazine?. Andrew Dettre did that for years in Sydney and when the NSL started he widened the news field to take in the "national spectrum". simply by employing a local to search out news and pass it to AD for publishing or scrapping. Is this sort of action beyond the investigative nous of our new ruling body. Cheers jb.
Waz
Roar Rookie
TEN are doing a great job covering football in their news channels. They’re also covering other sports as well proving it can be done. And 10’s Saturday night ratings were already in the gutter before Football arrived — and for some reason they decided to split their audience by putting two games on at the same time.
Waz
Roar Rookie
What do you think we’ve been doing for the past two years while you lot have been in lockdown :laughing: :laughing:
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
The difference between Newcastle and Fury is they avoided giving money to Con and Tinkler, but gave money to the Fury's owners in the first season before taking over the club entirely in the second season. The first time they took over Newcastle, they sold it a very short time later to Tinkler, the second time it was sold a season later to Lee. Now its not owned by the FFA but other club owners , the question is though how much money did any of those guys pay for it they might have received the license for free. MV of course got FFA money at the start , WSW were started by the FFA and sold at a massive profit. Adelaide were owned by the FFa for over a year, they never disclosed the sale price. Perth Glory was owned by the FFA for about six months. Phoenix was like Newcastle the first time. QLD gives the AFL free rent but charge a fortune for football thats the real problem.
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
The commentary team is not good. I quite like Simon Hill and Daniel McBreen passes, but the rest I find a bit hard to take, unprofessional, biased and honestly, unemployable anywhere else. The sideline and panel commentators are a step down again, other than Bruce Djite who we don't see enough of, he's one of our best assets. Few of them have any media qualifications and the broadcaster insults us in Brisbane by calling the game from the Sydney studios. I turn off any of the panel shows with giggling gert, who the blokey blokes talk all over. I think even the NRL panels are better and that's saying something. Having said that, the call team for the Roar v Phoenix match on Saturday was brilliant. Please keep them on.
Chopper
Roar Rookie
Every football club in the English Football League can get their match report up and into their web page for their fans within an hour of the end of the game. Some reports will even include the player ratings. To support Brisbane Roar from a distance (as I now do). information is two three or four days after the event. How much does it cost to employ a journo for a year? That should be a necessity for every ALM team.