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It’s tempting to imagine a feel-good scenario where the Socceroos run out in front of a full house in Parramatta in a few weeks and Nestory Irankunda makes his debut off the bench.
Irankunda is the talk of the A-League after he came off the bench and scored his second goal in two weeks – and third in five games – in Adelaide United’s thrilling 4-2 win over league leaders Melbourne City on Friday night.
More than 10,000 fans turned out at Coopers Stadium to watch an exhilarating affair, as the Reds came from behind in a victory sealed by Irankunda’s thrilling goal on the break.
“You could call it a tap-in,” exclaimed the likeable 17-year-old, who is making a habit of scoring spectacular goals off the bench.
It’s not a question of if, but when Irankunda is called up by the Socceroos – not least because he’s still technically eligible to represent African nations Tanzania and Burundi at full international level.
But if the A-League has taught us anything over the past few seasons, it’s that as fans we have a habit of getting unreasonably excited about young talents before they’ve even had time to get their boots dirty.
Irankunda will get his chance in a green and gold jersey, but it would be nice to see the teenager really step up and make his mark on Carl Veart’s battle-hardened Reds side.
Nestory Irankunda of Adelaide United. (Photo by Sarah Reed/Getty Images)
And in the meantime, Adelaide United will set their sights on a top two finish as they look to reel in Marko Rudan’s similarly gritty Western Sydney Wanderers.
If you only watched certain fixtures in the A-League – and the Wanderers put Marcelo’s shock second-half send-off behind them to down the Central Coast Mariners 2-0 on Saturday – you’d get the impression the league was humming away nicely.
Adelaide continue to draw decent crowds at home, Western Sydney’s form under Rudan is a welcome resurgence, while Wellington Phoenix continue to fly under the radar despite the fact Ufuk Talay is clearly one of the best coaches in the competition.
But looking at half the fixtures each round only tells half the story, and as is so often the case with the A-League, every step forward is routinely accompanied by countless steps back.
The image the Australian Professional Leagues elected to broadcast to the television-watching public on Sunday afternoon – a day when the NRL’s newest club the Dolphins made their triumphant debut, while the Sydney Kings fought back to level the NBL’s championship series in Auckland – was one of empty seats.
When Macarthur downed Brisbane Roar 3-2 in a thriller in Campbelltown, they did so against the backdrop of thousands upon thousands of unoccupied seats.
Is there anyone, anywhere who thinks kicking off an A-League game at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of a Sydney summer is a sensible idea?
Are there really so many viewers tuning into this timeslot on Network 10 and Paramount+ that it can’t be shifted to 5pm?
It all adds to the sense the APL is in charge in name only, given how incapable they seem of instituting any changes that actually benefit the competition.
Which is an interesting predicament, now that anywhere between 23 to 30 clubs are said to have submitted Expressions of Interest to join Football Australia’s National Second Division.
The NSD has understandably generated plenty of interest, but what hasn’t been much discussed is the fact that, without immediate promotion and relegation to the top tier, it looks very much like a rival competition to the A-League – run by a competing faction.
There’s no guarantee a second division won’t prove more popular than the A-League it’s designed to complement.
In the meantime, the APL had better hope for more spectacular goals from the likes of Irankunda.
Because there’s no point Macarthur and Brisbane Roar playing out a five-goal thriller on Sunday afternoon if no one’s watching.
Maybe the APL think it’s okay just to let this season slip away, but they could soon have a rival competition snapping at their heels.