The success of Magic Round in the NRL, Gather Round in the AFL and the glorious trip rugby league took to Las Vegas to kick off the 2024 season have proven one thing, events rounds are the go and the A-League Men need to be next on the bandwagon, or risk irrelevance.
The most logical destination is Europe, the spiritual home of football and a continent keenly aware of the mastery of the Australian players that have emanated from the land down under.
A fact-finding and feasibility trip undertaken by Harry Kewell, Tim Cahill, Mark Viduka and Stan Lazaridis should be the first step towards taking the A-League Men abroad in October 2024.
Once the nuts and bolts have been ironed out and the dates selected for the week-long jaunt, planning should become more detailed and the match-ups and stadia pencilled in for what could be an astonishing week in the history of Australian football.
Logic suggests the Round 2 fixture during the later weeks of October would be a perfect time for the league to ship off to the UK, with the Premier League underway and the weather still decent with average London temperatures of around 16 degrees.
Ten of the EPL clubs will be playing away from home that week, thus leaving their home venues up for lease and the clubs are almost certain to lap up the notion of high-quality Australian footballers entertaining English fans on the pristine surfaces.
Michael Ruhs of Western United. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
Whilst not wanting to give the organisers too much instruction on exactly how they should plan and out and structure the matches, a Monday night blockbuster between Western United and Perth Glory at Old Trafford might be a good place to start.
English folk are well versed in mid-week football and after a lay day, the Brisbane Roar could face off against Newcastle Jets on the Wednesday at St James Park in Newcastle.
Just imagine the Geordies out in full force and cheering on their namesake, all kitted out in the red and blue of the Australian club. The 52,000 capacity of the venue could well be challenged.
The following day, Adelaide United would be up against Macarthur FC at Anfield, in a match certain to have the home fans in raptures.
With cost of living pressures considerable in the UK, Liverpool fans could simply wear the home kit of their team and support the boys from Adelaide without anyone even knowing the difference.
Stories of English military man and early settler John Macarthur would circle through the stands as the Bulls rep the area with pride and the Kop end might well go bananas at the sight of Hiroshi Ibusuki heading home from close range.
The remaining three matches write themselves.
Etihad Stadium would host the Friday night Melbourne Derby between nominal home team Melbourne City and Tony Popovic’s Melbourne Victory.
Tottenham coach Ange Postecoglou could be paraded around the ground in an open-top car during the pre-game, firing up the home fans, as footage of his championship-winning team in Melbourne is broadcast on the stadium’s big screens.
Then, Postecoglou would return to a private box where he and Pep Guardiola would settle in for some classic derby action and banter, on either side of the ledger when it came to support.
Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou. (Photo by John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)
London Stadium is the obvious venue for a Sydney Derby to be played in front of a likely packed house. The West Ham Eastender crew would no doubt take the side of the working-class Wanderers in the battle and the sight of the red and black walking onto the playing surface amidst a swathe of bubbles would forever change the A-League.
The final match of the week-long ‘Festival of Football’, where have we heard that before? It would see the two best sides of the most recent season do battle at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham, in front of a capacity 12,600 people.
Little incentive would be required for Ryan Reynolds and the other guy to be in attendance, with the players on both teams hopeful of an expression of interest from the owners and a future spot in the Wrexham squad alongside goal-scoring freak ‘Super Paul Mullin’.
Just close your eyes and picture the fans, the Aussie flags littered around the stadiums, the millions of Brits watching on television and the billions flooding into the coffers of the APL.
If the last few seasons of team sport in Australia have taught us anything, it is that the event round – and particularly one abroad, is a winner by definition and something the APL should be planning and investing in for the 2024/25 season.
I have it all mapped out, yet don’t want to assume the APL has not already made plans for something similar.
Something tells me that a trip to the UK could be the shot in the arm the A-League needs.
Saffi
Roar Rookie
Worth a shot Stuart, my main concern is that, as has been the case for over ten years now, nobody will even know there are games being played! I’ll arrive at the AAMI gates wondering why they’re locked until I read a sign on the gates “ Due to scheduling changes the derby has been moved to England. We apologise for any inconvenience “
Grem
Roar Rookie
I would also love to see football articles and football analysis. They are rare, unfortunately.
Tigerinthetank
Roar Rookie
You know what, this is another article about the problems of A-Leagues, we hardly see that on the AFL part of the Roar but seems to be a focus of the football section. Instead how about we start focusing on the clubs, as they do in the AFL area, and the league can take care of itself. There's plenty of stories here; such as WSW continuing to fail despite purportedly a big club, City's massive fall from last few years and their inconsistency problems, Aloisi's coaching of WU, PG's parlous state and what can be done there, NJ continuing non-ownership, Sydney's renewal with Ufuk installed, and Popa's improvement with Victory etc etc. No one wants to know about the league, they want to know about their own clubs and what the 'experts' think and to debate their opinions.
Chris Lewis
Roar Guru
i liked the NSL and watching South Melbourne with my greek heritage mates.
Chris Lewis
Roar Guru
Magic rounds r crap. Sorry i has to express my opinion.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
No shared stadiums? Nice one, if you exclude Italy as a major football nation. The San Siro ,Milan, Inter Milan, then you have Roma, Lazio. Lets get onto just St James though and do you also realise Australia stole the concept from the Super League in England. They have Magic weekend in the UK and guess what it started in 2007. So far St James has hosted it 7 times not only another code but a magical unite round. England invented the idea, albeit they called it magic weekend not magic round so exclude them from major football nations. Then its gets stolen by Australia from England, then the AFL take it, then the NSW government gets the idea because of Melb City fans being such duds.
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
rugby league world cup in England played at a few EPL club venues, Anfield and Etihad from memory, but it's definitely not a regular occurrence. They do concerts too.
Oilboil
Roar Rookie
I get this post was satire, but pretending for one moment that it wasn't. It just wouldn't work, take the Carabao cup, even two EPL sides playing each other in that competition and entry tickets being 10 bucks they still don't get close to half filling a stadium. No chance we get anything like a full St James for two AUS teams that have never seen a crowd that big. Equally why do we persist with these awful unite rounds, we want to be taken seriously as a football competition yet no other major footballing nation would ever consider the idea, then again no other nation would share their stadium with another team or a different code (except in some of the lower leagues which we don't have)
Brendan
Roar Pro
Campbelltown Sports Stadium - The Old Trafford of Oz.
Jordan Sports Fan
Roar Rookie
Great response, you have changed my mind haha
338
Roar Rookie
Thats a pretty good description of my experience. Feels like talking to a bot.
Waz
Roar Rookie
I think the A League should be Australian sides only; no offence to Nix although I can accept their presence along with 1-2 others. The further international approach of say Singapore is folly. Theres multiple reasons for this: - Travel time is a killer on player development, too much time in airports/planes would be a huge issue. Sydney to Singapore is 12+ hours travel each way which would kill several days training. - The A League struggles to connect with football in Australia. International sides would make this worse. - Pro/Rel is a dream that must be kept alive, even just as a dream - it’s a connection to the rest of football. International sides, even NZ sides, dim that dream.
Football Fan
Roar Rookie
P+ technical support are the most incompetent team I've ever dealt with. They ignore your description of the issue and all the relevant info you provided when logging the support call then email you a generic set of questions where you have to repeat your info all over again. Even then they don't seem to read your response and just hope you give up and go away.
Jordan Sports Fan
Roar Rookie
You bring up Singapore quite regularly Waz (I know Sage was floating it for a minute 5-7 years back) and I’m interested in why you see a potential Singapore team as such a bad idea? Seems like given they play in Asia and Nix/AuckFC do not, Singapore in a way would make more sense? Let’s say that new owners secure a license for a Singapore team, put a strong side on the park and do all the right things off the park, what would be so bad about this? Football is slowly moving to a more multi-country league model. Attending an away day every now and then would be a great trip. This would be a bold move no doubt, but don’t really understand why this is so controversial? Genuine question I’m not trying to stir you. A Unite Round in Singapore would be lame because no one would go and it’d be a fail. If however AL was popular enough to pull it off successfully, I think it’d be great to hold it there. That is my position with Unite Round in any location really…
Lionheart
Roar Rookie
good luck Mariners, I'm hoping to sleep through this one
Guffaw
Roar Rookie
It was satire mate. Not sure your response is though...
Mick
Roar Rookie
The problem with these events rounds is that no one thinks of the supporters of the clubs. Supporters who go to every home game, win or lose. Then all of a sudden they remove a home game from you and take it to a place you cant afford to go to. These are the people who without them clubs would fold and yet they are treated like crap in these situations. Plus are these event rounds that much of a success? I am sure there would be bigger crowds if the games were played at their normal venues. To me these are just a marketing cash grab and screw the public.
Midfielder
Roar Guru
10play link to tonights game... starts at 10:00 https://10play.com.au/afc-cup/articles/afc-cup-fixtures/tpa230830lzpkh
Football is Life
Roar Rookie
This is a sterling idea. The first question I have is, would the Poms see Australian football as inferior, turn their noses up and just not attend? As I have argued over the last few days, for a lot of “football supporters” that moniker means that they watch EPL. For others, the aforementioned moniker means being able to look at football and see emerging youth, national idiosyncrasies, structures, weaknesses, coaching traits, football philosophies etc. The latter follow and support their team regardless of weather, ladder position etc. (Kudos to WU Supporters for turning up to Tarneit on a Tuesday night) Ideally we would hope that there would be genuine interest in a round of A-League being played there. But the second question is can we use football as a bridge. We would need to get personnel from Academies, from football associations there, I mean how many Poms would know that there are over 80,000 grasssroots footballers in Northern NSW Federation alone. To do that we’d need corporate, business and even government involvement. During the Asian Cup here football was used for Diplomacy, Trade and cultural ties, so why not do it again. i am sure the Poms would really appreciate Australian Winemakers who have contributed to sponsoring the venture to rock up and promote their produce. This could be a valuable venture, but we need the right people to plan, promote, and seek government, corporate and business interest as much as we need to put our youth in the shop window. Additionally, would not limit the venture to England. I have a fiver that Scots would be all over it. An opportunity to buy young Australian talent before the Poms get to them.
Brendan
Roar Pro
I enjoyed the article. Nothing wrong with playing the devil’s advocate. I’m open to all opinions.