EPL has become become a farmers league in recent years. Would have been amazing to see Coventry win it.

I didn’t see the game but watched the six minute highlights on Youtube of Adelaide’s 4-2 win over Perth.

Some fantastic goals scored. Irankunda didn’t score, but he genuinely excited me with the two assists he had showing a side of his game that hasn’t been as apparent due to his propensity to score screamers. And if you want entertainment (with a touch of comedy), Perth almost scoring in injury time at the end of the six minute highlights is peak A-League!

Terrible dive by Cancar (the kind of dive that gives anti-sokkah lovers a leg up), but by that stage were already 2-0 down. And notwithstanding the terrible dive, Robert Mak for all his experience got to be better than that.

Western United is interesting.

On the tv you can see lots of vacant land all around the ground, but if you look on google maps at where they played on saturday, you can see the urban sprawl almost on its doorstep and how the vast majority of that urban sprawl has come in the last 5 years. Within 10 years all of that vacant land that surrounds Western United’s own purpose built facilities will be built upon and/or being developed into residential developments.

There has been many many missteps along the way with delays etc, but if they can be in their own stadium in approx 2-2.5 years combined with the rapid growth of the Tarneit area, they really have the opportunity – if they get it right – to be an excellent community club a la CCM.

I don’t know how given other clubs seemingly don’t have this option? Plus they are virtually out of the finals race. Maybe TSS can enlighten us…
It is a head-scratcher, but the article doesn’t contain any quote as to why this is the case. Intuitively it would appear to be a good tournament for him to play in.

At the risk of being called a football Grinch, whilst it was great to see Josh Nisbet get a run, I’m not too sure he did enough to warrant another call-up (noting that he was an injury replacement to start with).

Take a bow Craig Goodwin – one of the great individual performances in recent times from a Socceroos. His interview after game didn’t exactly make it sound like he is loving life with his family in Saudi Arabia (shock). I’d really love to see him a get a chance at one of the bigger leagues in Europe. St Pauli seem to like Aussies – maybe if they get promoted…? Even France or Netherlands. He’s a different player now to when he was at Sparta Rotterdam.

Of those who came on i liked the look of Yazbek and Iredale albeit against a wilting Lebanon team. Love the emotion you could see in Iredale when he scored. I also liked the enthusiasm and willingness of Yengi who you could see in the first half trying to make runs in behind a very tightly packed defence (six across back at times).

We are qualified for next round now. 7 goals and zero conceded in two most recent games. Good overall and on target. Is there any chance we could sneak into top 3 for final round? If not there is more room for experimentation in June window. Hopefully some more game time for those guys I mention above. Love to see Circati get a run too – if just to tie him up to us! Happy to see Tommy Deng get a run last night too – always liked him as a player. But we need to find some options at LB and RB….

Dogs only won their first game (and easily) on Saturday but their effort has been their in all three games and can’t be faulted (execution questioned, but not effort), so a little surprised you have the woeful and winless Rabbitohs above dogs.

What a game yesterday – Parra v Manly. Rugby league at its best is hard to beat. But yeah agree it just seemed like Manly didn’t have the grunt to match Parra, but credit to Manly for going so close. And a concern for Parra too that even when on top in 2nd half they didn’t put them away.

Another who has not gone on……still only 26.

Your last sentence pretty much sums Arnie and this team up.

TSS – you didn’t actually answer Chris1’s question….?

As BigDave says below the reason for late arrivals was huge queues outside. We made kick off but missed anthems.

And I know lots will complain about Sydney hosting yet another match but if there was ever a reason for Sydney to host a match or was last night due to Sydney’s huge Lebanese diaspora who turned out in decent numbers.

Was sitting in upper deck about 10 rows back behind goal at end Baccus scored at. The view is so good – and these are the cheapest seats – that it makes you wonder why anybody would buy the more expensive tickets.

Strange game. Seemed like Lebanon were playing for a draw even when 2-0 behind with all the theatrics. Ref was terrible in managing this. The afc refs have been better in recent years re gamesmanship but the ref tonight let the Lebanese lying around, it reminded me of our early days in AFC.

Lebanon played some ok stuff at times – especially towards the end when I thought they’d be saving their energy for Tuesday. I’m hoping given we have 4 full days before next game In Canberra we see a better performance down there but we won’t play a team like Lebanon off the park due to them sitting so deep and us not having the cattle to do so. That’s our reality.

Was there tonight. Great venue to watch a game and a generally good atmosphere but gee this ground is not kind to our players with injuries to McGree, Bos and Souttar a couple of years back. Hopefully nothing to serious for Riley and Jordan….

Anyway another win and another step closer to next round.

Its a tough group – but so are all the groups when you’ve only got 12 nations.

What concerns me is that whilst all teams are hard to beat, Germany and USA are highly motivated coming off terrible (by their standards) World Cups. A win and a draw (like last time) will be enough. to go through. Unlikely but maybe a win only will be enough so long as we don’t get flogged in two losses. I feel as a minimum tho we have to get a win and a draw. Once you are in the quarters tho anything can happen….

Interesting the comments on Circati as I had been wondering what was going on there. Circati didn’t play last week for the first time in ages. Wonder if this whole conversation had anything to do with it.

If the logic of “Opening Round” relates to the NRL and Vegas then the AFL has seemingly ignored or overlooked the fact there were six other NRL games played from thursday to sunday last weekend so not sure that AFL has got a free hit by any means.
For those 8 teams who did play, I think this means they get an extra bye over the next month or two? If so that’s a big advantage even if its coming in round 3, 4 or 5. Who wants a bye prior to Round 1?

I didn’t really have a problem with the red upgrade. No malice but still a poor challenge that invites trouble. The kid will learn.
Speaking of that, its great to see Sydney finally showing confidence in some of its youngsters playing – and impressing. Sydney has (rightfully) copped flak in the past for not giving much game time to their youngsters but Ufuk Talay has certainly set about changing that.
Credit to Brisbane in yesterday’s game who even before Sydney went down to 11 were playing well and arguably had the better chances.
Are we a development league? Of course we are, but essentially every league is a development league. The bigger issue for us is to get more savvy at the negotiating table on transfers. I still don’t think we are getting bang for buck with some of the transfers to Europe that have occurred in last couple of years.
As for crowds, I’m tired of the topic of crowds. Sydney are mentioned in Mike’s article but we have been drawing pretty well this season so I’m not too concerned if yesterday’s was down a bit. Mind you I was at the Sydney FC women’s match at Leichhardt on saturday night against Western United. Great night with a buzzy crowd of 5,000 in attendance I reckon. So its not all bad….

Interesting comments TSS. Seems the kid has some growing up to do, but that is absolutely to be expected as he is only 18. It would be hard in some respects to maintain the same level of intensity and commitment for this season you know you are off to one of the biggest clubs in the world. Hopefully the move to the other side of the world will hope put distance between him and the ‘noise’ in his personal life that you allude to.

All of that sad, he’s still scored some absolute bangers this season.

But was that the rbb or idiots purporting to be rbb? Can’t remember who Sydney’s opponent was at Leichhardt that day but it wasn’t WSW.

I generally agree with Buddy’s comments on RBB being a better group in recent years than the victim mentality/we’re bigger than the club mindset that existed in years gone by. As I also said above though, I still reserve judgement on what happened on Saturday night until we know more. It’s bizarre the lack of clear info available on what occurred.

I’m not terribly forgiving of RBB or likely to give them the benefit of the doubt given past indiscretions but I’m not convicting them just yet because nobody has been able to provide any real info as to what happened and why. It’s all very unclear with lots of rumours.
My only comment was that I was surprised at the volume of police there on Saturday night. It seemed like way more than usual (even for a Sydney derby).
Separately the video of police pushing and shoving what looked like a bunch of year 10 kids in the Brisbane Roar march looked very bad on the police. Maybe one or two kids were being a bit lippy/stupid but it seemed like the police were very highly strung and looking for something.
Anyway, go Sydney FC! Lol

Not looking good for Spencer…..stupid and inexcusable act based on available info. Him Describing it as “banter on the field” whilst not an explicit admission is hardly a water tight defence.

This is a slur historically used by whites to non-whites. As such you’ll get a bunch of bogans saying that it’s ok for Leniu to say something like this because Leniu is also non-white. However Leniu has no right to be the arbiter of what is/isn’t acceptable racial based language to a person who is also non-white.

Finally the clip embedded in this article of Danny weidler asking Spencer Leniu about the allegation is disgraceful. Weidler is standing there asking Leniu a very serious question and Weidler is standing there smirking/smiling like he’s asking Leniu which casino in Vegas he’s going to hit up after the game. Deplorable journalism.

I have been to 4 of them Brett and the on field contest is great (I’m also a league fan by the way) but atmosphere at the game is nothing like what football produces and is much like what punter says “Queenslander, Queenslander, Queenslander…”repeated 1,000 times….

Agree with you that RBB has had problems in years gone by but they seem to have been relatively trouble free in last 2 or 3 seasons which is why the walkout surprised me. But as I also say above I don’t know what happened and nobody seems to really know what happened so its hard to land on a position re who may be at fault etc.
When you say “some in the active supporters ARE trying to replicate the bad parts of active support” what actual actions do you mean?

I saw first hand the RBB walkout on sat night, but what caused the walkout last night in Brisbane?
I’ve historically thought the RBB had a bit of a victim mentality and not taking responsibility for own actions- but in recent couple of seasons they seem to have been pretty good so it was a surprise (and disappointing) when the walkout occurred on sat night.
It still seems to be very muddy as to what happened. I’ve heard police stopped and refused entry to about 20 or 30 RBB members who were bringing back the tifo – if so that’s nanny state over policing and unnecessary. I also heard the walkout was due to one “senior leader” being removed and/or arrested. If so that’s a bit of an over reaction on rbb part even if that ejection was warranted/unwarranted.
Anyway – Rudan might be the only one pleased with the walkout because it deflects attention from his team’s abomination of a performance.