A-League Season 5: Now Including God
The fifth season of the A-League looks set to be the best yet with new teams, exciting players and a sense of anticipation that there might even be some quality football on show.
With the A-League, Version 5.0 just a week away it’s time to see the state of play in Australia’s top flight. For the first time since the A-league began new teams have been added to the narrow field of endeavour, Gold Coast United and The North Queensland Fury, the latter garnering most of the headlines with their spectacular capture of marquee signing, and one time God, Robbie Fowler.
As well as lengthening the season by six games for each side (all teams play each other three times), the new Queensland teams have forced the Queensland Roar to change their name to the Brisbane Roar. Why they didn’t use the opportunity when filling in the paperwork to drop the Roar too is beyond my purview, but possible match-up combinations now include; Mariners Fury, Phoenix Jets (admittedly quite cool) and Victory Roar at the top left of the screen.
Wheeling and dealing has abounded in filling up the two new franchises but with talent streaming in and out of Australia more than ever, every team is coming in to this season with a different feel and look, and, with at least an extra six games each this season, fitness is going to be a telling, maybe a deciding factor. In the first four A-league seasons we’ve had three different premier and grand final champions, only Melbourne repeating either feat. Predictions are bound to be futile.
Other than Fowler signing of the summer may well be Perth Glory’sMile Sterjovski from Derby County.It’s rare to see Premier quality players in the antipodes, and it’s fairly clear from last season that Derby were not premiership quality, but with Andy Todd joining him, as well as Chris Coyne from Colchester and Branko Jelic from Energie Cottbus, who were relegated from the Bundesliga last season, Perth are looking strong contenders for the final series, and maybe one of the major prizes.
Adelaide United obviously thought they’d done a good bit of business having snagged another Colchester boy Lloyd Owusu as a replacement for the retired Paul Agostino and there was a sense that should he prove a suitable foil for the Brazilian Cristiano, they could build up a bit of an understanding. But then Owusu got swine flu and is out till round four at least. Coach Aurelio Vidmar sounded relatively unconcerned about the flu that’s slowly destroying the world as we know it when he calmly stated
“We’re going to be really cautious with him and if it takes us six, seven, eight weeks then that’s how it is.”
Without a marquee player, Adelaide may find themselves pinning a lot of hope on a man who’s career goals to games rations is a little more than one in 3, and scratching around to find goals from elsewhere.
Having progressively got worse in almost every way, year on year since the A-league began, Sydney FC start version five with yet another new coach, Vitezslav Lavicka, who’s looking to instil a new culture in the club.
“I have three parts to my coaching philosophy,” he said. “Discipline and respect, motivation to improve and team unity. Also we must enjoy playing and the work. We must be together for the success.”
That’s the problem with starting a sentence with ‘I have three parts’ when you haven’t thought it out first. Hopefully Sydney can look like they care this season and who knows, maybe John Aloisi will start looking like the star signing he purportedly is, hopefully helped by the undeniable talent of former Sparta Prague man Karol Kisel who’s followed his former coach south.
Sacked former Sydney manager, Branko Culina, meanwhile has taken up the coaching reins once again having been appointed in charge of the Newcastle Jets whilst his son Jason lines up for Gold Coast United following his time with PSV Eindhoven. Tipped generally as the best, most in prime, great player the A-League has ever seen, not a huge challenge to live up to, the battle of the Culina’s proper won’t happen till round four when Jason gets the chance to try his luck against what was a shaky back line for Newcastle last term, bolstered this season by Ljubo Milicevic, who’s year off from football (no, seriously, he took a year off) seems to have changed the man.
“I think for the first time in my career,” he said in an interview, “my heart and my head are going in the same direction and I think for the first time in my life, people are going to see me play at a level that they haven’t seen before.”
Presumably his manager Is just hoping he doesn’t take another sabbatical.
Meanwhile, over at Gold Coast United, Jason is facing up to the prospect of playing under Australia’s closest thing to a sugar daddy. Whilst salary caps and other restrictions mean that huge spending is not really an option, United chairman Clive Palmer is helping in other ways, promising to fly his team to and from matches in a luxurious private jet. A controversial figure, he’s already complained about the state of the pitches, accused the FFA of ‘lacking respect’ for the people of the Gold Coast, aimed to go the whole season unbeaten whilst winning the title and offered Roar supporters a 25% discount to switch allegiance. A colourful character, it remains to be seen whether his team can make a splash on the field with the former Juventus (on loan) keeper Jess Vanstrattan coming out before a ball’s been kicked in anger to inject a touch of pedestrian realism.
“We have to be realistic. We’re a new team and we haven’t played together.”
Melbourne Victory meanwhile, as title holders, are obvious favourites to lead the race early on having a virtually unchanged team, but their last post-championship season saw them fall out of the final series entirely. It would be a surprise if that happened again, but should hit men Archie Thompson or Danny Allsopp get injured there is a lack of quality depth. Kevin Muscat must surely be the most hated man in the A-League ( and let’s never forget the words of Ian Wright regards Muscat: He is a nobody. He knows it, I realise it and a hell of a lot of other people think it.”) but within this league, and this team, Muscat’s without a doubt a force to be reckoned with. The danger is that this could be the year when age catches up with the thirty six year old.
No report on the A-league, Australia’s top flight of football, would be complete without a mention of New Zealand team Wellington Phoenix who had been providing the comic relief in the league before last season finishing a surprising third last. Whether they can repeat that will be questionable, having lost goal-scoring ace Shane Smeltz and replaced him with Paul Ifill, who’s going to have to improve his career strike rate of a goal every six games if he’s to be any use, although playing up front will no doubt help that.
With more teams to be added next year, this is going to be something of a transitional season for the A-league with more grounds to fill, players to pay and matches to watch but it looks set to be the most exciting yet with high profile signings who could either triumph ecstatically or flop disastrously, in either case fascinating for the observers. Melbourne kick off the season against the Central Coast Mariners on the 6th August and Lawrie McKinna’s men will be hoping to finally win their first match of 2009. With Adam Kwasnik back to lead the line up front and Michael McGlincey, who never quite made the grade at Celtic, to sure up the midfield, it’s looking a tough prospect for the Mariners who’ll have to be hoping that Melbourne have a rare off day at home.
Also in round one, Adelaide take on Perth; North Queensland, with six ex-Sydney FC players on their books will be taking on the very same in Queensland; Brisbane will be hosting Gold Coast and Newcastle will be looking to start things up with all three points as Wellington come to town. It’s too early days for results to really matter, but everyone will be looking at the likes of Fowler and Culina to really make their mark from the outset and prove that their expensive additions to the league are worthwhile, and bring in the crowds, since last season was the first that saw a drop in attendances across the board, a state of affairs that would be perilous if repeated in what should be a burgeoning league.
Thanks for that Adoni – we’re starting to here a lot about MLS but it’s nice to finally hear about the A-League.
A question: What impact does/will Robbie Fowler have on the league – is this the equivelent of Beckham to MLS?
Also, except for teams from New Zealand – which, if any, teams would be invited to play in this league?
A question: What impact does/will Robbie Fowler have on the league – is this the equivelent of Beckham to MLS?
No, although the anticipation of more spectators has left some of the fixtures as Venue TBC in case of huge interest. Having Fowler will bring in more supporters but with so many competing codes here they’ll also have to be some good football on offer. That’s why Jason Culina is probably a bigger coup, because he’s a big name, still wihtin his prime and should help to serve up a quality spectacle.
That said, I’d be surpised if Liverpool supporters round the land didn’t make an effort to get a glimpse of Fowler when the Fury rock up to their nearest stadium.
Adoni great one. Good to know a little abaout other leagues. In past years I heard about some brazilians playing there, Juninho for Sydney I think and Jardel also played there. Do you have any idea if that became usual for the A-League clubs, to get south americans for their style of play or it was a one time thing?