A-League thread

[mightytiges]

Ramps is a sucker for punishment with two ninths in one year .

[one-eyed]

1st leg last night

Gamba Osaka  3
Adelaide Utd   0

Adelaide lost 0-2 tonight at home to go down 0-5 on aggregate.

[one-eyed]

Victory six points clear on top

Melbourne Victory   2      Pondeljak 37', Thompson 60'
Central Coast         1       


http://www.a-league.com.au/Scoreboard_HAL/0000290049/scoreboard.html

[mightytiges]

I can see the joy on Ramps face from here 

[Ramps]

I can see the joy on Ramps face from here 

Yeah Im jumping for joy lol ... what a farce, blokes who couldnt get a game in the old NSL are now portrayed as stars in the A League. An absolutely farcical situation. The Victory are the worst side ever to come out of Victoria, they are worse than what Mooroolbark were in 1977, infact if the old Inter Monaro were in the league, theyd probably give the current rabble that are the Victory a decent going over. JUST FARCICAL!

Australian Soccer needs to be saved, it needs 

Its going nowhere. Where are the new Mark Vidukas, where are the new Paul Trimboli's, where are the new Milan Ivanovich's ... its just a farce!

[mightytiges]

I can see the joy on Ramps face from here 

Yeah Im jumping for joy lol ... what a farce, blokes who couldnt get a game in the old NSL are now portrayed as stars in the A League. An absolutely farcical situation. The Victory are the worst side ever to come out of Victoria, they are worse than what Mooroolbark were in 1977, infact if the old Inter Monaro were in the league, theyd probably give the current rabble that are the Victory a decent going over. JUST FARCICAL!

Australian Soccer needs to be saved, it needs 

Its going nowhere. Where are the new Mark Vidukas, where are the new Paul Trimboli's, where are the new Milan Ivanovich's ... its just a farce!

LOL they weren't playing in the old NSL because they were playing in better leagues overseas. No one played in the NSL by choice lol and those who were any good left for Europe as soon as they could.

As for Aussie soccer - back to back World Cup finals here we come . Under the old NSL and SA we never made it to a WC.

[one-eyed]

Melbourne lost to Perth tonight

Perth      3
Victory   1

[Bene Boy]

 no archie t no victory  perth full of confidence at start and result on the board

[Ramps]

I can see the joy on Ramps face from here 

Yeah Im jumping for joy lol ... what a farce, blokes who couldnt get a game in the old NSL are now portrayed as stars in the A League. An absolutely farcical situation. The Victory are the worst side ever to come out of Victoria, they are worse than what Mooroolbark were in 1977, infact if the old Inter Monaro were in the league, theyd probably give the current rabble that are the Victory a decent going over. JUST FARCICAL!

Australian Soccer needs to be saved, it needs 

Its going nowhere. Where are the new Mark Vidukas, where are the new Paul Trimboli's, where are the new Milan Ivanovich's ... its just a farce!

LOL they weren't playing in the old NSL because they were playing in better leagues overseas. No one played in the NSL by choice lol and those who were any good left for Europe as soon as they could.

As for Aussie soccer - back to back World Cup finals here we come . Under the old NSL and SA we never made it to a WC.

MT ... newsflash champ... Viduka played NSL with the Knights ... he was here for several seasons before he left, Trimboli played 99% of his career at South, an absolute star who stayed home coz he had a good job, hes now running Marketing for Puma I believe and he was extremely well paid by South. Ivanovic played for Adelaide City, probably the best sweeper Australia ever had although he came from Serbia ... anyway, I understand, you blokes dont really know about the great players of the NSL, all the guys I named + dozens of others like Branko Bujevic, Peter Sharne who was a star with Marconi, Joe Watson a star with Sydney City, Oscar Crino etc etc etc. You blokes missed out on great players in the league ..

PS- Ive noted the crowds over the last few weeks, looks like the appeal is starting to wear of Gents, down in the 6000- 8000 for most games now ... and we are only in the 4th season. Dear oh Dear!

[mightytiges]

I can see the joy on Ramps face from here 

Yeah Im jumping for joy lol ... what a farce, blokes who couldnt get a game in the old NSL are now portrayed as stars in the A League. An absolutely farcical situation. The Victory are the worst side ever to come out of Victoria, they are worse than what Mooroolbark were in 1977, infact if the old Inter Monaro were in the league, theyd probably give the current rabble that are the Victory a decent going over. JUST FARCICAL!

Australian Soccer needs to be saved, it needs 

Its going nowhere. Where are the new Mark Vidukas, where are the new Paul Trimboli's, where are the new Milan Ivanovich's ... its just a farce!

LOL they weren't playing in the old NSL because they were playing in better leagues overseas. No one played in the NSL by choice lol and those who were any good left for Europe as soon as they could.

As for Aussie soccer - back to back World Cup finals here we come . Under the old NSL and SA we never made it to a WC.

MT ... newsflash champ... Viduka played NSL with the Knights ... he was here for several seasons before he left, Trimboli played 99% of his career at South, an absolute star who stayed home coz he had a good job, hes now running Marketing for Puma I believe and he was extremely well paid by South. Ivanovic played for Adelaide City, probably the best sweeper Australia ever had although he came from Serbia ... anyway, I understand, you blokes dont really know about the great players of the NSL, all the guys I named + dozens of others like Branko Bujevic, Peter Sharne who was a star with Marconi, Joe Watson a star with Sydney City, Oscar Crino etc etc etc. You blokes missed out on great players in the league ..

PS- Ive noted the crowds over the last few weeks, looks like the appeal is starting to wear of Gents, down in the 6000- 8000 for most games now ... and we are only in the 4th season. Dear oh Dear!

Viduka only played 2-3 years in NSL as a teenager before heading OS to Croatia Zagreb. Likewise Schwarzer with Marconi, Bresciano and Grella at Carlton, Emerton at Sydney Olympic. LOL Scott McDonald was 14 at Morwell. Kewell, Cahill and Neill never played in the NSL. By the time they were 20 they were all playing in Europe. Milan Ivanovic was in his 30s at Adelaide City btw. Ramps you make out the NSL was like the EPL  in an era where New Zealand was still classed as a hard opponent for Australian soccer lol. Btw the NSL would have killed for 6000-8000 crowds lol. It didn't go broke for nothing . The Victory are still getting crowds the size any old NSL club couldn't even dream of  .

[Hellenic Tiger]

MT we are lucky we qualify through Asia for the world cup and our passage is virtually assured as it took a tense penalty shootout against Uruguay last time. A bona fide hard opponent as a 5th place Sth American side like a Colombia Uruguay Chile Ecuador is alot harder than Qatar or Bahrain away in a group of 5 where top two are assured. If the Standard of the Aleague as people put it is so high why don't A Leaguers cement their socceroo places game in game out. Unfortunantely qualifying for the world cup through a much easier passage masks a more tragic problem in terms of poor skill at the highest level in this country and dwindling attendances. We will qualify again for the World Cup which is good but the A League has nothing to do with it. Hence when the WC team will be announced in 2010 you'd be lucky to get 3 or 4 players who ply their trade in Australia in the squad. On par the Double Championship winning team of Sth Melbourne in 98/99 would easily beat any A League team that is currently playing and they had a more clean and crisp playing style.

I am not a Sth fan I support Heidelberg but I am a football fan and the NSL football of the mid to late 90's skill wise and technically far outweighs the haphazard sloppy untechnical play we see on a weekly basis in the A League. What your saying MT that we qualified twice for the WC whilst the A League has been in place is equivalent to saying Richmond will win the flag next year if all clubs forfeit the season bar Melbourne. Although it is nice and I'll take it, it does leave you hollow slightly.

Hence in Asia we find teams like Saudi Arabia, Japan, Iran, Sth Korea make world cup after world cup and never get to the 2nd round unless drawn favourably or a host nation as the Koreans were in 2002. Nice to get there but when the standard is low against world class teams they struggle. A socceroo team exclusively with a league players would lose minimum 5-0 to Argentina in Buenos Aires an NSL team went there and were unlucky to lose 1-0 in 1993 with Maradona Battistuta Balbo etc. Give me the NSL standard any day. Soccer in this country did not begin in 2005.

[Ramps]

South Melbourne regularly got 8000 people to games, 8000 people is no big deal. I still say and I stand behind this 100% the players of the NSL were far better than the current A League, the great teams of the NSL like South, Knights, Marconi, Adelaide City would eat these A League clubs for breakfast lunch and tea. And whilst this pains me to say this but I say it for the sake of HT, the Heidelberg teams of the 70s early 80s that included players like Gary Cole and co. they would have crapped on these current A League clubs - And Heidelberg never managed to win a championship, they came runners up. Im sorry MT, but the false facade of the A League is starting to crumble, the people are going to games in lesser numbers, and the much anticipated expansion is going to quicken the process. More teams means the already diabolical standards will reach epidemically diabolical standards. Crowds are on the decline. Only Victory is holding up the comp, the rest are in trouble imho.

[mightytiges]

Disagree we are lucky because we are now in Asia. It makes sense to be in a confederation with some competition for places and playing regular international matches rather than smacking a couple of pacific island nations 30-0 as warm-ups to home/away knockout games against a top 5 South American country. Half the European nations are walkovers in UEFA. You don't see European nations needing to play knockout games against top 5 South American countries as the only pathway to the WC  It was a joke of a qualification path and Oceania is a joke of a confederation. It should be scrapped and made part of the AFC. Being part of the AFC gives the Socceroos regular competitive games not just against other Asian countries but also against power soccer nations during the international weeks on the FIFA calendar. The Socceroos recently played Holland and Argentina is visiting Oz in the middle of next year. Being in the WC gives us credibility and we no longer have to beg. The majority of Socceroos are based in top European leagues so being part of the AFC doesn't lower our standard IMO.

You can't seriously compare how the game is run now under the FFA and the A-league to the financial and administrative basketcase that was Soccer Australia and the NSL. Sure the NSL had some good games in its time (and the ethnic food at local venues was tasty   ) but so did the NBL. The NSL ended up in the sorry state the NBL is in now. Nostalgia doesn't take away the fact that the NSL died as a competition and Perth Glory who were the strongest club in the NSL's final few years have been the weakest side in the 4 years of A-league. I'm not saying the A-league is some super league. It's probably on par with League One (3rd division) in England at best. But it is superior to the old NSL.

[Ramps]

In the NSL - Perth Glory used to get 17000 to home games, now they get 4000 to games in the A League... anyone wanna analyse this situation?

[Bene Boy]

 they used to win then  had a very charasmatic coach and played great entertaining football