It’s been a while since I arrived at this, my football fiction blog. I blame the PhD. An irony maybe; it was the PhD which led to the blog’s Christopher Nolan style Inception.
Before I get back into the football fiction, I want to flag the Roar’s momentous win last weekend. While not my favoured club, they are my local team. I will never, not ever, be part of their fan club, perhaps naively, named the Orange Army, but I am a fan of their football.
Under the guidance of the hugely talented Coach Ange Postecoglou, this team of youngsters and journeymen play scintillating, sharp-passing football. They’ve been doing it for close to two seasons, which is maybe why they are so good at it. Better still they will continue to do so. Their crisp, fluid, often one-touch, attacking game echoes the Spanish national side’s stylish football. They play till the final whistle (seriously) and are always looking to score goals regardless of whether they’re five in front or one behind. Probably why match attendances often rival and surpass those of the ‘established’ Australian ‘football’ codes.
A run of 36 games without a loss, means the Roar have broken the previous Australian professional sports team defeat-free run. A fuckin mouthful, isn’t it? Notions of the previous record are equally hard to swallow though. Held by Eastern Suburbs, a Sydney based rugby league team in 1937 (or something like it – I care little for precision in the details) the record was based on a mix of draws, far more prevalent in pre-War League matches, and wins. So there need not be criticism of the Roar’s run in terms of its make-up. They have not been beaten.
The run benefits more than the team or the history books. The Roar, their coach and the player’s collective efforts, have raised the sport’s still remarkably relatively fledgling status in a country where some people still call football soccer. In stretching their opponents, they have forced a reach for a higher standard in the game. Melbourne and Sydney’s signing of players like Kewell and Emerton respectively (despite the decline in the quality of their individual game) speaks to the desire to improve. This of course benefits the most important people, those paying to watch.
The A-League is at last worth watching for its quality and not out of an obligation to support the local game. It’s great to watch and the punters are getting value for money. That’s more than can be said for at least half the Leagues in Europe.
