i know why they play in europe, but at the end of the day israel geographically is not located in europe – so it shouldnt play on that continent.

i would have no issue with israel playing under the asian confederation (some of the other middle eastern countries might though haha)

Same principle with Russia, whilst they are based in europe – should they actually play in the asian confederaion? (i mean uzbekistan is only 3000 miles away and they play in asia)

I know people wont like that, but is it not the similar as australia playing in asia? (the closest asian country to australia is indonesia which is a also around 3000 miles away)

Australia should technically be playing in Oceania as that is still an active confederation, however in the future i believe that oceania will combine with asia to form a split east/west asian conference.

its similar to players changing nationalities.

eg a player who was not born in a country, cannot speak the language, never visited and played all their youth football up to under 21s for a different country’s national team – should they really be allowed to change nationality?

little bit of revionist history perhaps?

yellow cards were 1 a piece – adelaide did commit 6 more fouls, 9 more tackles and had 5 more interceptions of the ball (but i would hardly class that as a ‘dirty match’

very different to the match friday night with the 2 uniteds.

western united had almost 3x the number of fouls compared to adelaide, double the number of yellow cards – whilst adelaide had only 1 more tackle

its a good debate to have.

since all the 4 remaining clubs have money (so a club with money will win again), that means since the a leagues inception – 15 out of the 20 trophies have been won by clubs who have money.

so small clubs make up 25% of entire trophies in the aleague (mariners x3, newcastle x1 ,adelaide x1)

i think you’re right in that; it is a high proportion compared to other professional football leagues in the world.

you can pick any continent on the world, doesnt matter if its europe, africa, north/south america asia etc- everyone loves a plucky football underdog that should have no right challenging for titles/cups

adelaide absolutely deserved to play finals – top 2 until late january, didnt lose to the #1 side all season and finished in the top 3 of the majority of league wide attacking metrics

the salary capped league where multiple sides have broken the cap several times over? (sydney, victory, city, wanderers)

perth is just the only club to get officially get caught, the 4 clubs i mentioned above have all broken the cap in the past 20 years.

exceptionally gifted player, but he is also the definition of a ‘luxury player’ – especially if he is played at international level currently under poppa.

Nic’s the sort of player you could build a side around though, with certain caveats.

eg whether you play him as a #10 or an #11 – you will need some athlethic CM’s or full backs to run for him.

It’s also crucial that you get the right coach as well, Nic has been known to not be the best trainer and can be a little moody as well

i dont think scotland is a good move for him either – doesnt have the body type or skills to prosper in that league

the league has always been about teams with money dominating – How many clubs without money have ever won things? (3x mariners, 1x newcastle, 1x adelaide (+x2 if you include the cup)

every other winner had had signficant money spent (even brissy’s title)

the top 8 this season had the 7 richest clubs (with the exception of adelaide)

adelaide and brissy have no right any season to challenge, they dont have the money – they cant pay players $10k plus a week.

wanderers did well this season – they should challenge every year given the budget (the fact they dont is down to poor decisions from higher up)

sydney was woeful given what was spent on the squad – talay should be sacked as should much of the board.

perth is a an an absolute disaster, they pay “east coast wages” and still do nothing due to poor football department decisions.

you may hear more about veart…….. stay tuned

will be interesting if they close the deal for JA.

he’ll be the highest paid coach in the league if he joins them.

not in the slightest, WU deserved the win – absolutely zero complaints with the overall result.

i do have issues with alex king though, he is up there with worst ref in the league. WU players were flying into tackles (there were 3 of 4 ruhs did in quick succession that went unpunished, thurgate and leonard all night seemed to get away with hard tackles that had follow throughs)

everyone likes a ref that lets ‘things go’, but king was extremely ‘loose’ with his decisions that match

*billionaire owner
*most expensive squad in the league in 24/25
*majority of the squad earning more than $10,000 a week
*a fixtures list designed by the APL to ensure they play finals football
*one of the most disliked coaches to ever coach in the a league.
*finishing top playing a boring brand of football – did not rank in the top 3 of any attacking metric this season
*one of the most “anti” brands of football ever seen in the league – top 3 in most defensive metics this season.
* do no play an australian youth, offering zero benefit to the country of the league they play in
i’d say they’re already well on the way to becoming hated (if not already are) lol

plenty of clubs around the world play in leagues where they are not from – this practice should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.

most hated is subjective though – it can be based on finances, supporters etc etc

you could easily make a case for any of these clubs to be the number 1 most hated club (in no particular order)

sydney
victory
wanderers
western united
macarthur
melbourne city
auckland

what an embarassing final 4.

*a NZ team who will likely win the whole thing, yet they play in an australian league?
*victory who might just be the most hated team on and off the pitch in the league
*a side who lied (and still continue to lie) who should quite frankly have its license revoked.
*the side owned by one of the biggest sporting organizations in the world, who have never been able to draw a crowd

oh well, on the positive – at least there’s no NSW sides left

adelaide vs western is harder to predict that most people are anticipating.

betting agencies would have western as heavy favourites, especially when taking into account there recent form in the last third of the season an in particular over the past couple seasons against adelaide in tarneit.

however people seem to forget that adelaide had the wood over western at tarneit for 2 seasons prior to that.

on paper it has goals written all over it, but generally that does not tend to happen when 2 attacking teams go head-to-head in a knockout situation

all the pressures on western – but maybe the bigger question is, can adelaide score at least 2 goals without the predatory instincts of the leagues golden boot winner?

as for the other match, wanderers have hit form at the right time of the year. I would expect them to dispatch of victory.

as i said above, he is an excellent defensive tactician. (i saw this first hand when he was dealing with the united youth team as well as the senior team) he’s a details orientated guy defensively – offensively will be the harder task.

his initial press conference was exactly as i said it would be as well – in terms of how he conducts himself in interviews.

What mike said is correct about brissy being in touch with him for several months, but a little known fact is that brissy was not mikes first choice……

mike had initially reached out multiple times to marius zanin (if that name is unfamiliar to many, thats the former DOF who is now the HOF for adelaide united) who he is good friends with, in december – to see if there was any truth in veart going and if he should apply for his position early.

from what im aware of those informal discussions, mike was advised to not apply as at this stage adelaide were flying and were cemented in the top 2 and it was still up in the air if veart was staying or going – even though there had been persistent rumors for 12 months prior

i cant cay more about veart tenure (especially the last 18 months) until uniteds season is finished

it’s hard to gauge how mike will go, especially since no one seems to know the identity of what brissy is as a club./

eg when i say the mariners, people instantly think interstate youngsters, when i say adelaide people instantly think local youngsters.

what is brissy’s “identity”?……. no one knows that.

kaz and zac can keep sending out pr puff pieces (as lawyers do) but at the end of the day, fans of brissy still dont have a clue about the clubs identity

absolutely wasnt a failure when he was coaching the united youth team and he definitely wasnt a failure with the united first team in an interim role.

melbourne city may however deem him as a failure – given the squad they had when he was in charge and the $$$$ spent on it.

see now thats a bit more of a concern for me.

its always risky bringing in european assistants who do not have the knowledge of the australian football landscape (especially in a fractured state like qld) – theres plenty of australian analysts and coaches in brisbane who could be the #2

neither of those appointments have set the world on fire in positions they held at previous clubs they’ve worked at – and i really doubt they’re on less than 6 figures a year (having to move from europe)

yet another adelaide boy!!!!!!!!!!!

😡

should’ve been doddy then – he knows the club inside out as well as the landscape of QLD.

but given how poor the NPL side is doing, he may actually be better off trying to find another gig.

There are some very good players within that NPL team who mike needs to take a closer look at:

another prodigal son (klein) returns home after some time away – noah maieroni.

I always felt he was one of the best players in that U14 group half a decade ago, but he needs to pin down a position. is he a box to to box #8, a deep lying 6? etc

ed ince is back (you’ve heard me sing his plaudits on him for a few years) he had that unfortunate knee injury that cost him a year of his career – if he regains his confidence and keep fit, he has the skillset to be a solid a league midfielder

i know a lot of people locally like zane north (jade’s son), i was never sold on him – but maybe he can prove me wrong.

tate baldwin ticked all boxes for me as a midfielder, but hes gone to america.

ivan ozzi is another player i really like, but hes at that age now where he needs to put the extra work in on the cardio side of things – to really try and make it professionally

very similar to ante, in that both played the best football of their careers in adelaide and they each had varying degrees of success in the boardroom and coaching after that.

i can give some good insight into Mike, i know him very well and still keep in semi regular contact with his son dimitri (who he should try and bring back to australia to play senior football as he being wasted in the athens reserves)

Mike is excellent with the kids (probably his biggest strength) he had alot of players under his tutelage come from the united youth team into the senior side. names like:

daniel mullen, matthew leckie, mark birighitti, joel allwright, evan kostopoulos, osama malik, jacob melling, teeboy kamara, paul izzo, awer mabil.

he can be very ‘jekyll and hyde’ (similar to veart) in terms of being extremely calm on the touchline, to blowing up within minutes. Mike also delivers a very dry, straight to the point press conference as well.

for me, i always felt he was stronger defensively (from a tactics point of view) rather than attacking (eg more comfortable setting up the defensive line, than attacking play).

again, purely from my point of view, i’ve always felt a coach who is more confident in the defensive aspect of the game is better as a #2 than a #1.

I’ve seen him tear absolute strips off players (especially the younger ones) at training, some respond well to that treatment – alot of others don’t

he’s extremely outspoken, so im interested in how he will go at a club with minimal money like brissy and in terms of what he has been tasked with achieving. (he’s good a good european network, so he should be able to recruit visa players well)

i’m very intrigued to see how he goes.

safe to say that south australian born coaches/administrators (and ones that learnt their trade in their adopted state) are the a league “flavour of the month”?

adelaide united – head coach, all assistants & CEO
city – head coach, assistant coach & DOF
western united – head coach
newcastle – head coach
brisbane – head coach

he has always needed an experienced CB next to him.

sydney was always going to be the wrong move. If adelaide could’ve stumped up the extra few grand he would’ve come back home. – they werent able to and he went to the club that would pay him the most.

its another classic tale of a young adelaide boy making the wrong decision moving to a club like sydney.

veart once again meets his mandate.

he’s still the most consistent coach, to never win the league

what an absolute disgrace sydney is.

any time the so called ‘big 2’ miss out on playing finals, the coach should be sacked immediatedly and so should much of the board.

sydney are very lucky there fanbase is not like many in europe, because there would be riots given what they spent on players this season alone.

most expensive quartet of visa players in the league and they were all extremely poor

costa $30K + performance bonus
lolley $30K + performance bonus
klimala $15K + performance bonus
quahin $15k

thats over $100k a week in wages (with individual bonus’s – goals scored, assists)

i’d love to be able to talk publicly about not only my 10 months consulting for WU (in terms of what i experienced away from the pitch) as well as what the football department and some of the players went through.

but the terms of my consultancy ending, involved me signing an NDA.

what i will say (as its not about my situation, so the NDA won’t be broken), is that WU is an absolute joke of a club and always will be -much like professional football in this country

theres always been a misconception that adelaide has been a ‘dirty’ side’ under vearts tenure – isiais does this, mauk does that, teenage players swearing at refs etc etc.

fair play award this season is absolutely right and 100% justified

season upon season its the usual suspects (wanderers/sydney/macarthur/city/mariners and soon to be auckland) that are generally in the top 3 of fouls per match, tackles per match, yellow cards etc.

no surprise that the top 3 in fouls per match this season are auckland, city and sydney – all with coaches who encourage ‘tactical fouling’