Australian Soccer Thread (A-League/FFA Cup/Socceroos/Matildas) (Part 1)

yeah the mooys and this scottish guy masquerading as an aussie.

juric is a footballer

I mean, i totally love ths aussie dude.

Boyle not a real Aussie because he has a striker’s goal scoring instincts.

A true Aussie striker (Cahill the exception) couldn’t get a shot on target even if the goals were 20m high and 50 m wide.

source: see juric.

I don’t get how if you miss the ball and elbow your opponent in the head, its not a yellow at the least?

FFA board decides on winning bids as expansion goes ahead next season

Dominic Bossi

By Dominic Bossi

13 December 2018 — 7:50am

Football Federation Australia is set to announce two new clubs to join the A-League on Thursday, with Macarthur-South West Sydney and Western Melbourne Group understood to have been granted licences.

Sources suggest Western Melbourne Group are set to enter the competition as early as next season after being granted an immediate A-League licence to become the 11th club, while the Macarthur-South West Sydney bid will likely enter a season later to make it a 12-team competition.

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Green light: It’s understood the FFA will announce it has accepted bids from Melbourne and Sydney later on ThursdayCREDIT:AAP

The Sydney Morning Herald understands it took more than nine hours for the FFA Board to deliberate over A-League expansion, the timeline and number of teams to enter the competition, eventually settling on two teams in a tiered schedule just after midnight on Thursday morning.

The announcement and final confirmation of the winning bids will be made at midday on Thursday. The decision is understood to have been made with the future in mind, with the two bids hailing from the largest two population growth corridors in Australia.

The Western Melbourne Group appears to have won the race on the back off of its proposal to build the competition’s first privately owned football stadium and training centre in Australia. Based in the growth corridor in Melbourne’s west, the site will almost immediately undergo construction to be ready in three years.

A-LEAGUE

FFA board banking on A-League expansion choices leading to pot of gold

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In the meantime, the club is set to play its home games out of Kardinia Park in Geelong as a temporary home.

The Macarthur-South West Sydney bid will be based out of Campbelltown Stadium and will likely be afforded an additional year to be ready to enter the A-League in 2020, a move that will likely satisfy soon-to-be rivals, the Wanderers.

Western Sydney opposed a team in the city’s south west entering next season, wanting a full season at their new stadium in Parramatta before a new team close to their supporter base enters the competition.

Sydney FC have publicly voiced their support for a team in the city’s south-west.

The Sydney outfit is already in negotiations to sign Mile Jedinak as its inaugural captain though a potentialy delay of entering the A-League by a season could threaten their chances to sign the former Socceroos’ captain.

Anybody have any strong opinions or even weak ones?

Yeah. Same old FFA, same old silly decisions.

They’ve got their eye on Melbourne-Derby-esque crowds for every game, which is not going to happen in the next 50 years. They should be looking at sticking up a few 15k stadiums and packing them out week to week for the next 15 years. Which you don’t need massive population bases to draw from to achieve. Especially if you pick population centres without existing professional sports franchises playing at that time of year.

But no, because muh growth corridors, with this underlying assumption that if you pick a large enough group of random people that some of the must follow soccer.

Following the principles I suggested, Canberra and Wollongong were no-brainers because they were set to go virtually immediately, Tasmania and SW Sydney not far behind.

Instead they’ve picked a team that is going to play out of a completely different city for three years, and somehow expect the supporter base to follow them back the other way.

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Well put. Canberra was definitely a no-brainer here. They have significant support for the bid already and they also have a population that identifies themselves together. West-Melbourne is very vague, especially with the team playing in Geelong for three years.

Had West-Melbourne remained a Geelong bid like originally planned, I would be excited, but now I know they are moving in three years, it’s pretty hard to have any strong feelings towards it.

Just heard that’s the exact size the West Melb franchise is proposing to Self Fund and build at Tarniet.

Western Melbourne are literally going to build a 15k stadium.

However, it will be in Tarneit, which to me is a major issue in itself. Should have been next to the M1/Princes Freeway (e.g. Williams Landing? - has a massive train station too!)

Western Melbourne can work if they learn from the mistakes of Melbourne Heart and get it absolutely right from day one. Find you’re own identity and market it. Do not be Heart MK II

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You want them not to sell grog or food either? Free entry?

This is a privately funded stadium. A major revenue source will be charging for parking & anything else etc. Being as far away from PT makes total sense.

On the big picture - another short sighted stuff up. The population is in the South East, they should have entered first and the west later. The league/FFA/Club could have worked on the stadium plan moving forward.

Get the market right, then the rest will follow. At least they picked a market here, unlike Heart which was a total balls up from start to now.

Dont go with the bids - ie gold coast, North queensland. Get the market right as the only criteria.

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Why do we need a third club in Melbourne. Surely with the two current ones everyone who wants to go/watch allready does.

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too stale, too few teams so this is needed.

What is REALLY needed is basically do everything opposite to what FFA has done. We are a feeder/springboard league, nothing more nothing less.

So what do we do, when Manchester City comes to down instead of embracing we take the small-minded view and limit every single bit of transfer policy they could. Banning the loaned players was a joke!

Imaging getting the gun 18-19 year old next superstars for a season - that is our go. Not trying to be the AFL.

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The answer to that is “no”

Do we honestly need to dilute the Melbourne and Sydney markets more?

Surely there are big regional towns across Australia that could benefit from an A-League club… and capture the the locals imagination.

See prior post.

Because that worked so well for VFL Park. (At least that had major roads to get there, which Tarneit does not. )