Innehållsförteckning för October 2017 från Australian FourFourTwo

New seasons always start with uncertainty... but this one seems more uncertain than ever – although most of it is off the field. The FFA remain mired in controversy in their stubborn battle with A-League club owners, federations and players, with FIFA on the sidelines waiting to step in. It’s unhealthy for the sport and FFA’s brinksmanship could backfire with the very real possibility the current management and board structure could be dismissed entirely. Likewise, the status quo – where the Lowy clan treat the sport as their own feudal kingdom, albeit to the sport’s overall benefit in the last 12 years – cannot continue. Clubs need more say, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There has to be a compromise on all sides. Clubs need…

Man Utd vs Everton Super Sunday: Wayne Rooney back at Old Trafford; Romelu Lukaku faces his old club Australia vs Brazil After the Matildas smashed the Brazilians at the Tournament of Nations, here’s the rematch...x2! Rangers vs Celtic The first Old Firm clash of the campaign. Celtic dominated 16-4 on aggregate during 2016-17 Sheff Wed vs Sheff Utd With the Blades back in the Championship, the Steel City derby returns after a five-year hiatus Sao Paulo vs Corinthians The Classico Majestoso. Brazil’s league leaders Corinthians take on their fierce city adversaries Chelsea vs Man City Sunday morning crunch match. The champs face the pre-season favourites to take their crown…

22 ADELAIDE UNITED V MELBOURNE CITY Round 4, October 28, Coopers Stadium Melbourne Victory v Adelaide United may be the ‘Original Rivalry’ but since City’s induction into the A-League, it seems they have formed a love-hate relationship over the years. Former Adelaide United CEO Michael Petrillo is now City’s director of football and helped the club sign seven players who were formerly with the Reds while United have two former Cityzens in their side. Former City head coach, now assistant, Michael Valkanis dubbed his former side as “their rival, not their enemy” after spending 13 years at Coopers Stadium as a player and assistant coach. In the Reds’ 2016, we saw the emerging hostility between the two in the final round, with tempers flaring when a half-time melee erupted as…

59 FFA CONGRESS The FFA’s primary concern is resolving its Congress issue, which led to a FIFA/AFC delegation heading to Australia to investigate the impasse. The situation is complicated but what’s not up for debate is that the FFA Congress needs to expand to allow A-League clubs a voice in how the competition is run. The challenge is satisfying the numerous parties involved. Fox Sports presenter Adam Peacock says: “Everyone wants to jump out and put their self interest forward. That’s fine, that’s business. Don’t warmonger, calm down, take a breath. Everyone wants to get their point of view across. “We need to take a breath and think what’s best for the game and where we want to be in 10 years time. Hopefully the negotiation doesn’t get messier before…

76 MITCH NICHOLS From Palm Beach to Osaka to a sleazy fateful night at Sydney’s Casablanca nightclub, Mitch Nichols’ five Socceroos caps signalled a career full of promise, but which has yet to reach its full potential. It’s rough to label returning to the A-League after a brief overseas venture a cop-out – nobody’s suggesting that Aussies don’t try their hardest – but when the conversation arises, Nichols’ 11 matches in Japan is one of the worst examples that comes to mind. The 28-year-old seemed set for a career-changing move to Europe this winter until his cocaine bust in May forced him to abandon those plans. Europe now seems a distant dream for the wispy blond-haired boy from the Gold Coast, but if anyone’s got a point to prove next…

93 MILOS NINKOVIC Johnny Warren Medal winner 2016/17 Last season’s Johnny Warren Medal for player of the year took the A-League to another level in 2016/17. With opposition defenders on his tail for 90 minutes, the 32-year-old still found ways to invent opportunities for himself and his teammates. His nine goals and 10 assists were sublime and the Serbian midfield maestro will be expected to display his wizardry again in 2018/19, now as club marquee. Sydney FC skipper Alex Brosque - Being able to train with the guy and see his professionalism and everything… it just takes him to another level. The things he does at training are a joy, he has such a good touch, his awareness and his ability to find a pass makes it such a pleasure…

LAST SEASON 9th FFACUP Round of 32 AFC CHAMPIONS LEAGUE Group stage MARCO KURZ The 48-year-old ex-Schalke and Dortmund defender has vast coaching experience in Germany, including leading Kaiserslautern to promotion in 2010 and then to seventh in the Bundesliga. From chumps to champs and back again. It’s been a rollercoaster past two years for Adelaide United who, as Champions, went winless through the first eight rounds last season, before finishing ninth. It was a miserable campaign for the Reds, who scored a league-low 25 goals, won just five games and only avoided the wooden spoon by one point. It saw the exit of title-winning coach Guillermo Amor, who has now been replaced by German Marco Kurz. Amor isn’t the only departure, with several stars moving on, including Marcelo Carrusca,…

LAST SEASON 4th FINALS Elimination finals FFA CUP Champions WARREN JOYCE Warren Joyce may not be the glamour name fans expected but he brings bags of experience managing Manchester United reserves and Wigan Athletic. The Englishman will be looking to claim City’s first A-League title. City at last managed to buy one piece of silverware with their ambitious spending – but a Premiership and Championship continue to elude them despite their star-studded line-up. However the men’s team did finally win their first trophy with the 2016 FFA Cup. Captain Bruno Fornaroli was on target once again scoring 20 goals while Socceroo Tim Cahill came home to play 26 games and netted 13 goals. After City Football Group’s stuttering but big-spending revolution, the pressure is now on to start hitting the…

LAST SEASON 5th FINALS Semi-finals FA CUP Round of 16 KENNY LOWE Enters his fourth full season in charge with an expectation to progress from last season’s semi-final spot. Has steered the club through its most stable A-League period, but it’s time to deliver more than mid-table finishes. One of the A-League’s long-suffering clubs, Glory have enjoyed an improved period over the past few years under coach Kenny Lowe since the ignominy of the 2014/15 salary cap scandal. Beating Melbourne City in the finals last year was a significant milestone for the club, having lost to the same opponent at the same point the season prior. But ultimately how excited do fans get about back-to-back fifth place finishes in a 10-team league? The big issue facing Glory is fixing their…

LAST SEASON 6th FINALS Elimination finals FFA CUP Quarter-finals ACL Group stage TONY POPOVIC The 58-cap Socceroo came under intense pressure last season, yet was still linked with a move to a Chinese club. The 44-year-old is a brilliant man manager, who gets the best out of his players. No-one does a post season clear out like Tony the axeman Popovic. In the off-season, Wanderers fans bid adieu to 13 players. While the Wanderers recovered from a poor start to make the top six, the early finals exit was not good enough for a club who set high standards. But fans should be excited for this season as the new recruits on paper look the goods. Spanish marquees – Oriol Riera and Alvaro Cejudo – have the experience of 258…

“I HAD TO WORK WITH A SPORTS I PSYCHOLOGIST TO HELP ME FOCUS AT LIVERPOOL. ONE OF THE THINGS WE WORKED ON A LOT WAS TRYING TO BLOCK OUT CARRAGHER’S VOICE!” CLUBS 1997-2002 Barcelona B 1999-2000 Valladolid (loan) 2000 Toledo (loan) 2000-01 Tenerife (loan) 2001-02 Valladolid (loan) 2002-03 Atletico Madrid 2003-04 Barcelona 2004-07 Liverpool 2007-09 Atletico Madrid 2009-10 Racing Santander 2010-11 Panathinaikos 2011-12 Puebla 2012-13 UNAM 2014 Atletico Kolkata 2016 Central Coast Mariners COUNTRY 2005-08 Spain They certainly enjoy a late night out in Spain. Head to any plaza at 10pm and you’ll see families stepping over already paralytic English tourists for an evening of food and merriment. So FFT thought little of it when Luis Garcia asked to meet in a Liverpool hotel at 10.30pm. After all, this was…

THE LEAD UP I’d moved over to Norway from Australia and it was the last game of the season. It was the match that was going to decide the championship for the league. The opposition was Tromsø. About two or three weeks prior, we were in a really good position to win the league. We dropped some silly points a few weeks before the final game and had to hope Rosenborg dropped points in their final match. Personally, I didn’t feel much pressure because we’d been doing well and we’d won most of the games throughout the year. I felt I’d done so much hard work to get myself into a position to win the goal scoring title. I thought I’d had it wrapped up earlier in the season and…

11 DARIJE KALEZIC WELLINGTON PHOENIX It’s part of the arrival routine for new coaches to spout the mantra of “playing attractive football” but Wellington’s most significant import in the off-season wants Nix fans salivating for more every week. After overcoming a dire injury hangover from last season, Phoenix players are starting to shape up and Darije Kalezic likes what he sees. It’s far from new territory for the Bosnian-Swiss Coach who has taken an active interest in the league since working with a trio of Aussies in the Eredivisie. “For us it is very important to play how our fans want to see us play… to count the days when Wellington Phoenix are going to play again,” the 47-year-old says. “We want to play not only nice and attractive football…

80 MERRICK GET BEHIND Newcastle have been mired in mediocrity for years. The Jets haven’t made the finals since 2010 and in that time they have collected two wooden spoons. With the removal of Mark Jones Newcastle have their ninth different head coach in the past decade. It’s a worrying statistic that shows how much of a revolving door the club has become. After three rookie managers in a row over three seasons with Phil Stubbins, Scott Miller and Jones, the Jets have finally made a safe choice in veteran Ernie Merrick. The 64-year-old has his detractors, but he also brings vast A-League experience and a record of winning two Championships and two Premierships during his reign at Melbourne Victory. Merrick will need to call on all of his 38…

LAST SEASON 3rd FINALS Semi-Final FFA CUP Round of 32 ACL Group stage JOHN ALOISI The Socceroo legend received kudos for navigating a series of consecutive top four finishes amid off-field turbulence, but with a new three-year deal signed in May there’s pressure on the 41-year-old to retake the summit. It arguably ended years ago, but the exit of midfield maestro Thomas Broich severed the last symbolic thread with the Roarcelona era. The attacking third was decimated in the offseason, with 20-goal joint Golden Boot winner Jamie Maclaren, Brandon Borrello, Tommy Oar and Manuel Arana joining the German in the departure lounge. Recent seasons have delivered Groundhog Day results for the former A-League pacesetters with back-to-back third place finishes and consecutive losses in the FFA Cup Round of 32. That…

LAST SEASON 2 n d FINALS Runners up FFA CUP Semi finals KEVIN MUSCAT Victory have never missed out on finals football under their favourite son. Muscat has proven once again he prefers signings players who have proven themselves already in the A-League rather than rookies. Melbourne Victory nearly spoiled Sydney FC’s party at the final hurdle last season but were left wondering what might have been after nail-biting penalty shootout. Victory have since lost key players Daniel Georgievski, Fahid Ben Khalfallah, Rashid Mahazi, Nick Ansell, Alan Baro and Marco Rojas in the off-season, leaving big shoes for incoming Socceroos Rhys Williams, Mark Milligan and All White Kosta Barbarouses to fill. THE GAME PLAN Victory tend to set up with a 4-3-3 formation under Muscat with Besart Berisha as a…

LAST SEASON Premiers FINALS Champions FFA CUP Runners up GRAHAM ARNOLD The architect of Sydney’s success, the 54-year-old publicly acknowledged he made errors last season before an almost faultless job in 2016/17 full of discipline and structure for a near- perfect season. Sydney’s success last season broke more records than the Beatles. Their 19-game unbeaten start smashed Adelaide United’s previous mark by eight games. By May, they had recorded the most wins, highest goal difference, least goals conceded, most clean sheets, most points in a season and the biggest winning margin in an A-League season. But when it came to the A-League decider it was a different story. One of the most frenetic, tense and action packed Grand Finals saw A-League player of the year Milos Ninkovic scoring the winning…

1 A REAL FOOTBALL BRAIN England Burslem Remember when San Diego’s brand new soccer franchise held a poll to decide their name, and the winner was Footy McFooty Face? Sadly, San Diego later backed out of the idea, but Footy McFooty Face is back – as a real person playing for Port Vale. The wacky photographic evidence was captured during a recent Vale game featuring a man with a ball for a head. We’ve studied it, and can’t explain it. Apparently it was Tyrone Barnett, but we’ll just be calling the striker Mr McFooty Face from now on. 2 DON’T HAVE NIGHTMARES, KIDS Austria Vienna Marouane Fellaini didn’t transform into a football during the UEFA Super Cup, but he was smashed in the face by one. The image of the…

I knew I’d made it as a player when I signed my first professional contract. It’s great and it’s a good moment for sure. You always wanted that little bit more though. There’s always that burning desire to want more. You never really sit back and think “I’ve made it.” Every time something good happened, you wanted to go again. I was happiest in my first year with Central Coast Mariners. It was a really memorable year, as a team and as a club To make the Grand Final and do all the thing we did was really awesome and it was probably the best season I had in my career. I remember that really fondly. People were buzzing, it was the A-League, it was the start of something new…

31 JONATHAN ASPRO Age: 21 Club: Western Sydney Wanderers The centreback captained the Aussie U23s to a glut of goals and three clean sheets at the July Asian Championship qualifiers in Myanmar but faces a bigger challenge on home turf. After establishing himself in the Wanderers starting line-up, the arrival of Michael Thwaite in the off-season means there’s plenty of competition at the back. Typical of Aspro, he’s not giving up his spot without a fight and expects to take things up a notch after 2016/17’s breakout season. “It’s healthy competition because we’re all great mates – we’re a tight unit,” Aspro says. “I see competition with Robbie Cornthwaite, Michael Thwaite and Brendan Hamill as a really positive thing. It means I get the best out of myself knowing that…

54 LUKE DEVERE BRISBANE ROAR Roar s a -year-with one cap to his name which he received more than two years ago. But he shouldn’t be excluded from Socceroos calculations, according to Fox Sports presenter Adam Peacock… if he can get his body right. DeVere reportedly came close to a recall in March before a calf injury intervened. Sadly injuries have cursed his career to date. Peacock argues: “We know Ange loves him (having worked with him at Brisbane). He’s a smart player, physical. “He needs to play 90 per cent of the games this season, given the amount he’s missed over the past three years. If he can do that, I reckon he’s in the calculations.” The ideal personnel for Postecoglou’s controversial yet preferred back three are far from…

85 YOU CAN’T WIN ANYTHING WITH KIDS The demise of the ‘Roarcelona’ brand has reached an ironic conclusion. Even after Postecoglou’s stylish philosophy was phased out, Brisbane fans could always look to their own La Masia – the Young Roar – as a reminder of Ange’s legacy. However, the departure of Roar talent has reminded us why more clubs don’t develop youth products. Last season, Brisbane’s two finest yields – Jamie Maclaren and Brandon Borrello – left for Germany. Brisbane lost a lot, and recouped little in return. The Aloisi brothers responded predictably, signing a 37- and 34-year old to further ripen a fully flavoured squad. This means Brisbane now boasts as many over 30s as Barcelona. But can Roar’s ageing pride become king of the jungle? Or will this…

LAST SEASON 8th FFA CUP Round of 32 PAUL OKON Last season was Paul Okon’s first in the A-League after being thrown in at the deep end when Tony Walmsley was dismissed. The Mariners did improve under him and Okon will want to keep that growth going. Considering the nightmare that was Central Coast’s 2015/2016 campaign, where they won the wooden spoon and broke records as one of the worst teams in the competition’s history, 2016/2017 was a step in the right direction. The Mariners finished eighth and won three more games than they did the previous season – but without ever challenging for a finals spot. Okon changed the style of the club, moving from a defence-focused counter-attacking philosophy to one based on dominating possession. There was more stability…

LAST SEASON 10th FFA CUP Round of 32 ERNIE MERRICK With the sacking of rookie Mark Jones, arguably the most experienced manager in the A-League has arrived in the Hunter. Two-time grand final winner Ernie Merrick is hoping to help turn this beleaguered club around. Wooden spooners, another coach sacked – it was déjà vu for Newcastle Jets last season. Hopes were high when the Ledman Group bought the club from the FFA and investment was promised. But with the removal of Scott Miller in September 2016, and the departure of Jones eight months later, it’s familiar territory for the Jets. Newcastle started 2016/2017 well but fell apart two thirds of the way in, eventually finishing last and winning only five games. Surely now, the only way is up… THE…

LAST SEASON LEAGUE: 7th FFA CUP: Round of 32 DARIJE KALEZIC Not an obvious choice to steady the ship following the exit of Ernie Merrick. Phoenix is his sixth club in six years following stints in Holland, England and the Middle East, but early reports from the player ranks are sounding positive. Last season’s squad looked good on paper but that’s as good as it got. Phoenix never really moved out of first gear and failed to make the top six for the second season running. Coach Ernie Merrick bailed in December and Chris Greenacre and Des Buckingham took the interim reins. But with the Kiwi side constantly defending its place in the competition, attracting crowds and winning games is critical. A new logo, a new coach and a cast…

 Hi David. You seem to have a very laid-back personality – how do you remain so relaxed during a match? “The day before a match starts I’m already living it. I plan strategy and focus on my opponents until the final whistle” I’m anything but relaxed! But thanks, I’m happy you think that. When you play at this level of football there’s no room to be relaxed for any second at all. As a Chelsea player, I am involved in top-level competitions for the entire season and my level of concentration is just as high as my responsibilities. The day before a match I am already living it. I think about the game, plan my strategy, focus on my opponent’s ability and so on. This thought process continues right until…