Victory in Melbourne 

In my previous post I made the comment as to whether Craig Foster had actually seen Sukha play before he joined the Victory. And to his credit, Foster did get around to responding to my comment on Twitter and we had brief conversation as to the merit of his assertions. For those who don’t follow me or Craig Foster on Twitter I have included it here for the record.

Victory In Melbourne: So @Craig_Foster how many times did you see Surat Sukha play before he joined the Victory? http://t.co/O3PUt6t

Craig Foster: Comment re Sukha was saw him when he arrived, saw no such tackles, no need to see him before. Players change according to team culture

ViM: @Craig_Foster So therefore based on 1 bad tackle in 2 seasons you make the assumption that #mvfc’s so called ‘culture of violence’ has influenced the way #Sukha now plays. Talk about drawing a long bow to suit your own means

CF: @victoryinmelb Any player/particularly those coming from abroad, are influenced by team/club culture. Happens to Aussies in Uk all the time

ViM: @Craig_Foster Agree. But your example is a poor one. For the record in 34 games #Sukha has committed 34 fouls and received 3 yellow cards. Those are hardly the stats of a player that has become overly aggressive due to the environment he plays in

CF: @victoryinmelb Fair point, however the number of cards given in HAL is not a great indicator as many are missed, which is issue for league. My point, though, is not that Sukha is a dirty player, but to question whether he would have made the same tackle before

ViM: @Craig_Foster that is something we will never know & therefore it is wrong to assume what was a clumsy & not a violent tackle is the fault of a ‘culture’ you assume to exist at #mvfc

Whilst I will readily admit that I am one of Craig Foster’s harshest critics it was good to see him respond to some of my ascerbic comments.

Enough is enough. Ever since Kevin Muscat decided it was appropriate to perpetrate that tackle on Adrian Zahra the Australian football media has gone into a self-perpetuating frenzy reminiscent of a school of sharks that have just happened upon a large school of baitfish. Not only has Muscat come under fire but also coach Ernie Merrick and the club itself. Leading the charge has been the self-appointed guardian of football in this country, SBS’ The World Game.

Let me get one thing clear, I am not condoning Muscat’s actions and in fact I have labelled the tackle as one of the worst I have ever seen. In my latest blog for Australian FourFourTwo I have even gone as far as to say that Muscat’s time is well and truly up. Apart from those who resorted to cheap insults most of the comments were fairly positive. However, it seems that the Sydney-based The World Game machine has gone into overdrive in its attempt to sink the boot into anyone involved with Melbourne Victory. They are the self-appointed leaders of the lynch mob.

One particular comment that particularly got me riled was Francis Awaritefe’s assertion that the Victory has an inherent “culture of violence”, a phrase he claims to have coined after Muscat was sent off against Adelaide just over two weeks ago and which he repeated on The World Game on Monday night. When asked to expand on this he cites Surat Sukha’s unfortunate tackle on Matthew Leckie earlier this year. To compare Sukha’s tackle to Muscat’s tackle is to use an old cliché like comparing apples with oranges. Sure they were both bad tackles that injured players but should never ever been compared. Two tackles does not make for a “culture of violence”.

Jumping on the “culture of violence” bandwagon has been Craig Foster who in the Sydney Morning Herald claims that there there was a ”history at the club of violent acts”, adding that Melbourne’s culture fostered on-field intimidation. Again using the Leckie tackle as an example he claims that:

”The Matthew Leckie incident earlier in the season by Surat Sukha is an example. When he [Sukha] came here [from Thailand], he didn’t do those tackles. He learned those at the club”

That is a massive assumption by Foster based on who know what evidence. I asked SBS’ chief football analyst via Twitter as to whether he had actually seen Sukha play before he joined the Victory. At the stage of writing this I am yet to receive a response.

What both Awaritefe and Foster fail to mention is the constant kickings that the likes of Hernandez, Thompson, Kruse and Angulo receive on a weekly basis. I heard no outrage last season when Kruse was repeatedly targeted by opposition players. If you don’t remember them, let me list them for you.

• King hit behind play by Charlie Miller against the Brisbane Roar. Never mind the constant fouling he received during that game.
• Received a dislocated shoulder after being hit behind play by Gold Coast United’s Steve Pantelidis.
• Hacked down by Sydney FC’s Terry McFlynn in the final match of the season, severely damaging ankle ligaments.

Also a big fan of the Melbourne Victory bashing bandwagon is Jesse Fink who likes nothing more than trying to sink the boot into the Victory and Kevin Muscat. So much so that he felt the need to write four opinion pieces (yes four) on the incident, two of which were pretty much the same thing. Instead of giving you the links I’m going to hit you with some memorable quotes from the Finkster, who as you can see is not afraid of the hyperbole.

“A piffling eight weeks. Eight weeks for nearly ending a young player’s career and threatening his lifetime earnings because the Melbourne Victory skipper crossed the line of what is right and decent and tried his luck on the dark side.”

“What’s more breathtaking than the century of combined yellows and reds he’s collected is that it could have been five times more had officials had more bottle to deal with him, as I wrote last January.”

For the record, Muscat has received 33 yellow cards and five red cards in the six seasons he has played in the A-League.

“With his basic football knowledge and limited football smarts Merrick was never going to win titles playing fluid, Spanish-style passing combination football but he sure as hell had a chance to win a few games and keep his job if he had a man on the field, Muscat, who could not just monster opposition players but also school younger teammates in the no-frills English Championship way.”

There’s this guy called Hernandez, who plays with this other guy called Thompson, who is often seen in the company of the likes of Dugandzic, Angulo and Kruse.

“Whether it’s Muscat and his litany of indiscretions, Grant Brebner flying in with Roy Keane-style studs-up tackles or Adrian Leijer throwing his weight around like he’s Dolph Lundgren, Victory’s approach is clearly predicated on physical intimidation and harassment.”

Yes Melbourne do a physical brand of football but it also one based on the skill of the likes of Hernandez, Fred, Angulo, Thompson, etc. Without the input of those highly skilled players I would hardly assume that Melbourne would have won those two championship/premiership doubles and come within inches of a third. It’s time for The World Game to take off its Sydney-based orange-tinted glasses and take a balanced look at the Melbourne Victory.

It is about time that referees are held accountable for their horrendous mistakes. Peter Green’s horrendous decision in not pulling up Michael Theoklitos for handling the ball outside the area on Friday night ultimately cost the Victory’s chances of taking a well earned three points against Brisbane Roar should be punished by the A-League hierarchy. Teams’ chances of making finals are penalised by the incompetence such as that shown by Peter Green. Time to penalise the referees for their mistakes because it’s finally gone beyond a joke.

In his latest diatribe for the Herald Sun, Eddie McGuire whilst taking aim at every football team in Melbourne that don’t play AFL makes the comment in reference to the Melbourne Storm that:

Its one remaining premiership trophy can be put into a cabinet at its purpose-built stadium, referred to alternately as the “Rectangular stadium”, “the Bubble” or “AAMI stadium”, but more than likely “the White Elephant. This new stadium will exist for either no Melbourne Storm or one that is a shadow of its former self, one barely established soccer team and a rugby union and soccer team that haven’t played a game yet. Most would be flat-out filling a phone box far, much less this magnificent stadium.

I would like to point out to Mr McGuire that unlike the AFL’s showcase Docklands Stadium it won’t be sitting empty for half the season and more than likely will have a surface that will be the envy of every stadium in Australia. So who’s sitting on a white elephant now?

Oh and by the way, it’s called AAMI Park and enjoy the view from the shithole that is the Lexus Centre.

With Kevin Muscat venting his frustration at the end of Wednesday night’s match against Beijing Guoan, taking aim at everything to do with the ACL it surely wasn’t long before we would get a comment from Ben Buckley. And again he showed why he starting to look out of his depth as the man in charge of Australian football.

Buckley went on to slam Melbourne’s attitude towards the ACL, suggesting if the Victory didn’t want to compete they would be better off forfeiting their place to another A-League side.

and

If Kevin’s comments reflect the attitude of the leadership of Melbourne Victory, then they should withdraw from the competition and let others who want to participate take part,” Buckley said. ”Such an attitude is clearly an impediment to success and Melbourne Victory’s performance in the tournament is reflective of that.

Of course we want to participate in the ACL tournament, why the hell do you think we tried our darndest to qualify for next year’s competition much to the detriment of this year’s ACL campaign. And as I have said before a little support from the FFA would not have gone astray instead of these cheap shots at a team who have had just had a tough run of results in the last month and a half. The comments from Buckley were ill-conceived and untimely and he should take some of his own advice and haul himself over some coals.

With much being made of the crowd numbers during Melbourne Victory’s disastrous 2010 ACL campaign surely some responsibility lays at the feet of both the FFA and the Melbourne Victory administration.

Knowing full well that there would be ACL campaign at the end of this season surely it wouldn’t haven’t been too hard for the Melbourne Victory administration to include the three group games as part of your membership package. Even having it has add-on to the membership should have been an option. Contrary to what Kevin Muscat had to say, Melbourne fans weren’t disuaded from attending due to the antics of opposition teams it probably had more to do with the tickets. With General Admin tickets starting at $27, when compared to $20 for a regular season game you can see why a number of fans stayed away especially after forking out significant amounts of money for finals tickets.

However, the FFA must foot some of the blame as well as they continued the trend of the regular A-League season by putting little or no effort into promoting the game to the general public. If the general public doesn’t know about it, how do you expect them to turn up to games.

With this in mind, when it all comes around next year let’s hope it’s handled better by all parties involved because as Melbourne Victory fans we do like to watch our team play.

I was originally going to submit this diatribe as part of my weekly blogs for 442, but circumstances got beyond me and I never got round to submitting it. It is tad out of date, but the argument is still relevant.

So with little else on his plate apart from choosing the pre-Grand Final entertainment, FFA CEO Ben Buckley obviously decided it was an opportune time to tell the Melbourne Victory hierarchy to quit its continual complaints about its current fixture pile-up.

So as the most unofficial No.1 Victory spokesperson out there I have seen it as my duty to rebut some of the arguments put forward by our esteemed leader in my own indomitable style.

First cab of the rank, is his comment that:

”We already moved the first leg of the A-League major semi-final for Victory, allowing them to play Sydney on the Thursday night [February 18] so they could travel to China for their first ACL game. That gave them a four-day break after playing Sydney on the previous Sunday in the last game of the home and away season. We would have given them a five-day break but their home ground [Etihad Stadium] was not available on the Friday.”

How accommodating of you Mr Buckley but I’ll think you find that the request for a final on the Thursday night came from Melbourne Victory officials even though it put them at a disadvantage in terms of preparation and crowd numbers.

You see Mr Buckley, teams in the ACL are required to be in the host city a minimum of two days before kick-off. Seeing that the stadium was already booked out of the Friday night that meant a match on Saturday night was out of the question as it takes approximately thirteen hours to fly to Beiljing from Melbourne. Therefore it was Thursday night by default, not by any of your grand benefaction.

Next up, is his comment that:

“There are 46 leagues in the AFC and things have to be done to accommodate all those leagues and all the participating clubs. They can’t make exceptions for one team.”

It must also be noted that Melbourne did put a request into the AFC to have the match switched from Beijing to Melbourne but our esteemed organisation deemed it an unreasonable request even though it would have had little impact on Beijing Guoan who at that stage were still in pre-season and thus had no league requirements.

See Mr Buckley, there is the possibility of making exceptions for one team, so stop towing the inflexible AFC line. In fact, you should be doing as much as you can to accommodate the teams from your own league. Look at how much positive press, Adelaide’s efforts of two years ago generated.

And finally, he states that:

”Teams from other countries seem to be able to juggle their timetables. We know it is difficult and not ideal, but that is the situation.”

Thanks, Captain Obvious. Of course it is not ideal having to play a game pretty much 48 hours after your last one. Also I’m pretty sure teams from other countries don’t juggle their timetables, their federations to do it for them in order to gain the best possible advantage in the competition for their teams.

And I am not alone in my criticism of Melbourne’s tight scheduling with PFA CEO Brendan Schwab weighing into the debate with his comment that:

“I think it’s unacceptable. The fact is that the players have been asked to travel on nine to 15-hour flights and play games with a 48-hour break. It’s inevitable that a player will be seriously injured in those circumstances, and it’s also inevitable that the quality of the competition will be compromised.”

Whilst I am not using this is as an excuse for our loss in the Grand Final or our poor performances in the ACL and the issue is probably compounded by the fact that the scheduling of the ACL has been brought forward to accommodate that thing called the World Cup. However, it highlights a serious issue that needs addressing before next year’s ACL campaign comes around in order for all A-League teams to have the best opportunity to make their mark on the region’s most important club competition.

I was very disappointed not to see Kevin Muscat’s name not appear under the Sport category of The Age’s Melbourne Magazine’s Melbourne’s Most Influential People.

For a player who is constantly accused of influencing referees and match officials; getting away murder on the field; having more power than Ernie Merrick; and is despised by every other opposition fan surely would get on the list.

On a more serious note, you would think that Geoff Lord should have been on the list, considering that he has taken the Melbourne Victory from nothing to be the A-League’s most successful team both on and off the field.

Instead we had five out of the eight people have some relationship to the AFL. Considering that the three of the members on the selection panel (Jake Niall, Bruce McAvaney and Peter Hanlon) of the Sports category have some sort of AFL affiliation it’s hardly surprising. Surely you would have Michael Lynch or someone of his ilk on there to balance things out.

With Etihad Stadium management showing their hand and siding with the AFL (who would have thought) is it now time for the FFA and Melbourne Victory to review their decision to play our biggest matches there from next season in protest. To be honest we don’t need to play matches against Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne Heart(?). A 30,000 seat stadium will do us just fine. Now whose stadium will sit empty during those summer months not for two or four months, without anyone purchasing a single slightly warm mid-strength beer.

And who would have thought Melbourne Victory fans would have needed extra incentive not to like Etihad Stadium.

Take note Etihad Stadium management. A good playing surface equals Melbourne playing attractive football and getting good results and thus bigger crowds. The Hindmarsh Stadium surface last night was brilliant and it allowed the Victory to play to their strengths. And it’s not like Adelaide has any more water to work with than Melbourne. Next home game, no excuses.