Victory in Melbourne 

For all those that are already users of Flickr I have also created a Victory In Melbourne group for you to submit all your Victory photos too as well.

Enjoy

Three weeks ago when we went a man down against the Mariners we played some out of our best football of the season. But last night’s performance was terrible, some might say abysmal. The contrast between the two games was immense. Whereas against the Mariners we played all our football through Hernandez and Vasilevski, last night at home we decided that our best possibility would be to lob the long ball forward from defence and hope Allsopp and Thompson would be able to run onto it and hit the Phoenix on the counter. This tactic completely bypassed our midfield and took them out of the game. Quite frankly it was the wrong tactic and it gave the advantage to the Phoenix who put us under constant pressure for most of the second half.

Discipline again was the problem last night, with Muscat receiving a straight red for an ordinary two footed challenge on Brown. It was one of the minutes of madness that we were accustomed to seeing in Season 1 and with Muscat’s record it wouldn’t surprise me if he sat out more than one game. It was the fourth straight red card received by a Victory player this season and it is costing us games. Merrick needs to lay down the law as if this trend continues we will be definitely missing out of finals football.

Onto Merrick, I wish he would stop staying that he is happy with the way the team is playing because after last night’s performance it just comes across as total crap. Twenty thousand supporters saw that we played ordinary football, why can’t one man on his plastic seat admit that this is the case. At the moment he is not kidding anyone. And please Ernie please play Patafta, you have one of the most technically brilliant young players in this country and you don’t even have him on your bench. I’m sitting there with my fellow Prawn Sandwich Crew members with my Patafta Victory shirt on and most times I’m there he isn’t even on the bench and I feel a little stupid. He could quite easily fit into the attacking midfielder role in between Hernandez and the front two and quite frankly he is a better option than Love who tends to lose the ball out of bounds more often than not at crucial times. While am at it, with this little rant, where is Ryall? We flew him back business class last week so we could play him against the Roar but hasn’t been spotted since. He is a good quality player and we need him in the back half. Take a risk Ernie!

Finally, a word must go to the supporters who under some duress got behind their team although it was odd to hear the north end, south end call going from the third level to the first level and not from north to south. As I said in my previous post, it is a massive overreaction from the Telstra Dome authorities and its time for the Victory admin to pull its head out of the sand.

“Telstra Dome management with the support of Football Federation Australia and Melbourne Victory have agreed to implement some seating and entrance adjustments at future Hyundai A-League matches due to recent issues relating to crowd behaviour.”

Basically changes involve moving the visiting supporters area to behind the goals with these supporters who purchase tickets from the ‘visiting team’ allocation being required to enter and exit Telstra Dome through Gate 7. This Gate will not be available to other ticket holders. There will be also areas where there no seating adjacent to the visiting supporters and entrance tunnels.

This is a massive overreaction from the Telstra Dome authorities after incidents after the last Victory home game against SydneyFC and its associated media coverage. I am not disputing the media facts but more the method of reporting any incidents that occur at A-League matches. Any incident appears to get front and back page coverage in the AFL backed newspapers. All I am asking for is a little parity in the coverage of such incidents. I am aware of two all-in-brawls involving 20-30 people and police in the MCC section of the MCG at two AFL games last season and these barely rated a mention in the local newspapers with only the second brawl receiving a few paragraphs of newspaper column.

It seems that the Telstra Dome authorities have decided that they can’t handle a small amount of bad publicity and are now dictating terms to the Melbourne Victory administration, who unfortunately are not making their own stand against the Telstra Dome and unruly fans. The people at the Telstra Dome need to be reminded that without the Melbourne Victory their stadium would sit empty for most of summer. Personally, I can’t wait until the new stadium is open and we don’t have to kow tow to the wishes of the Telstra Dome authorities.

The former system where the away supporters were seated for all regular home and away matches between aisles 41 and 44 has worked (which is basically opposite the corner flag at the north-western side of the ground) for all of last season and for most of the home games for this season. This position also puts them in close proximity to their team’s bench. This was seen as the ideal location for away supporters as for the most part most clubs do not have a large travelling contingent. Although it has been brought to my attention that it was also located in a dry area, which is a bit harsh on the away supporters.

I could understand setting aside a section behind the northern goals for away supporters if the teams were geographically closer and large amounts of travelling fans were attending games. For example in Argentina they set aside 4,000 (much larger stadiums) seats for away fans basically because large amounts of travelling fans attend games and teams are often geographically close, particularly in Buenos Aires itself. However this is not the case in the A-League, where only SydneyFC and Adelaide United supporters providing substantial away support. Therefore for tonight’s match against Wellington the northern terrace is basically going to be empty as it my understanding that not many Phoenix will be attending this game as they are more likely to attend the January fixture with more numbers. This will have a significant impact on the atmosphere at the game, with all the noise coming from the one end and not both as it currently stands.

The move also displaces a key Victory supporter group at that end of the stadium and forces them to “stand” at the other end. What is distinctive about the support for the Victory is that there is a number of supporter groups who choose to support the team in different ways. It is my understanding, and I could be wrong that the “northern” end takes its inspiration from the more European style of support whereas the supporters at the “southern”* end tend to take their inspiration from a more English/Scottish style of support. These two distinct types of supporters blend to provide an atmosphere that is unlike any other in the Australian game. Their location also allows for some usually good natured banter between them and the away supporters.

Its time to pull your head in Telstra Dome and its about time the Melbourne Victory administration to stood up for its supporters, which in my very humble and biased opinion are the best in the A-League. It will be interesting to see how the supporter groups react to these changes and what form of protest they take against this unjust decision.

* - I put these terms in brackets because the northern end is actually at the southern end of the Telstra Dome and vice versa for the northern end. These terms refer to previous locations at our former home, Olympic Park. It is also the main reason why the “we are northern over here” tends not to work as well because the fans on the wings tend to argue amongst themselves about which side of the ground they are actually on. I know, I sit amongst these people as part of the Prawn Sandwich Crew.

From what I saw of the second it again looked fairly scrappy from the Olyroos as the North Koreans looked to do everything to kill the game off and waste time. Even the equaliser was scrappy with a hint of hand ball from Leijer as it crossed the goal line. Ultimately the goal was credited to Milligan, who headed the ball towards goal from a well taken Sarkies free kick, although the AFC website does there was a touch of controversy to the goal. From then on in the six or seven of us that were actually watching the game, chewed on our fingernails constantly, especially when the Koreans looked to be creating a scoring opportunity. There was a sense of relief when the final whistle sounded.

Even though they have now made the Olympics I am not sure that I will watch them play. Up until now I had vowed that I would not watch any part of the 2008 Beijing Olympics as my own form of protest at the very fact that China is hosting these games. It is my belief that a country that regularly abuses human and democratic rights is illegally occupying Tibet should not be able to host such an event. The Olyroos qualification now makes it slightly more difficult as I would be very interested to see how they perform against countries outside of the Asian region. Anyway, I wish them all the best and look forward to some favourable results.

With that off my chest, its now onto the game. Standout performers for the Olyroos for me were in no particular order Troisi, Leijer, Milligan, Sarkies and Topor-Stanley. Not everything was perfect and periods of the game were quite scrappy. There was also some worries when the Iraqis took complete control of the midfield (I already knew the result before watching the game so I wasn’ t that concerned) after conceding the first goal and it wasn’t until we scored the second goal that they became disheartened. We could have been a tad lucky not to finish the match with only ten men after an incident between Milligan and the Iraqi ‘keeper only minutes before he scored the sealer.

Its now off to the Pyongyang for the final match and we only now need a point to make it through to the Olympics. There was heaps of talk last night about the fact that we will be playing the game on an artificial pitch. It had all the connotations of that we were looking for an excuse just in case we don’t get the result we need. Artificial pitches are a fact of life in the football world now and will be played on more and more, so just get over the fact.

Go Olyroos!