Hate to say this again, but as an English lad who arrived in Australia at the end of 1999 and started going to games in 2000 - I had no problem finding a team to support.  No one told me before I went that I was supposed to be Greek, and by the time I realised it was too late...  And I didn't care.  

We are just focussing on 2006 here. Many argue and make a fair case that the 1997 team was even better, that team had even greater NSL links.

Bresh - Damn spellcheck

Yeah, thats what I said. Whilst some of the golden gen had NSL experience, many didn't or were taught overseas. Neill, Moore, Cahill, Kewell, Skoko (NPL). Fresh and Vinnie played very little here and learnt a lot in Italy.

As an Anglo-Celtic kid from rural Victoria, with ancestors who were convicts and VFL players. I had no team that I thought I could support until Victory came around. The A League got me into the game as more than just a player and part time Socceroo fan. Even if Victoria had have had a team that reflected my heritage, or lack thereof, I doubt they would have had the marketing capacity to reach out to me. Victory had that marketing capacity. 

Bresh played NSL as well, and probaby Craig Moore.

Anyway, it's an impressive list.

Emerton played 94 NSL games, culina played 53, grella 40, viduka 48, schwarzer 58, chipperfield 131.

That's 6 of your starting 11 in the first game of 06 World Cup.

Popovic 162 NSL games and sterjovski 67 NSL games, both started the 2nd game against Brazil.

You can't look at the above and say these players were in the NSL for 2 minutes, at a minimum 2 seasons and above.

You can spin it whichever way you want, the numbers make for good reading for the NSL.

As far as game speed goes, you can make the argument for any league in the world that was significantly slower in the 90s compared to now, nobody questions the global superstars of that era, if you watched NSL regularly you wouldn't question the quality of the Na,es I mentioned, they were quality.

quicker game means less time on the ball, how would all those players go with the high press we see in the a league now. We see it year on year in the league. a player that was god like in the season before cant handle the pressure in the next.

A league by a long, long way. The NSL didn't produce the golden generation. Whilst some of the golden generation had some NSL experience, some hardly played any NSL games and many of the so-called golden generation were taught overseas.  We also had previous periods of great talent and national team success without the NSL. Has anyone heard of the 1974 World Cup before the NSL existed. Since the A-League, we've qualified for 3 world cups, with the NSL, we never qualified for 1 World Cup.
Crowds, T.V rights, money in the game, all bigger and better since the A League. Yes, I acknowledge the good work of some of the people at NSL clubs (e.g.. Ange, Branko, V-Bomber, etc), but overall, the A league is a quantum leap forward.

The NSL would have died in this modern era. Lack of governance, to many individuals looking after themselves and no tv deal. NSL was corupt and couldnt agree on the time of day. It needed a restructure. I think the a league could have been more inclusive. But there was some very unsavory fan problems at the time. also living out of a major city i could never watch any professional level football until the a league. You wouldnt see people in mckay and cairns with roar jearseys. 

The quality of the a league is far superior. which has the problem that players are not going to europe and sticking out, like the golden gen. But a lot of factors influenced the golden gen than just the NSL, plus the lauded golden gen could only manage qualify right at the end of their time. we have won a continental cup and qualified for one world cup already. 

I really think expansion and p/r should really come from the NSL clubs, give or take a few important regions. 

Not going to bring the golden generation into this but would rather focus on the players that stayed here, I would class the likes of trimboli, Cardozo, boutsianis, ivanovic, tobin and the endless list that goes on and on as superior players to the foreigners we get now. These guys would have been huge names in this era.

The A league is significantly quicker though, but the NSL had better technical players.

and the missing generation...

It was the NSL which produced the golden generation for us

They can't be compared. The A-League is a professional league, the NSL was not. I attended hundreds of NSL matches as a kid and the quality of play and venue is so much better a trying to make a comparison is laughable.

The A-League has commercialised the game given it exposure the game has never had before but all with that at the top they have forgotten the foundation which is youth development which the NSL was very good at producing players that reached the highest heights locally and overseas.

So it goes both ways really. 

No contest the A-League wins
Interestingly the opening round of the A-League in 2005 drew more than (total aggregate) any round in the 26 year, 750 rounds In the history of the NSL
Total sponsorship ( naming rights, TV deal etc)was also already higher from the opening round

Davide forgot the blue text

or not.  still working this out.  10 years on.  

We have come so far in 10 short years....................

Channel 7 have their hands full with not only AFL but also V8 Supercar. Although the AFL is mostly done and dusted by the time the A-League kicks in, and doesnt start again until the A-League is finnished, the V8 commitments kick in pretty strong once the AFL is over and it would be a struggle to finnd airtime for the A-League.

Channel 9 is obviously too busy during the summer with their cricket coverage so nothing could really be done their either.

This really only leaves Channel 10, as i dont really see the ABC or SBS as a viable option. Channel 10 have little in the way of sporting commitments outside of the AFL now they have lost the V8's, and most of their motorsport coverage is either late night stuff for the Formula One and the bikes, or delayed replays of rallying. The A-League could easily sit in and around Channel 10's existing sporting commitments and is the main avenue that i would be exploring if i was a part of the FFA.

Crucially, any deal with a free-to-air network would have to be in partnership with foxsports. Channel 10 would never be able to show every game of every round live, particularly when we start getting more teams. However in combination with Fox Sports, it'd be reletively easy to have all games televised live each weekend. Perhaps two on Channel 10 and two on Fox each week.

Also lets not forget that a strong tv deal = more money to the FFA, which the FFA could then destribute to the clubs which would enable to clubs to possibly expand their salary cap, thus building the quality of players in the league

nice parody eagle, the A-league so far is an excellent beginning to NEW FOOTBALL in australia but we definately need at least one match a week on a free-to-air station to get a more blanket coverage even with the highlight show as well. SBS could be the one to pick this up although Channel 7 has shown a commitment to football before so i dont see why they couldnt again. One of the sunday games would be tops, with a mon or tues highlight show.

yeah, spot on mate.

As time goes on the NSL will become a mystical part of Football history in this country.
Many will have never known just how big a cancer it really was.
The game ended up in a coma for almost 2 years and was barely revived.

We still havent finished with the Radiation Therapy, but most of the specialists think the cancer is now in remission.

Will the body survive?
That remains to be seen, but the signs thus far are good.

*Like one of those black preists* HALLELUJAH BRUDDA!

as much as it hurt like hell.. that Azizi goal for Iran in '97 and the whooping Uruguay gave us in '01 were blessings in disguise.

In hindsight, it was for the best. The NSL died and good riddance to it.

Definately an A-League fan. The NSL had too many etnic ties. Not that clubs are not allowed to have them but some of the ties were ridiculous. Clubs refering to themselves as there Ethnic background is a no goimo.

Hey,

I do not know why this question is being asked. The reason the A-League was created was because the NSL was so bad. End of.

Julia.

Basically the A-League is Australian Football administrated and marketed properly. The NSL was not. As Australian Football Fans let's just sit back and enjoy the ride and embrace the new fans we will continue to get to the game. And now that we are in Asia, it wont be like the old days when the socceroos were only talked about every four years. The will have major games consistantly and people will embrace that as we can all get together and support our boys.

I think some of you guys are forgetting some of the quality players which played in the NSL.

Marusic, Markovski, Halpin, Viduka, Crino, Trimboli, Zoric, Mendez etc etc.

These guys are real "footballers", not athletes. Whilst a league is great off the field, it needs more of this quality on the park, then anything could happen.

Nah serious mate, at half time or something an opposing fan will come over and start chanting at us. And most of the time we'd start the "who are ya" chant! :d/

Success in the sports entertainment industry is not measured by the standard of football....
we cant expect to start a new league in Australia (pretty much the last place on earth people out of Australia, think about when thinking about football) and have games that are as fast as Uefa champions league games, but instead the league should be measured on how the general public in Australia perceives the league.

that includes financial position, management integrity, how much the public identifies with the league, how many follow it regularly, how many are passionate about it, the professionalism of the league, if it perceived as an event to be proud to be apart of, the extent of media attention. These things and more, lead to corporate sponsorship of the game, as the corporate dollar doesn’t want to be associated with things which the public does not approve of.

So in the future with the corporate dollar we can improve the standard of play by having better players and developing better players with greater resourced grass roots plans. however on those points mentioned above, the NSL failed several times at many of them...the a-league is better but no where near it needs to be...so it needs improvement but it has the basics to have positive ticks for those indicators that you can judge a league on in the future.