Monoethnic Social Club
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+xTotal season attendances peaked with Del Piero's ( and Ono and Heskey) two seasons and remained level for another 3 seasons. That's 5 seasons of peak attendances. Sydney FC's average attendance increase by around 5,500 in Del Piero first season alone The there's the TV ratings, the merch, the media interest boost Genuine star players improve the league substantially and contrary to common opinion that this uplift continues for a period after they leave ( but not forever, obviously). It, of itself, isnt enough though mate.... An interesting comparison would be the Saudi league attendances (in games Ronaldo isn't playing) if anyone has the stats?
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Muz
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Do people in Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore ask themselves the same question? The standard is what the standard is. Any decent player that can play in a better league O/S does thereby ensuring the league stays 'relatively' the same standard. Having said that that is no reason not to support it and attend if you like it.
Member since 2008.
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someguyjc
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+x+xThere is no issue with the quality of football played in the A-League. It is exactly where you'd expect it to be given the dollar value of squads. I'd actually say the A-L punches above it's weight overall. The problem is that there has been no progression. You could take a top side from this season, put them in a time machine and go back 10 years and they'd be just as competitive then as they are now. The A-League has just treaded water. This is extremely evident when we look at ACL performances. Nations that were once on par (or below) A-L quality have progressed and are now much better. They have had significant growth. What is happening now is the rusted-on fans are finally starting to walk away, or at least dial back their level of regular engagement. Which is fine if there is new fans coming through, but there's not. I'd say it's also a little unfair to look at A-L averages as a whole. It's not the job of the league to get people to games. When you isolate individual clubs, it's very easy to see what's working and what's not. For example, AU are doing well, because they are getting results, playing exciting high scoring football and are genuine contenders for the title. For the AU fans, history tells them that AU is not going to be great that often so it makes sense that they will jump on board while it lasts. Although Perth's numbers are low, they actually did well given the restrictions of their temp venue. Then if we look at MV. Poor results. Recruiting hasn't worked out. Players lost to transfers and season long injuries. Then you add in the pitch invasion issues and the GF decision. It's obviously going to have a negative effect on attendance. That being said, if there was relegation, I have no doubt way more people would be showing up to support the club. With the new clubs it's very easy to see why crowds are low. WU don't have a stadium and have made zero visible progress in actually building one. Macarthur treated their fans poorly from the beginning and then played really boring football. Brisbane moved out of reach for a big chunk of their fans and then performed poorly. Then we have an interesting one with SFC, who have been the poor side of average this season, yet the fans have been showing up. The derbies obviously help those numbers, but it's uncharacteristic for SFC. In the past the numbers have dropped when the team has done poorly. Interesting to know why they are getting better crowds than what would be normally expected. MC is the other interesting case. Excellent consistent results. Entertaining football. Exciting players. No one cares. They seem to be losing fans. CFG would be partly responsible as they really don't care about the fans. The free tickets have also dried up, so less casuals are going. They seemed to do better when they had a bit of that underdog identity going on. Now they are the benchmark and people aren't interested. The other clubs are pretty much the same as they always are. Not great, but not really much worse than normal. Bit of a shame CCM don't get better numbers. They've been worth watching this season and could finish 2nd or 3rd if they do well over the next few rounds. I think the final series will give us the biggest indication of where crowds are at. We know AU will pull full houses for any finals actually played at home. If SFC makes finals, they will do well also especially with WSW in the mix. Surprisingly there has only been one season in which both SFC and WSW appeared in the finals series, however they have never played each other in a finals game. If WSW finish 3rd and SFC finish 6th that finals game would be close to a full house for sure. However a MC/AU GF in Sydney is going to have low numbers. MC couldn't even pull a full house at home last season against another Melbourne side. Pretty much bang on the money in every aspect... I rarely watch any Aleague personally but the level of play on the pitch (on the few matches/highlights I have seen) is not THAT terrible.... Football is a global market, which means there is a pretty borad correlation between dollars spent and quality on the pitch. The A-League spends a similar amount of money on squads to EFL League One and if you watch either the quality is very similar. The summer fixture does us no favors though. The slower pace presents like lower quality but it's not. It's just a symptom of the climate. If League One played in the Aussie summer, they'd slow right down too.
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Monoethnic Social Club
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+xDo people in Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore ask themselves the same question?The standard is what the standard is. Any decent player that can play in a better league O/S does thereby ensuring the league stays 'relatively' the same standard. Having said that that is no reason not to support it and attend if you like it. Pretty much constantly (at least in Greece that I can attest too) but it doesn't stop anyone from attending the local league... club loyalty outweighs any "on the pitch" failings.
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Monoethnic Social Club
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+x+x+xThere is no issue with the quality of football played in the A-League. It is exactly where you'd expect it to be given the dollar value of squads. I'd actually say the A-L punches above it's weight overall. The problem is that there has been no progression. You could take a top side from this season, put them in a time machine and go back 10 years and they'd be just as competitive then as they are now. The A-League has just treaded water. This is extremely evident when we look at ACL performances. Nations that were once on par (or below) A-L quality have progressed and are now much better. They have had significant growth. What is happening now is the rusted-on fans are finally starting to walk away, or at least dial back their level of regular engagement. Which is fine if there is new fans coming through, but there's not. I'd say it's also a little unfair to look at A-L averages as a whole. It's not the job of the league to get people to games. When you isolate individual clubs, it's very easy to see what's working and what's not. For example, AU are doing well, because they are getting results, playing exciting high scoring football and are genuine contenders for the title. For the AU fans, history tells them that AU is not going to be great that often so it makes sense that they will jump on board while it lasts. Although Perth's numbers are low, they actually did well given the restrictions of their temp venue. Then if we look at MV. Poor results. Recruiting hasn't worked out. Players lost to transfers and season long injuries. Then you add in the pitch invasion issues and the GF decision. It's obviously going to have a negative effect on attendance. That being said, if there was relegation, I have no doubt way more people would be showing up to support the club. With the new clubs it's very easy to see why crowds are low. WU don't have a stadium and have made zero visible progress in actually building one. Macarthur treated their fans poorly from the beginning and then played really boring football. Brisbane moved out of reach for a big chunk of their fans and then performed poorly. Then we have an interesting one with SFC, who have been the poor side of average this season, yet the fans have been showing up. The derbies obviously help those numbers, but it's uncharacteristic for SFC. In the past the numbers have dropped when the team has done poorly. Interesting to know why they are getting better crowds than what would be normally expected. MC is the other interesting case. Excellent consistent results. Entertaining football. Exciting players. No one cares. They seem to be losing fans. CFG would be partly responsible as they really don't care about the fans. The free tickets have also dried up, so less casuals are going. They seemed to do better when they had a bit of that underdog identity going on. Now they are the benchmark and people aren't interested. The other clubs are pretty much the same as they always are. Not great, but not really much worse than normal. Bit of a shame CCM don't get better numbers. They've been worth watching this season and could finish 2nd or 3rd if they do well over the next few rounds. I think the final series will give us the biggest indication of where crowds are at. We know AU will pull full houses for any finals actually played at home. If SFC makes finals, they will do well also especially with WSW in the mix. Surprisingly there has only been one season in which both SFC and WSW appeared in the finals series, however they have never played each other in a finals game. If WSW finish 3rd and SFC finish 6th that finals game would be close to a full house for sure. However a MC/AU GF in Sydney is going to have low numbers. MC couldn't even pull a full house at home last season against another Melbourne side. Pretty much bang on the money in every aspect... I rarely watch any Aleague personally but the level of play on the pitch (on the few matches/highlights I have seen) is not THAT terrible.... Football is a global market, which means there is a pretty borad correlation between dollars spent and quality on the pitch. The A-League spends a similar amount of money on squads to EFL League One and if you watch either the quality is very similar. The summer fixture does us no favors though. The slower pace presents like lower quality but it's not. It's just a symptom of the climate. If League One played in the Aussie summer, they'd slow right down too. Sure they probably would but that still wouldn't affect their attendances though ....... (maybe the whole summer thing might puit a few off but not enough to stop them getting their football fix)
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Enzo Bearzot
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+x+xTotal season attendances peaked with Del Piero's ( and Ono and Heskey) two seasons and remained level for another 3 seasons. That's 5 seasons of peak attendances. Sydney FC's average attendance increase by around 5,500 in Del Piero first season alone The there's the TV ratings, the merch, the media interest boost Genuine star players improve the league substantially and contrary to common opinion that this uplift continues for a period after they leave ( but not forever, obviously). It, of itself, isnt enough though mate.... An interesting comparison would be the Saudi league attendances (in games Ronaldo isn't playing) if anyone has the stats? Why? No-one would be complaining if were at that level again. We got 5 seasons of peak interest during and after del Piero? You're expecting a marquee will increase the attendances in all games. Why? That's not how the marquee works. I understand the tribalism of football. That worked in the distant past. Today, football is entertainment. The oldest and richest clubs routinely buy the best players, over and over again because if they don't, fan interest will decline. Its entertainment- you need stars, you need characters. Aging players a their 6th A-League club and unproven kids will give us what now have-the rusted-ons. To go the next lelev you need the theatre-goers.
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someguyjc
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+x+x+x+xThere is no issue with the quality of football played in the A-League. It is exactly where you'd expect it to be given the dollar value of squads. I'd actually say the A-L punches above it's weight overall. The problem is that there has been no progression. You could take a top side from this season, put them in a time machine and go back 10 years and they'd be just as competitive then as they are now. The A-League has just treaded water. This is extremely evident when we look at ACL performances. Nations that were once on par (or below) A-L quality have progressed and are now much better. They have had significant growth. What is happening now is the rusted-on fans are finally starting to walk away, or at least dial back their level of regular engagement. Which is fine if there is new fans coming through, but there's not. I'd say it's also a little unfair to look at A-L averages as a whole. It's not the job of the league to get people to games. When you isolate individual clubs, it's very easy to see what's working and what's not. For example, AU are doing well, because they are getting results, playing exciting high scoring football and are genuine contenders for the title. For the AU fans, history tells them that AU is not going to be great that often so it makes sense that they will jump on board while it lasts. Although Perth's numbers are low, they actually did well given the restrictions of their temp venue. Then if we look at MV. Poor results. Recruiting hasn't worked out. Players lost to transfers and season long injuries. Then you add in the pitch invasion issues and the GF decision. It's obviously going to have a negative effect on attendance. That being said, if there was relegation, I have no doubt way more people would be showing up to support the club. With the new clubs it's very easy to see why crowds are low. WU don't have a stadium and have made zero visible progress in actually building one. Macarthur treated their fans poorly from the beginning and then played really boring football. Brisbane moved out of reach for a big chunk of their fans and then performed poorly. Then we have an interesting one with SFC, who have been the poor side of average this season, yet the fans have been showing up. The derbies obviously help those numbers, but it's uncharacteristic for SFC. In the past the numbers have dropped when the team has done poorly. Interesting to know why they are getting better crowds than what would be normally expected. MC is the other interesting case. Excellent consistent results. Entertaining football. Exciting players. No one cares. They seem to be losing fans. CFG would be partly responsible as they really don't care about the fans. The free tickets have also dried up, so less casuals are going. They seemed to do better when they had a bit of that underdog identity going on. Now they are the benchmark and people aren't interested. The other clubs are pretty much the same as they always are. Not great, but not really much worse than normal. Bit of a shame CCM don't get better numbers. They've been worth watching this season and could finish 2nd or 3rd if they do well over the next few rounds. I think the final series will give us the biggest indication of where crowds are at. We know AU will pull full houses for any finals actually played at home. If SFC makes finals, they will do well also especially with WSW in the mix. Surprisingly there has only been one season in which both SFC and WSW appeared in the finals series, however they have never played each other in a finals game. If WSW finish 3rd and SFC finish 6th that finals game would be close to a full house for sure. However a MC/AU GF in Sydney is going to have low numbers. MC couldn't even pull a full house at home last season against another Melbourne side. Pretty much bang on the money in every aspect... I rarely watch any Aleague personally but the level of play on the pitch (on the few matches/highlights I have seen) is not THAT terrible.... Football is a global market, which means there is a pretty borad correlation between dollars spent and quality on the pitch. The A-League spends a similar amount of money on squads to EFL League One and if you watch either the quality is very similar. The summer fixture does us no favors though. The slower pace presents like lower quality but it's not. It's just a symptom of the climate. If League One played in the Aussie summer, they'd slow right down too. Sure they probably would but that still wouldn't affect their attendances though ....... (maybe the whole summer thing might puit a few off but not enough to stop them getting their football fix) Which is probably more to do with history and multi generational support over a long period of time. Unfortunately for the A-League, that's not something you can simply manufacture. It's just a matter of surviving and getting better with time. Which is why they really need to listen and target the rusted-ons and other (non A-League) football fans at the moment. These are the people that have the greatest potential to create that multi-generational support.
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Monoethnic Social Club
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Posts: 11K,
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+x+x+x+x+xThere is no issue with the quality of football played in the A-League. It is exactly where you'd expect it to be given the dollar value of squads. I'd actually say the A-L punches above it's weight overall. The problem is that there has been no progression. You could take a top side from this season, put them in a time machine and go back 10 years and they'd be just as competitive then as they are now. The A-League has just treaded water. This is extremely evident when we look at ACL performances. Nations that were once on par (or below) A-L quality have progressed and are now much better. They have had significant growth. What is happening now is the rusted-on fans are finally starting to walk away, or at least dial back their level of regular engagement. Which is fine if there is new fans coming through, but there's not. I'd say it's also a little unfair to look at A-L averages as a whole. It's not the job of the league to get people to games. When you isolate individual clubs, it's very easy to see what's working and what's not. For example, AU are doing well, because they are getting results, playing exciting high scoring football and are genuine contenders for the title. For the AU fans, history tells them that AU is not going to be great that often so it makes sense that they will jump on board while it lasts. Although Perth's numbers are low, they actually did well given the restrictions of their temp venue. Then if we look at MV. Poor results. Recruiting hasn't worked out. Players lost to transfers and season long injuries. Then you add in the pitch invasion issues and the GF decision. It's obviously going to have a negative effect on attendance. That being said, if there was relegation, I have no doubt way more people would be showing up to support the club. With the new clubs it's very easy to see why crowds are low. WU don't have a stadium and have made zero visible progress in actually building one. Macarthur treated their fans poorly from the beginning and then played really boring football. Brisbane moved out of reach for a big chunk of their fans and then performed poorly. Then we have an interesting one with SFC, who have been the poor side of average this season, yet the fans have been showing up. The derbies obviously help those numbers, but it's uncharacteristic for SFC. In the past the numbers have dropped when the team has done poorly. Interesting to know why they are getting better crowds than what would be normally expected. MC is the other interesting case. Excellent consistent results. Entertaining football. Exciting players. No one cares. They seem to be losing fans. CFG would be partly responsible as they really don't care about the fans. The free tickets have also dried up, so less casuals are going. They seemed to do better when they had a bit of that underdog identity going on. Now they are the benchmark and people aren't interested. The other clubs are pretty much the same as they always are. Not great, but not really much worse than normal. Bit of a shame CCM don't get better numbers. They've been worth watching this season and could finish 2nd or 3rd if they do well over the next few rounds. I think the final series will give us the biggest indication of where crowds are at. We know AU will pull full houses for any finals actually played at home. If SFC makes finals, they will do well also especially with WSW in the mix. Surprisingly there has only been one season in which both SFC and WSW appeared in the finals series, however they have never played each other in a finals game. If WSW finish 3rd and SFC finish 6th that finals game would be close to a full house for sure. However a MC/AU GF in Sydney is going to have low numbers. MC couldn't even pull a full house at home last season against another Melbourne side. Pretty much bang on the money in every aspect... I rarely watch any Aleague personally but the level of play on the pitch (on the few matches/highlights I have seen) is not THAT terrible.... Football is a global market, which means there is a pretty borad correlation between dollars spent and quality on the pitch. The A-League spends a similar amount of money on squads to EFL League One and if you watch either the quality is very similar. The summer fixture does us no favors though. The slower pace presents like lower quality but it's not. It's just a symptom of the climate. If League One played in the Aussie summer, they'd slow right down too. Sure they probably would but that still wouldn't affect their attendances though ....... (maybe the whole summer thing might puit a few off but not enough to stop them getting their football fix) Which is probably more to do with history and multi generational support over a long period of time. Unfortunately for the A-League, that's not something you can simply manufacture. It's just a matter of surviving and getting better with time. Which is why they really need to listen and target the rusted-ons and other (non A-League) football fans at the moment. These are the people that have the greatest potential to create that multi-generational support. Oh, but in some ways it is mate. Look at Wrexham FC at the moment ... Sure they had their loyal rusted ons in their hundreds before Deedpool and Philladelphia bought the club but not the thousands they are getting to every game now....
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Monoethnic Social Club
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 11K,
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+x+x+xTotal season attendances peaked with Del Piero's ( and Ono and Heskey) two seasons and remained level for another 3 seasons. That's 5 seasons of peak attendances. Sydney FC's average attendance increase by around 5,500 in Del Piero first season alone The there's the TV ratings, the merch, the media interest boost Genuine star players improve the league substantially and contrary to common opinion that this uplift continues for a period after they leave ( but not forever, obviously). It, of itself, isnt enough though mate.... An interesting comparison would be the Saudi league attendances (in games Ronaldo isn't playing) if anyone has the stats? Why? No-one would be complaining if were at that level again. We got 5 seasons of peak interest during and after del Piero? You're expecting a marquee will increase the attendances in all games. Why? That's not how the marquee works. I understand the tribalism of football. That worked in the distant past. Today, football is entertainment. The oldest and richest clubs routinely buy the best players, over and over again because if they don't, fan interest will decline. Its entertainment- you need stars, you need characters. Aging players a their 6th A-League club and unproven kids will give us what now have-the rusted-ons. To go the next lelev you need the theatre-goers. Sure but bumping the attendance and marketability of only one club doesn't do much for the whole league does it? If One club is getting 20-30k at home and the rest are sub 3k with the exception of when "wonder player pty ltd" comes to play at their home town, that may bump up attendances as an average over the league but doesn't help all the clubs.... surely?
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bettega
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Is it about quality? I think people overstate the case. I'm old enough to remember season 3, the highest average attendances ever achieved by the A-League. The Jets defeated the Mariners in the grand final 1-0 in just about the worst grand final ever played. They both finished 1st and 2nd respectively at the end of the regular season. The Jets scored 25 goals in 21 games, and Joel Griffiths scored half of them. 4th placed Brisbane also scored 25 goals in 21 games, same as the wooden spooner, the Phoenix. So half the teams in the finals that season scored at the same rate as the bottom place club, about 1.2 goals per game. It was a pretty ordinary season, with pretty much every club playing a dull counter-attacking style that epitimosed the A-League of the period. But that season achieved the highest attendance average ever - never been able to come close to it since. The league got another fillip when Del Piero joined, and he was good value for the neutral, but SFC finished bottom of the table from memory. It's not really about quality. It's really about fans making life-long commitments to clubs, and that happens for all sorts of reasons. And logically, every club can't finish top, or top 2, or top 4, so that committment has to come about for reasons other than merely winning more than half your games. There's still a chance that might happen for the A-League clubs over the course of the rest of this century, but the first 18 to 19 years are not really suggesting that at the moment.
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someguyjc
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+x+x+x+x+x+xThere is no issue with the quality of football played in the A-League. It is exactly where you'd expect it to be given the dollar value of squads. I'd actually say the A-L punches above it's weight overall. The problem is that there has been no progression. You could take a top side from this season, put them in a time machine and go back 10 years and they'd be just as competitive then as they are now. The A-League has just treaded water. This is extremely evident when we look at ACL performances. Nations that were once on par (or below) A-L quality have progressed and are now much better. They have had significant growth. What is happening now is the rusted-on fans are finally starting to walk away, or at least dial back their level of regular engagement. Which is fine if there is new fans coming through, but there's not. I'd say it's also a little unfair to look at A-L averages as a whole. It's not the job of the league to get people to games. When you isolate individual clubs, it's very easy to see what's working and what's not. For example, AU are doing well, because they are getting results, playing exciting high scoring football and are genuine contenders for the title. For the AU fans, history tells them that AU is not going to be great that often so it makes sense that they will jump on board while it lasts. Although Perth's numbers are low, they actually did well given the restrictions of their temp venue. Then if we look at MV. Poor results. Recruiting hasn't worked out. Players lost to transfers and season long injuries. Then you add in the pitch invasion issues and the GF decision. It's obviously going to have a negative effect on attendance. That being said, if there was relegation, I have no doubt way more people would be showing up to support the club. With the new clubs it's very easy to see why crowds are low. WU don't have a stadium and have made zero visible progress in actually building one. Macarthur treated their fans poorly from the beginning and then played really boring football. Brisbane moved out of reach for a big chunk of their fans and then performed poorly. Then we have an interesting one with SFC, who have been the poor side of average this season, yet the fans have been showing up. The derbies obviously help those numbers, but it's uncharacteristic for SFC. In the past the numbers have dropped when the team has done poorly. Interesting to know why they are getting better crowds than what would be normally expected. MC is the other interesting case. Excellent consistent results. Entertaining football. Exciting players. No one cares. They seem to be losing fans. CFG would be partly responsible as they really don't care about the fans. The free tickets have also dried up, so less casuals are going. They seemed to do better when they had a bit of that underdog identity going on. Now they are the benchmark and people aren't interested. The other clubs are pretty much the same as they always are. Not great, but not really much worse than normal. Bit of a shame CCM don't get better numbers. They've been worth watching this season and could finish 2nd or 3rd if they do well over the next few rounds. I think the final series will give us the biggest indication of where crowds are at. We know AU will pull full houses for any finals actually played at home. If SFC makes finals, they will do well also especially with WSW in the mix. Surprisingly there has only been one season in which both SFC and WSW appeared in the finals series, however they have never played each other in a finals game. If WSW finish 3rd and SFC finish 6th that finals game would be close to a full house for sure. However a MC/AU GF in Sydney is going to have low numbers. MC couldn't even pull a full house at home last season against another Melbourne side. Pretty much bang on the money in every aspect... I rarely watch any Aleague personally but the level of play on the pitch (on the few matches/highlights I have seen) is not THAT terrible.... Football is a global market, which means there is a pretty borad correlation between dollars spent and quality on the pitch. The A-League spends a similar amount of money on squads to EFL League One and if you watch either the quality is very similar. The summer fixture does us no favors though. The slower pace presents like lower quality but it's not. It's just a symptom of the climate. If League One played in the Aussie summer, they'd slow right down too. Sure they probably would but that still wouldn't affect their attendances though ....... (maybe the whole summer thing might puit a few off but not enough to stop them getting their football fix) Which is probably more to do with history and multi generational support over a long period of time. Unfortunately for the A-League, that's not something you can simply manufacture. It's just a matter of surviving and getting better with time. Which is why they really need to listen and target the rusted-ons and other (non A-League) football fans at the moment. These are the people that have the greatest potential to create that multi-generational support. Oh, but in some ways it is mate. Look at Wrexham FC at the moment ... Sure they had their loyal rusted ons in their hundreds before Deedpool and Philladelphia bought the club but not the thousands they are getting to every game now.... Your not wrong, but it's not every day Mac and Van Wilder come knocking.
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Monoethnic Social Club
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+x+x+x+x+x+x+xThere is no issue with the quality of football played in the A-League. It is exactly where you'd expect it to be given the dollar value of squads. I'd actually say the A-L punches above it's weight overall. The problem is that there has been no progression. You could take a top side from this season, put them in a time machine and go back 10 years and they'd be just as competitive then as they are now. The A-League has just treaded water. This is extremely evident when we look at ACL performances. Nations that were once on par (or below) A-L quality have progressed and are now much better. They have had significant growth. What is happening now is the rusted-on fans are finally starting to walk away, or at least dial back their level of regular engagement. Which is fine if there is new fans coming through, but there's not. I'd say it's also a little unfair to look at A-L averages as a whole. It's not the job of the league to get people to games. When you isolate individual clubs, it's very easy to see what's working and what's not. For example, AU are doing well, because they are getting results, playing exciting high scoring football and are genuine contenders for the title. For the AU fans, history tells them that AU is not going to be great that often so it makes sense that they will jump on board while it lasts. Although Perth's numbers are low, they actually did well given the restrictions of their temp venue. Then if we look at MV. Poor results. Recruiting hasn't worked out. Players lost to transfers and season long injuries. Then you add in the pitch invasion issues and the GF decision. It's obviously going to have a negative effect on attendance. That being said, if there was relegation, I have no doubt way more people would be showing up to support the club. With the new clubs it's very easy to see why crowds are low. WU don't have a stadium and have made zero visible progress in actually building one. Macarthur treated their fans poorly from the beginning and then played really boring football. Brisbane moved out of reach for a big chunk of their fans and then performed poorly. Then we have an interesting one with SFC, who have been the poor side of average this season, yet the fans have been showing up. The derbies obviously help those numbers, but it's uncharacteristic for SFC. In the past the numbers have dropped when the team has done poorly. Interesting to know why they are getting better crowds than what would be normally expected. MC is the other interesting case. Excellent consistent results. Entertaining football. Exciting players. No one cares. They seem to be losing fans. CFG would be partly responsible as they really don't care about the fans. The free tickets have also dried up, so less casuals are going. They seemed to do better when they had a bit of that underdog identity going on. Now they are the benchmark and people aren't interested. The other clubs are pretty much the same as they always are. Not great, but not really much worse than normal. Bit of a shame CCM don't get better numbers. They've been worth watching this season and could finish 2nd or 3rd if they do well over the next few rounds. I think the final series will give us the biggest indication of where crowds are at. We know AU will pull full houses for any finals actually played at home. If SFC makes finals, they will do well also especially with WSW in the mix. Surprisingly there has only been one season in which both SFC and WSW appeared in the finals series, however they have never played each other in a finals game. If WSW finish 3rd and SFC finish 6th that finals game would be close to a full house for sure. However a MC/AU GF in Sydney is going to have low numbers. MC couldn't even pull a full house at home last season against another Melbourne side. Pretty much bang on the money in every aspect... I rarely watch any Aleague personally but the level of play on the pitch (on the few matches/highlights I have seen) is not THAT terrible.... Football is a global market, which means there is a pretty borad correlation between dollars spent and quality on the pitch. The A-League spends a similar amount of money on squads to EFL League One and if you watch either the quality is very similar. The summer fixture does us no favors though. The slower pace presents like lower quality but it's not. It's just a symptom of the climate. If League One played in the Aussie summer, they'd slow right down too. Sure they probably would but that still wouldn't affect their attendances though ....... (maybe the whole summer thing might puit a few off but not enough to stop them getting their football fix) Which is probably more to do with history and multi generational support over a long period of time. Unfortunately for the A-League, that's not something you can simply manufacture. It's just a matter of surviving and getting better with time. Which is why they really need to listen and target the rusted-ons and other (non A-League) football fans at the moment. These are the people that have the greatest potential to create that multi-generational support. Oh, but in some ways it is mate. Look at Wrexham FC at the moment ... Sure they had their loyal rusted ons in their hundreds before Deedpool and Philladelphia bought the club but not the thousands they are getting to every game now.... Your not wrong, but it's not every day Mac and Van Wilder come knocking. "Thats not a bong ..... its for your schlong" hahahahahahahha :)
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Decentric 2
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+xNot going near a game again until/unless they scrap the Sydney Grand Final shit. Nothing else. If we had regular AL football, even Div 2, in my home city, I'd become a member and watch every home game. Because an admin panel has made a stupid decision, it wouldn't stop me from supporting my local club. I wouldn't punish the clubs/players for the bad admin decision from the peak body.
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Decentric 2
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+x+xOf course everyone likes to see players who can dribble past defenders at pace as this is the ultimate skill of a footballer. ( scoring a goal is the bonus).However the passing game is best suited for most players even professionals.The best teams have outstanding dribblers as well as a smart passing game-to whit Barcelona with Messi. There are some very good dribblers in the A-league-Arzani,Piscopo,Ninkovic and O'Shea to name a few but most players are passers as they have been taught since junior days.The problem with the A-league is that many players have a very average first touch and while they can control the ball if not pressured and then pass this slows down attacking momentum and lacks the cut and thrust of the top European and South American teams.However the new generation of players-Kuol( Garang),Segecic,Irankunda,Archie Goodwin,Robertson,Wilson( from Victory) and quite a few others have a very good first touch and thus they are in a better position to take on a defender or more time to put in a telling pass.Therefore the standard of the league should continue to rise as these players with attacking potential get their chances.As long as the media shines some light on these players interest will grow and hopefully increase crowd attendances and viewing numbers. All of those young players from this generation that have great first touches and dribbling have benefited from the national curriculum which was brought in 12 years ago, so in a way its not a surprise to see this large improvement. It might be an idea for all those naysayers of the National Curriculum, to put their hand up and admit they were wrong.
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Decentric 2
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+x+x+x+x+x+xThe problem with the A league is too much passing not enough dribbling and innovation in attack. As a kid I would stay up till 4am to watch players like Kewell, Lazaridis, Viduka fun players etc but most A league games are a flat out snoozefest, even if the standard and tactics are above average. Fortunately that is changing a little bit, I’ll tune in specifically to watch players like Irankundra, Tilio, Arzani etc because they alone can make a game interesting. I get that, but watching games overseas you can describe that very same thing to many of them too. I took someone to a Serie A game once and that person said afterwards he'd rather watch an A-League match for excitement. Admittedly, it was a sterile type match. Different approaches, tactics, styles, strengths and weaknesses differs enormously throughout the football world. Understand, but the Australian market wants to see attacking football. They also want to see goals and their team win. If you play serie A type here we will always have dismal crowds. An interesting stat the commentators mentioned tonight is the a-league has a higher average per goals scored per match than the top 5 league's in Europe, the goal scoring isnt the problem. Correct, but they need to find ways to make build up play more interesting. Attacking players who run at defenders can be enthralling to watch rather than just the typical generic passing bs. I also its down to how teams are set up, most teams want to attack even if it means playing in transition whilst others like a slow and patent build up, also we see mistakes as well but this is beauty of football in a way so its at least entertaining to watch. Quite a few teams vary between the two approaches at various stages of games, Barca.
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tsf
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+xTotal season attendances peaked with Del Piero's ( and Ono and Heskey) two seasons and remained level for another 3 seasons. That's 5 seasons of peak attendances. Sydney FC's average attendance increase by around 5,500 in Del Piero first season alone The there's the TV ratings, the merch, the media interest boost Genuine star players improve the league substantially and contrary to common opinion that this uplift continues for a period after they leave ( but not forever, obviously). However the league benchmark for the first ten years never had one.
Unless you count Thompson, Muscat or Hernandez.
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Decentric 2
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+x+xThe standard of play is not perfect but it's entertaining with plenty of goals and providing some good football to watch, the young talent on display is exciting as well so I dont think the fans should not complain about what's on the pitch, if anything its comparable to the NRL and AFL where its providing good entertainment as a sporting code. For me its down to the experience at game day as well as poor marketing and promotion of this league, some daft kick off times dont help either especially those 3pm during the summer months. Although the stigma that the a-league is not the standard as the top European and South American football unfortunately will not change anything soon even if the NSD comes in with pro-rel I don't think the stigma will go away because people will make an judgement based on their own perception. And perception is very hard to change especially now with a social media era where everything is compared on to the best. Just make the game experience worthy and let the football take care of itself, not pointless gimmicks which dont work in pro sport and most importantly market and promote the damn thing until its irritating to the mainstream. Any successful product will always focus and look after on its core which for football it will always will be the players and the fans experience, otherwise there is no game. To me apart from all the dumb admin decisions is the poor marketing of not only the A-League but of the players as well, unless the players have played hundreds of PL games we don't know how to market them. Look at Mooy, from a technical point of view as good as anyone who has played for the Socceroos & has played in the PL, now with champion club Celtic (albeit, not strong league), but little is known of Mooy outside the football community. Leckie, played for many years in the Bunesliga (top 5 in Europe), scored against Denmark, set up goal against France, one of the best back in the A-League (very few GG came back as good), played more games at WC than any other outfield player. Very little is known of him outside of football community Goodwin, scorer against France, also the shot that caused own goal against Argentina, probably best player in A-League, again not known. Vuckovic, what a heartbreaking story about his son & how he managed his O/S football career & his son needs, back in the A-league Rogic, as skillful a player to ever don the Socceroos shirt (Harry & Dukes apart), biggest European trophy winner (Chipperfield up there too), but not known outside football community. We have thousands playing football every weekend & all our Socceroos & Matildas, Plus A-League & ALW players, all came from local clubs, these thousands are playing every week, why not market these stars to them. What would NRL be without the marketing of Latrell, Munster, Cleary, Tommy Turbo,Tedesco or AFL without the marketing of Buddy, Dusty Martin & now I'm struggling (not an AFL fan). Past players, circa late 90s -2007, were marketed so much better than the current A L players and Socceroos - particularly if they played in the EPL. Some of the best Socceroos in this era - Grella, Bresciano, Emo, Culina, Kalac - were quite frustrated playing in Italy or Netherlands, because they struggled for recognition compared to the Aussie EPL players. And clubs like Ajax or PSV Eindhoven ( which one did Culina play with?) and a few Italian clubs were higher in world rankings. Fair comment about Leckie's lack of marketing, Robbos.
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tsf
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Who wants to watch MacArthur v Perth on some afl oval in Ballarat with more grass on the sides lines than the pitch?
Also that decision to have the GF in sydney was a massive turning point and moronic initiative that should’ve see him replaced at season’s end.
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tsf
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Just imagine if we had a PR how incredible the end to the season would be. Cannot believe some people are against it (unless you hold a board seat at MV etc)
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Footyball
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+xWho wants to watch MacArthur v Perth on some afl oval in Ballarat with more grass on the sides lines than the pitch?
Also that decision to have the GF in sydney was a massive turning point and moronic initiative that should’ve see him replaced at season’s end.
100% Correct on all fronts.
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Butler99
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+x+xNot going near a game again until/unless they scrap the Sydney Grand Final shit. Nothing else. If we had regular AL football, even Div 2, in my home city, I'd become a member and watch every home game. Because an admin panel has made a stupid decision, it wouldn't stop me from supporting my local club. I wouldn't punish the clubs/players for the bad admin decision from the peak body. Well said. How does a league decision about the GF venue deter people from supporting their club week in week out?? I find that absolutely astonishing. As I've said previously, in the 90s NSL the league forced club name changes. But the fans still supported their clubs. Why can't the fans simply support their clubs after this decision?
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Feed_The_Brox
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+x Well said. How does a league decision about the GF venue deter people from supporting their club week in week out??
I find that absolutely astonishing.
Where do you live mate? Maybe that’ll explain why you find it astonishing.
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Barca4Life
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+x+x+xOf course everyone likes to see players who can dribble past defenders at pace as this is the ultimate skill of a footballer. ( scoring a goal is the bonus).However the passing game is best suited for most players even professionals.The best teams have outstanding dribblers as well as a smart passing game-to whit Barcelona with Messi. There are some very good dribblers in the A-league-Arzani,Piscopo,Ninkovic and O'Shea to name a few but most players are passers as they have been taught since junior days.The problem with the A-league is that many players have a very average first touch and while they can control the ball if not pressured and then pass this slows down attacking momentum and lacks the cut and thrust of the top European and South American teams.However the new generation of players-Kuol( Garang),Segecic,Irankunda,Archie Goodwin,Robertson,Wilson( from Victory) and quite a few others have a very good first touch and thus they are in a better position to take on a defender or more time to put in a telling pass.Therefore the standard of the league should continue to rise as these players with attacking potential get their chances.As long as the media shines some light on these players interest will grow and hopefully increase crowd attendances and viewing numbers. All of those young players from this generation that have great first touches and dribbling have benefited from the national curriculum which was brought in 12 years ago, so in a way its not a surprise to see this large improvement. It might be an idea for all those naysayers of the National Curriculum, to put their hand up and admit they were wrong. I mean this process was always going to take time to bear fruit, I guess these dutch coaches that were here knew what they were doing all along...
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Barca4Life
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+x+x+x+x+x+x+xThe problem with the A league is too much passing not enough dribbling and innovation in attack. As a kid I would stay up till 4am to watch players like Kewell, Lazaridis, Viduka fun players etc but most A league games are a flat out snoozefest, even if the standard and tactics are above average. Fortunately that is changing a little bit, I’ll tune in specifically to watch players like Irankundra, Tilio, Arzani etc because they alone can make a game interesting. I get that, but watching games overseas you can describe that very same thing to many of them too. I took someone to a Serie A game once and that person said afterwards he'd rather watch an A-League match for excitement. Admittedly, it was a sterile type match. Different approaches, tactics, styles, strengths and weaknesses differs enormously throughout the football world. Understand, but the Australian market wants to see attacking football. They also want to see goals and their team win. If you play serie A type here we will always have dismal crowds. An interesting stat the commentators mentioned tonight is the a-league has a higher average per goals scored per match than the top 5 league's in Europe, the goal scoring isnt the problem. Correct, but they need to find ways to make build up play more interesting. Attacking players who run at defenders can be enthralling to watch rather than just the typical generic passing bs. I also its down to how teams are set up, most teams want to attack even if it means playing in transition whilst others like a slow and patent build up, also we see mistakes as well but this is beauty of football in a way so its at least entertaining to watch. Quite a few teams vary between the two approaches at various stages of games, Barca. Thats what I mean and it makes for interesting games tactically even approaches are not always the same.
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mark_000au
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Personally I hate it when they re sharing the pitch with NRL. Soccer needs a decent pitch not a cow paddock like last Monday @ AAMI park. The decent pitch & crowd made the game watchable.
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Monoethnic Social Club
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+x+xNot going near a game again until/unless they scrap the Sydney Grand Final shit. Nothing else. If we had regular AL football, even Div 2, in my home city, I'd become a member and watch every home game. Because an admin panel has made a stupid decision, it wouldn't stop me from supporting my local club. I wouldn't punish the clubs/players for the bad admin decision from the peak body. Very lofty sentiment Decentric, Do you NOT have an NPL club in your area that could use your membership?
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Monoethnic Social Club
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+x+x+x+xOf course everyone likes to see players who can dribble past defenders at pace as this is the ultimate skill of a footballer. ( scoring a goal is the bonus).However the passing game is best suited for most players even professionals.The best teams have outstanding dribblers as well as a smart passing game-to whit Barcelona with Messi. There are some very good dribblers in the A-league-Arzani,Piscopo,Ninkovic and O'Shea to name a few but most players are passers as they have been taught since junior days.The problem with the A-league is that many players have a very average first touch and while they can control the ball if not pressured and then pass this slows down attacking momentum and lacks the cut and thrust of the top European and South American teams.However the new generation of players-Kuol( Garang),Segecic,Irankunda,Archie Goodwin,Robertson,Wilson( from Victory) and quite a few others have a very good first touch and thus they are in a better position to take on a defender or more time to put in a telling pass.Therefore the standard of the league should continue to rise as these players with attacking potential get their chances.As long as the media shines some light on these players interest will grow and hopefully increase crowd attendances and viewing numbers. All of those young players from this generation that have great first touches and dribbling have benefited from the national curriculum which was brought in 12 years ago, so in a way its not a surprise to see this large improvement. It might be an idea for all those naysayers of the National Curriculum, to put their hand up and admit they were wrong. I mean this process was always going to take time to bear fruit, I guess these dutch coaches that were here knew what they were doing all along... I gather you are both heavily invested in this Dutch Curriculum bearing fruit for one reason or another but do you think it has? I must be missing something fundamental because not really seeing any technical improvement at youth level, nor Olyroos nor NTs.... Who are these players blessed with excellent first touch you are talking about???
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Monoethnic Social Club
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+xJust imagine if we had a PR how incredible the end to the season would be. Cannot believe some people are against it (unless you hold a board seat at MV etc) Despite the usual "We cant have pro/rel because a club like Victory would fold in a second tier" malarky I reckon crowds wise Victory could lock in 3 x home games and 3 x away games EVERY season with over 20k crowds in a second division. PLUS a decent away contingent from Syd Croatia, Marconi, Sydney Olympic, Adelaide Juve etc (if nothing else from Melbourne based "effniks" alone)
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Hillbilly55
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+x+xJust imagine if we had a PR how incredible the end to the season would be. Cannot believe some people are against it (unless you hold a board seat at MV etc) Despite the usual "We cant have pro/rel because a club like Victory would fold in a second tier" malarky I reckon crowds wise Victory could lock in 3 x home games and 3 x away games EVERY season with over 20k crowds in a second division. PLUS a decent away contingent from Syd Croatia, Marconi, Sydney Olympic, Adelaide Juve etc (if nothing else from Melbourne based "effniks" alone) I agree, at the moment it's so "whatever", I'll go to the Beach, Pub, friend's etc, see you next year. If the survival of your club in the division rested on the last couple of results, as the saying goes, "you wouldn't miss it for quids". Time for the APL to wake up!
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numklpkgulftumch
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+x+xNot going near a game again until/unless they scrap the Sydney Grand Final shit. Nothing else. If we had regular AL football, even Div 2, in my home city, I'd become a member and watch every home game. Because an admin panel has made a stupid decision, it wouldn't stop me from supporting my local club. I wouldn't punish the clubs/players for the bad admin decision from the peak body. How shit would fans have to be treated for you to take a stand ? And would it have to be a single decision, or can there be a straw that breaks the camels back ?
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