If people don't wish to watch the A-league because the quality is not as good as watching the top teams in the top 5 leagues in the world then it is going to be hard to convince them to change their mind. Certainly forcing them to watch the A-league would be counterproductive.

However I do not watch European football because I think it is fake football, not in anyway like the A-league is said to be plastic, but because I think in watching top level club football in Europe you are almost certainly watching cheats. These are players who have taken performance enhancing drugs. I am not saying every player at the clubs Barcalona or Manchester or Real Madrid or Juventus is doping, but I think it is possible and certainly some players are cheats. If you do research you will find quotes and other indications that doping is widespread. Certainly I think Spain won the 2010 World Cup on the back of doping and from comments Mark Schwarzer made about Kante during the last world cup I am highly suspicious that he is a doper as well.

Need to get more young players in the door and playing professional level football. Only way you can tell if they have got what it takes.

More teams , looking forward to next season with the new team however it should have been TWO teams to make it even. A bye for a team is ssstupid. 

Dude you need to take the tin foil hat off.

They are better than us only because they are raised in a proper football education system from the age of 7.
Also the opposition is such high quality that young players need to step up to the next level to be able to compete.

The NSL didn't fold because the A-league was coming. The NSL folded because it was an economic mess that couldn't keep a format running for more than three quarters of a season and was full of people who would fully destroy the game than give up one iota of whichever opinion they happened to hold.
It was a totally chaotic mess at all levels and any revinionist crap about the good old days is beyond the realms of sane thought.

Yeah that helps, not going to deny that but there is also doping involved. It is highly likely, in my view, that at least one member of the golden generation was involved in doping as well given the level they played. 

Pretty much everyone in the Golden gen played in top level European leagues which has super strict drug testing procedures this is the NFL or the UFC  

The FFA cup wont ever be anything until you have promotion and relegation with the state league sides - these teams need an incentive to build a club the franchisee model doesnt work it has full the FFA Gallop and his gimps pockets but does nothing to improve the game itself 


The only other alternative is put a large prize pool ie 5-10 million for the clubs to share over as the progress to make it worth competing in - the FFA asks for a lot of money but never recycles it back into the sport which is the biggest problem with the FFA it is all take and no give - to do this though you would need major sponsorship  

Im going to end my interest in this forum. Some of the comments i read from a-league fans is why the league is great is strange, i respect everybodys opinion but bloody hell people defending a 6 team finals series in a 10 team league need to take a step back and think the league is struggling, why? 

Eurosnobs out number actual HAL fans (if you ask me) loads of people watch the EPL and UCL but only a minor % of them actually follow the HAL, instead of calling them snobs and saying how the league is worth following maybe listen to them most Euro-snobs some of them have been following football a long time and they know what works.....

'Eurosnobs' they are just football fans and if  you ask me they are generally right and the sooner A league fans start admitting that the sooner we can change because the proof is in results in the HAL is failing to attract interest and it is failing development of future Socceroos, step back and ask yourself why? 

This. Well said.

However it is satisfying to watch those fans at their home ground share that connection with their club.

Maybe its jealousy. 

Drug testing can be beaten, heard of Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones. If you look into cycling, which had the same drug testing, doping was almost universal yet there only a tiny percentage were ever caught. Doping was detected due to other means. Operation Puerto was one of these times that doping was uncovered and it is clear that there was many being doped from other sports but the Spanish authorities have protected their stars in other sports. Arsene Wegner has made comment in the past about his thoughts on doping in the past including Opereation Puerto.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/9858938/Arsene-Wenger-our-game-is-full-of-drug-fuelled-legends-and-needs-to-be-cleaned-up.html

There is no doubt in my mind that the Real Sociedad team which finished second in the La Liga in 2002-3 was fueled by doping and their former president Inaki Badiola has admitted it. They paid the operation Puerto doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes to dope the team. Probably the most famous member of that team was Xabi Alonso.
Fuentes has been linked to doping the Spanish national team and other footballers.

If you do some research there is a lot more out there, not definitive proof, but clear highly suspicious links. 

And Pep Guardiola test positive to doping as a player, now he is one of the best coaches in the world. 

The NSL played out every season but was badly in need of reformatting.  It didn't stop until the A-League had been announced - at which point continuing was impossible.  NSL clubs supported both the Crawford and NSL reviews, both of which recommended greater support and assistance for an independent league.  

Genoa had sold out all tickets for today’s game vs Juventus... but then fans found out Ronaldo was to be rested for Juventus!

Genoa fans protested outside the club’s HQ and threatened to return their tickets.

Genoa had sold out all tickets for today’s game vs Juventus... but then fans found out Ronaldo was to be rested for Juventus!

Genoa fans protested outside the club’s HQ and threatened to return their tickets.

Okay...  what about those NPL club supporters....   a SMFC, Avondale or Bentleigh supporter instead of following City or Victory?
And they also support a Euro club. Are they considered as Eurosnobs,
Or do they must do what the Football Elite in this forum wants them to do, and support an A-League club?

so you're one of those muppets that jumps onto a social media platform and announces they are leaving? then sooks about people not agreeing with their view on their way out the door? You're the one being bloody minded about it, not the people with the opposing view. 

Irrespective of your opinion about the quality of the HAL, do you not find it alarming that Eurosnobs do outnumber HAL fans? I certainly do. it also says a lot about the potential fan base out there if the FFA start getting things right... But that is also dependant on Eurosnobs softening their view of the local product. So until that happens, I will still continue to call people like yourself Eurosnobs. 

Absolutely NOT! If they were, they'd have not a jot of interest in domestic football, regardless of the tier.

⬆This, always this💡

Even if Pep or whoever juiced up once/a couple of times, it doesn't change the fact our player-development is for all intents & purposes nigh non-existent. Test_Fan whatsisname really ought to stick to Commonwealth-baseball & pray that Dave&Candice sextape drops before his balls do😂😂

Mate, I've only just seen this thread starter. I've read no responses!

I believe the majority of people who follow football in Australia, or who are even involved heavily at NPL level, are probably Eurosnobs. It is a massive issue for the sport. 

From starting previous threads about this issue, compared to this forum about 10 years ago, there are a large number who follow football exclusively in Europe and have little interest in the sport here.

 I just cannot understand why 90 000 odd turn up to watch preseason friendlies with the likes of Arsenal going through the motions, but they won't support HAL clubs who represent the town or cities they reside in, or even the Socceroos.

Some supposed football fans in Aus seem to delight in the Socceroos losing.

They couldn't.

They didn't qualify for  a WC in 32 years of NSL.

Does it not seem contradictory to call someone involved in the game at lower than professional level a 'eurosnob'?

I'm not a fan of pre-season exhibition games...  But I'd hazard a guess that one reason big numbers will turn up for a pre-season friendly is the one-off factor...  You'll get to see Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd, etc., once in the next 2-3 years or longer.  One chance to see those stars, 'your' club, etc.  The A-League team that represents your city will be there 13-14 times this year, then again next year and the year after.  You might see a fading one time star, you might see a star of the future, but you're not going to see the big stars...  Same with the Socceroos - there aren't too many superstars coming here for friendlies, there's none for Asian qualifiers, and the Socceroos will be back in the country on a semi-regular basis for the rest of time.

I'm not saying it's right that they go to that game and no others - just that this is the probable reason...  I still think the best banner I've seen at an A-League side's game was the "WE PLAY EVERY WEEK" banner at one of Beckham/Galaxy's games in Sydney.

As for those heavily involved at NPL level, I don't know what it's like in Tasmania, but certainly in Sydney and Melbourne, many with NPL connections feel that they have been thrown aside by the FFA over the last 15 years, and as a result have no desire to support the FFA's product.  It's hard to feel welcome when you've been barred, blamed, and banned for a decade and a half... 

Where was the 2006 squad developed?  Did it all happen in the first year of the HAL?

Fair comment.

Fair comment.

Sadly, as time has progressed this forum has become a lot more cynical and negative. The culprits probably aren't very happy in their lives off forum.

 A plethora of positive posters have left 442 in the last five years - and - their loss has detracted from the quality of the forum.  

Good on you for starting threads, Melb City Guy.

 Some who incessantly criticise others, never start any threads, never have constructive ideas or see anything positive in what others post.

To digress,  what some local female politicians have incurred from male online trolls has been made public. One can only deduce they are sadists - but also cowards.  

Selective information, Benjamin.

It took outside coaching expertise to galvanise that unit into a WC qualifying cohesive force for 2006.

What occurred in 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, was a collective failure. I passionately supported the Socceroos through all those failures - and - the only previous successful WC qualification in 1974. Losing to Iran ( twice), Israel and NZ meant something was malfunctioning. 

A lot more HAL players have played WC football, and Asian Cup football, than NSL players.


Nothing wrong with the NSL either. It was our top league for  a few decades.

The squad developed in the NSL era is considered to be our Golden Generation - that's not selective information.  As the Golden Generation players have dropped away, so to has the quality of the national team.  You and I both know that given an Asian qualification pathway, with the back up of a play-off for being the 5th best team in the federation, the 1998, 2002 and 2006 squads would have breezed into the world cup finals.

thank you everyone here should be looking to discuss issues to improve the game if not you might as well go join bigfooty 

1994 team as well, they only lost the playoff to Argentina 2-1