Well Lou Sticca is off one a last minute dash to Italy at present to try and secure another huge fish for the HAL, Pirlo, with SFC being the most likely destination. And while it's reported that Pirlo's very close to signing with NYC nothing has been signed yet.

Maybe he fancies picking up from where ADP left off and leaving a lasting legacy to a developing football nation..?

All football fans can only hope he signs for a team, any team in the A League, as it would be amazing to have him here.

If SFC do miss out on him there's apparently a very ambitious wish list of marquees we're looking to sign, and a chequebook to go with it.

With all the talk of TV deals, a few big names coming to the league would certainly increase ratings for potential buyers...

Source is nothing concrete, just a bunch of discussions from journos on Twitter including Gatt, SST ( i know) and others...

Pretty sure he's going to either the Middle East or America.

Edited by salmonfc: 4/6/2015 02:54:07 PM

Honestly don't see it happening.

Why the fuck would he come to Australia? He'd make an absolute killing in New York (but him, Villa AND Lampard is overkill for one club tbh)

inb4 SydCro arrogance

Except for that one club is at the bottom of the table...

Might piss of a few people but i really do think the MSL is at a worse standard than the A league. Watching a few games on ESPN and seeing their results in friendlies against us and teams in europe. Watching the end of season finals I was disappointing in the tactics and the type of football on display. It's like a league full of teams playing like CCM, sorry CCM have lots of respect for your success with so little finances and up and down politics, but you don't play nice football.

On topic, love to see pirlo in the flesh. doubt it happens as he would probably look for a cash in at his age.

:lol: arrogance.

;)

Whats the msl? Its the mls and if you think the hal is better than the mls than you got rocks in your head .

In Australia, there's a bigger focus on playing out from the back, but the MLS is a much faster league. At this stage the MLS is a few years and a few hundred million dollars ahead of the A-League.

prediction of ticking people confirmed :d
seriously as someone that spend half of their time in the usa I think the a league is similar quality. The mls is more athletic and teams are more organized on the pitch but the teams dont look as technical to me

yeah typo MLS.

It's the tactics used, US is very big on athleticism and you can see it in their teams, big and fast. Organised and disciplined, but its more 442 kick to a winger and cross. No one is really looking to control the ball. I know pre season (or mid season in LA Gal) friendly are not best indicator but the trend of A league teams beating the MLS team is a bit hard to ignore. Also we are now getting very respectable results against big European teams, MLS still get the 3-0. Money wise the league is far ahead, but tactics wise nope.

it looks like the mls suffers a similar problem with klinsmann as we had with verbeek
http://www.espnfc.com.au/team/united-states/660/blog/post/2145970/club-vs-country----is-klinsmann-right-about-mls-and-how-the-league-compares-to-europe

One way of comparing leagues is to look at the results in friendlies. Friendlies have more variance in results than competitive matches but this averages out if you look at enough matches

The MLS played 13 friendlies in the last 12 months against high quality european teams (results apart from the all stars friendly against bayern munich are available here
http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2014/07/18/schedule-international-friendlies-summer-incl-mls-clubs-vs-host-epl-clubs)

Goals Against: 29 (2.23 a game)
Goals For: 11 (0.85 a game)
Difference per game: 1.38
The teams were similar quality to our contingent: Aston Villa, Tottenham, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Athletico Madrid, bayern munich.
Just looking at top class teams (including Tottenham) the results were
Goals for: 9 (1.13 a game)
Goals against: 20 (2.5 a game)
Difference per game: 1.37
Chance of MLS win: 15%
Games: 8
Looking at weaker opposition
Goals for: 2 (0.4 a game)
Goals against: 9 (1.8 a game)
Difference per game: 1.4
Games: 5

We would have had a similar number of matches I think over a 12 month period after the liverpool games

we have played 5 games last year that I remember (west ham and newcastle played sfc and wp each and juventus played the all stars) as well as 4 games this year so far

Newcastle v United Sydney FC: 4-0
Juventus v Allstars: 3-2
Newcastle United v Wellington Pheonix: 1-0
West Ham United v Wellington Pheonix: 1-2
West ham United v Sydney FC: 1-3
Chelsea v SFC: 1-0
Tottenham v SFC: 1-0
Villareal v Adelaide v United: 3-2
Villareal v Brisbane Roar: 0-3

Goals Against: 15 (1.66 goals a game)
GF: 12 (1.33 goals a game)
Difference per game: 0.33
Chance of A league win: 33%

Just looking at world class opposition (including Tottenham) our results are
Games: 5
Goals for: 7 (1.4 a game)
Goals against: 8 (1.6 a game)
difference: 0.2 a game
Against weaker opposition:
Games: 4
Goals for: 5 (1.25 a game)
Goals against: 7 (1.4 a game)

This is probably enough games to say that there is pretty strong evidence that at the very least the a league isn't miles behind the mls (I argue it is the same probably better)

Edited by grazorblade: 5/6/2015 01:06:08 PM

another way to compare is to look at champions league over the past two seasons (since the a league is improving rapidly its probably unfair to go further back).
The MLS is significantly weaker against costa rican sides and mexican sides than the a league is against k league, j league and guangzhou evergrande. Club world cup results would suggest that the two confederations are similar quality at club level.

Another way to check would be to look at friendlies between the two leagues in the past 12 months or so. But I cant recall any

Edited by grazorblade: 5/6/2015 01:35:01 PM

Would piss myself with joy if Pirlo came down under. Probably my second favourite player ever (behind Kaka). Doubt it would happen though.

Also to weigh in on the HAL vs MLS argument. Despite admittedly only watching half a dozen or so MLS games (plus some of the friendlies when they played Spurs), it seems to me that the style of play is better down here, while they probably have better squads and more athletic players (probably comes with the bigger salary cap). A lot of teams place a massive focus on playing out from the back or at least are trying to implement it. I am just as happy with where we are at especially seeing how much longer they have had, population and the boost that players like Beckham have had on the league.

Lou Sticca is travelling to Europe (with Zappas) to attend the champions league final. I'm sure he may have some discussions but the primary reason for the trip is to watch his team play.

With a similar marquee player system (designated player) how could New York City FC fit all 3 villa, lampard and pirlo as marquees. Are they not limited to 1 or 2 players?

The MLS limit is three.

tax write off

You would think playing in Mexico and Costa Rica would be a fair bit harder then facing Asian teams imo, the sport is a religion in those countries.

Also it's hard to compare mls to A league when one league has 20 teams and the other 10..numerous teams play at altitude and cross country games would be brutal, the talent is more then likely spread out leaving some teams thin...I remember the quality of the A league went downhill for a period post expansion but got better again when the comp was reduced again.