Giddy heights - South Melbourne 1 Dandenong Thunder 0

Keeping this one short because it needs to be knocked out before the game on Saturday.

Last night the strange 2021 season just got that little bit stranger. No one in the stands at South seems to seriously rate what we're doing, how we're doing it, or even the results that have come our way. And yet we're still undefeated, and top of the league after six games.

Mind you, being top of the league after six games with only three wins tells you a little bit about where this league is at the moment - it's both a very competitive league, and probably more than a bit of a mediocre one quality-wise. Put that down a little bit to the lack of visa players because of covid if you like, or just the normal cycle of things where some years are better than others. But how about that competitiveness! Just four points separate first (us! really!) and tenth, in part because teams like Eastern Lions are picking up points at a rate that no-one really expected them to, while other teams full of pricey "name brand" players aren't quite where they thought they'd be. 

And that pithy comment from our last post, about us having only picked up the points we had because we'd played three of the bottom four teams? Well, that's now two teams at the bottom, two in the middle, and two nearer the top end. I assume it'll sort itself out eventually, once the apertura portion of the season is finished, but for now let's enjoy the unexpected glory of South Melbourne being top of the league.

Starting with last Saturday's game, this was always going to be an important week for the team, one where the senior roster would have to be managed and the starting eleven positions rotated somewhat. Three games in eight days is a tough ask for teams in this league from a conditioning standpoint, especially for us as we've not been gifted one of the easier FFA Cup draws for the fourth round. And Saturday afternoon is going to be unseasonably warm, which won't make things easier for us against an opponent who has had a few extra days rest.

So back in to the starting lineup was Luke Pavlou, who was left out of last week's squad entirely. Also coming in for a rare start was Perry Lambropoulos. And Ben Djiba, having seemingly recovered from his injury issues from pre-season, was also in. Out of the starting team were Brad Norton, Jake Marshall, and Daniel Clark. Marcus Schroen was out of the match-day squad entirely, which hints to him being an important part of Saturday's game. With Luke Adams moving back to his more accustomed role of centre-back, we got to see a much more balanced attacking set-up, and evidence as well that Djiba can hold down the right-back position, at least against a pretty ordinary opponent like Thunder.

And while no disrespect is meant to Thunder, in general they were a poor opponent. Apart from whatever they could make of our mistakes from mucking around the backline, they were almost entirely dependent on a counter-attacking strategy. A more capable attacking side might have made more of some of the breaks they had; but then again, if Thunder were indeed a more capable side, chances are we wouldn't have set up the team in the more overtly attacking fashion that we did, instead reverting back to over-defensive setups of the earlier parts of the season thus far.

Though we clearly had the better of it, the first half was a bit of a mess from both teams. Part of that was down to the pitch, which saw players losing their footing on several occasions, especially towards the lake end of the ground. It will sound a little callous to say it, but my main concern with that was less to do with player safety, and more to do with the possibility that one of our players would slip over in the second half while defending at that end, leading to us coughing up a goal. That would have been less of a concern had we had a half-time lead of some sort, but we didn't. The final ball just wasn't there, though we got up to the right end of the field often enough. 

Second half, Thunder came out a bit more aggressively, pressing higher up the field, but their quality of possession wasn't up to scratch. And once we worked our way back into the half, we were if not quite all over them, then certainly the team most likely to score. Oh, but it was interminable waiting for that goal. The absence of Daniel Clark meant that our set pieces weren't up to scratch, but the finishing touches weren't there from open play either. It got to that point where you were waiting for the sucker-punch goal. But then Gerrie Sylaidos got behind the defence one more time, and shot the ball past the Thunder's keeper who it looks like got a hand on to it, which may have even deflected the ball into the net.

At least we created enough chances to say that we deserved the win on the balance of probabilities, so that if we scored from a slightly fortuitous goal, it was not for want of more orthodox opportunities. It would have been nice to have scored earlier, so that we could have perhaps rested some players a bit earlier, but what can you do? A warm evening, a convivial, mixed crowd, an entertaining game, and three points in the bag. You wouldn't want to get greedy.

Next game

FFA Cup match against Werribee City on Saturday afternoon. 

Please note that the kickoff time for this game has been adjusted to 3:00PM, from the previous (and now apparently preliminary) 2:00PM timeslot. 

As per the previous post, please note that this game is being played at Grange Reserve, the home of Hoppers Crossing Soccer Club, and not at Galvin Park, Werribee's normal home ground.

A new player? Already?

Talk on Twitter that midfielder Josh Barresi is set to join us from South Australian club Campbelltown. Barresi was a fringe A-League player (no senior appearances that I can find), and had stints in Victoria with Bulleen Lions (2016) and Green Gully (2018). If this transfer is true, I wonder who's going to be shunted out of the current senior roster.

Livestreams

Much frivolity on the livestreams last night, again. There was the (now deleted) tweet by a prominent NPL commentator about too many cameras competing for limited space at Knights Stadium. There was also the return from local commentary banishment of Teo Pellizzeri, which is good to see. Even wilder, our own game was being called by *the* voice of Channel 31 soccer, Thanis "Arthur" Arkritidis! With so much retro action, I had to check to make sure that Ian Burke hadn't been summoned to call the Gully game; no dice on that front, but we live in hope.

Yet the most important part of the livestream, the video feed itself, continues to be a shambles in 2021. In what was apparently a pretty tense game last night between Knights and the Bergers, the Football Victoria stream went offline late in the game at just the time the Bergers scored what turned out to be the winning goal. Someone out there is getting paid to provide what is turning out this year to be a less than stellar service this year.

Final thought

Speaking of being top of the league, in partial answer to last week's query about when the last time Knights and South occupied the top two places on the ladder, Andrew Howe noted that for the National Soccer League:

bit late to the party here but last time Melb Knights & Sth Melb were 1st & 2nd respectively on NSL ladder was end of 93-94 season,as they were for most of 2nd half of that season. those positions 1st held in 1985(R9), then 5 times thru 90-91(incl final ladder) & 3 times in 91-92

— andrew howe (@AndyHowe_statto) March 30, 2021

A really half-arsed search by me to try and find the last time the two teams occupied first and second on the ladder in the post-NSL era came up very short. Maybe circa March 2015? Regardless, it wasn't a situation which lasted long.