Everybody Knows - Hume City 0 South Melbourne 0

You know me, I don't like to complain. Things don't always go the way you planned. Case in point: I wanted to go to Saturday night's game, but events transpired so that I couldn't. So instead I sat on the couch and put the game on the television instead. How good is NPL TV? You don't get cold or wet, you don't have to give bad people money, you (or really, me) don't have to spend hours on public transport to get to games. And if you tune in early enough, you get to hear the commentators doing the sound check using such phrases as "big boy, big boy". Sure, sometimes there's a pole in the way, or the lighting is crap, or the cameraman gets bored and starts spacing out, but you get what you pay for, and usually it's watchable from a technical standpoint. And I'm sure all those kinds of idiosyncrasies will be absent from broadcasts of the National Second Division.

Anyway, it's been 30 years since an out-and-out ruckman won the Brownlow, and it's been 20 years since Jim Kourtis achieved the even rarer feat of winning Victorian soccer's Gold Medal for player of the year as a goalkeeper; but geez, I reckon Javi Lopez is going to give it a good shake in 2023. That's surely two games in a row where short of the refs ignoring what's right in front of them, that Javi's going to grab six votes. That's an endorsement of how well Javi's playing, but clearly not an endorsement of everything which leads to him being in that situation where he has to be a superstar week in, week out.

It's like this. Last week we had two shots on target against eleven. This week it was one shot on target against eleven, and I think that one shot was Ajak Riak having his shot deflected for a corner late in the first half. We then proceeded to play that corner short, for who knows what reason. Even taking into account my long-running hatred of short corners, it was an unfathomably cowardly sequence of play. It was very late in the first half. There was no chance that were Hume to gain possession, that they would be allowed by the ref to take the ball up the field. More than that, one of our only two shots on goals from the previous week - which went in! - was from a corner. It's like we're trying to fix the game, which makes me sound like one of our angry gambling friends who pollutes NPL social media. It's utterly baffling, unless you somehow come to the conclusion based on, I don't know, reams of evidence, that this is how our players are being told to play the game.

Speaking of that game, it was Javi Lopez keeping us in the contest, and let no one tell you anyone else out there for us did anything to lessen some of his burden. Remember that FFA Cup game against Melbourne City in 2021, where we were camped on our own 18 yard box for much of the game, and hanging on for dear life for most of the 90 minutes? Well, it was disappointing, disheartening even, but also you could sort of rationalise it. We were, realistically, a mediocre team from one of eight or nine second tiers, playing against the best team in the country, made up of full-time pros. Also COVID made things worse for us. And yet even in that game, we had a five or so minute patch where we managed to take it up the field, get a legitimate shot on target, and win a couple of corners. We made whatshisname make an actual save. Meanwhile an actual whatshisname, Rory Brian - a former South youth team keeper who's bounced around a few teams in this league - had nothing to do from an actual goalkeeping point of view, except take the occasional goal kick, and look a bit out of place as a mock-sweeper on a slippery field.

Result aside, last week's performance against Oakleigh could be judged as being not good. By comparison, Saturday's performance could only be described as pretty bad. We once again sat so, so deep; 2013 Southern Stars deep. We once again had no plan other than bombing it long, very long. Or playing it short across the backline, and then bombing it long. Poor Alun Webb being made to sprint up and down the wing like a dog chasing a tennis ball. Poor Danny Kim, watching the ball sail back and forth over his head. Poor Ajak Riak, expecting balls at his feet, and instead getting high balls sent to him while he's being double teamed, with no support; he got maybe one pass to his feet that I can remember, with his back to goal on the halfway line and an opponent on his hammer, and still managed to get a nice touch into George Tsitsinaris into space. 

And poor central mids who are effectively third and fourth centre-backs. Even having an overloaded defense is doing nothing to stop Javi being the main guy. Any opponent with enough patience to keep the ball and knock it around in a simple pass and move fashion, is able to pick us apart. We gift the opposition the ball, and we gift them territory. By all means, give them more of the ball if you think they're going to turn it over somewhere in midfield. But expecting effective counter-attacks from your own 18 yard box - or worse, six yard box - seems self-defeating at best. People keep taking the piss about Esteban Quintas' shouted refrain of "press, press", but where's the press? 

And yet we're second on the ladder. Shame on every other team below us for letting us get away with it. A pox on all your houses.

That game against Melbourne City, coincidentally, was Javi Lopez's first game for South, and through no fault of his own, he has been the team's most important player since, because he's ubiquitous. Arguably Pierce Clark was that guy before that. Lopez won the club's best and fairest award in 2022, in a season in which we finished top, and had a player score over 20 goals. So it's not like it's a secret. Everyone knows what we're about. If you happened to be watching this game at home, you would have noticed the commentary duo of Lachie Flannigan and Ed Gooden being very... careful in their observations. Maybe South Melbourne should try a different formation? Maybe send someone to help Ajak Riak? Danny Kim doesn't seem quite suited to what South's trying to do. Pat Langlois, normally a midfielder, was seen moonlighting as a right-back, yet is also the squad's leading scorer. Jake Marshall has the most block and clearances in the league. South's last three wins have all been by one goal to nil.

So, in short. I see it. You see it. Non-South people see it. But what's to be done about it? 

Next game
Kingston City at home on Tuesday in the Australia Cup. Kingston is currently near the top of NPL 2, has ex-South coaches Con Tangalakis and Gus Tsolakis as their co-coaches, and also has its share of ex-South players. What could possibly go wrong.

Is there a curtain raiser?
No.

Final thought
Forget for a moment nostalgia and the guff about "South DNA". You know what's really funny? For reasons of fealty to family (fair enough), clinging to relevance, and generating social media traffic, we are obliged to celebrate the ongoing success of Ange Postecoglou. That's fine, it is what it is, and I have no gripe with it. But even considering the particulars of his situation - managing the best funded team in a strictly two-horse league - we South fans on social media are constantly reminded of his coaching ethic, to entertain as well as get results. And while no one expects the same from our players or coaching staff, let alone for an equivalent kind of funding that Ange gets to be dumped into our senior men's team, we as remnant South fans can do little but cringe, as Ange gets to talk about his football ethic and where it came from - our club - while those of us still here have to watch highlight clips of our goalkeeper making saves, because there isn't anything else to show. We're a rump state off the field, and we're a rump state on it, defending what little territory we have left within our besieged walls.