Now what? - South Melbourne 0 Heidelberg United 3

Well, that was one of the more dispiriting things that I've seen as a South fan. Apart from a 15 minute period in the first half where we at least got the ball up field and won a few set pieces, last Sunday was disastrous. For the vast majority of the match, we could not get the ball; in the second half, we could barely get over the half way line. Heidelberg were able to zip from one end of the field to the other with ease. Quite how it was 0-0 at halftime is anyone's guess. We were clapping the team just for winning a corner; meanwhile the Berger fans were disappointed that they weren't putting away clear one-on-one chances. That's where it's at now - looking like a team one or two divisions below where we actually are.

Once the first goal went in - via a deflection, but that piece of luck for the Bergers only made up for the lack of it earlier on - the team capitulated. Most worryingly, it capitulated psychologically. Those players on the field lost all hope and desire, becoming training cones, mere cannon fodder. Those who were benched were furious - at themselves, at the coach, at the entire situation. The star recruit was brought on, but he must be living hell on earth. The only real striker we have left was brought on, but he's hurt, and what's he supposed to do in a one against five situation anyway?

And at the end of it all, there was the coach making the call that his time was up. All that we could infer watching on from the stand, as Esteban Quintas gathered the players around him for a brief chat, and then acknowledging the crowd on his way out, was that he had made the call himself to step down. Somehow, for those of us who have wanted to see the back of him for some time, it was the final indignity - that Quintas had more sense that his time was up and was willing to fall on his own sword, than those at the club who had decided to keep Quintas on seemingly indefinitely.

It was such a soul-sucking experience that you wonder what the plan was for this year? Go cheap as hell for the NPL, and bank it all on the Australian Championship being a success? I've never been a fan of Esteban Quintas, but how did we end up making our off-season recruiting the equivalent of a high school reunion, and some random nepo-baby Dane who was probably here on holiday anyway? That's something those in charge of the football department might want to cover at the next AGM, assuming that we ever have a next AGM. Maybe that will happen after the new coach is announced, whoever that is. Lots of names being thrown around, but none seemingly of much recent reputation. That's assuming anyone of note actually wants to coach us.

Remarkably, considering the nature of the loss, a lot of people stayed back in the social club after the game. Usually people are desperate to get out of there, regardless of the timeslot and the result, and this was a particularly disastrous result and performance. Yet, people hung back. 

So ends this extended period of strangeness
The hiring of Esteban Quintas as coach of South Melbourne Hellas was the culmination of a series of decisions. First, there was the decision to give Chris Taylor a five year contract, with the addition of job titles and responsibilities that he never really wanted. Then, for whatever reason, he was sacked on the eve of season 2018, after all the players had been signed up for the year. Whatever the merits of that decision to sack Taylor, the way the players were deceived into signing up for 2018 created a black hole of trust in management, which essentially required most of those players to be let go at some point, because they sure as hell wouldn't want to stay. The Sasa Kolman era started with a bang, and then quickly collapsed. Con Tangalakis was brought in, but that didn't work either. And then we hired a coach with almost zero senior football coaching experience, who was connected to the Genova International School of Soccer academy, not my idea of a reputable soccer entity. He was also an outlier in that he was not Greek, nor was he an ex-player of ours. 

Quintas got us to survive 2019, just. 2020 didn't look promising, but COVID soon sorted that out. Apart from a sputtering FFA Cup/Dockerty Cup run, 2021 wasn't great either, but COVID sorted that out, too. 2022, 2023, and 2024 all ended up with grand final appearances, but through a mixture of outrageous misfortune (key strikers missing for 2022 and 2023, as well as injured players), and poor tactics and management (not taking off your one consistent line breaker in Andy Brennan before he got sent off in the 2024 semi), we ended up with no league titles in that three year span, and a for and against tally of 0-10. There were celebratory moments though - finally in 2024, we picked up a trophy under Esteban through a grinding, fortunate penalty shootout win in the Dockerty Cup. We also had a great run in the Australia Cup, albeit once more the final game of our season was marred by not having our main striker up front. Maybe things could have gone differently against Macarthur if Harrison Sawyer was there. Wouldn't that have been something? And Esteban was voted by his peers as coach of the year in 2024.

But overall, despite the high ladder positions of the 2022-2024 span, the experience was an incredibly demoralising one, at least for me. We were defensive on default. We often had no central midfield, at least not an attacking one. As most teams grew out of the physical, second-ball style of play that was a feature of Victorian soccer for so long, we became bogged down in it. Going to matches became tedious, an experience in religious self-flagellation. Instead of going to experience joy, we went to experience the pain of devotion, with little tangible earthly reward. Somehow, for myself and others around me, winning under Quintas often felt like losing. And losing, of course, felt even worse. 

Though I was never a fan, I will give Quintas his dues. He often had to do more with less compared to many of his predecessors. He gave more youth team players meaningful opportunities than pretty much every South coach in the last twenty years, with the exception perhaps of the by necessity early John Anastasiadis years. Some of those young players worked out better than others, but at least they got a chance.

Quintas was a hard worker. He studied opponents in depth, thought deeply about the game, and created complex plans for the players. A recently departed player, who played under both Taylor and Quintas, has related the difference between the two. Taylor would give minimal instruction during the week, and got by on generally putting the right players in the right position and let them go for it. On the other hand, Quintas would fill his whiteboards with ink, and would provide endless instruction. 

Yet somehow on game day, the game plan always looked the same. For the last half decade, everyone in Victorian soccer knew what to expect when playing against South Melbourne. For all the preparation and planning, somehow it always came back to long balls, and goals from set pieces, including the now infamous long throws. Despite playing on one of the best fields in Melbourne, South's style more resembled the territorial rugby union play of a mid-2000s George Cross team playing on the ankle rolling minefield that was Chaplin Reserve.

Quintas put a priority on defence. If the team didn't concede, then at the very least, the team couldn't lose. But the defensive strength of the side looked much better on the raw data of the "for and against" column of the competition table, than it did when you actually looked at the deeper numbers, let alone when watching the games themselves. For those of us who have watched our club since Quintas became head coach in 2019, we have seen the following. 

First, an overreliance on overwhelming numbers in defence to crowd out the opposition, so that even while being on top of the table, players like Jake Marshall were leading the league in blocked shots. This year, with a more forward stance than usual, the players have become exposed all over the backline. Second, there was the outrageously good fortune of having certainly one of the greatest goalkeepers to ever grace Victorian state league soccer, in the form of Javi Diaz Lopez, who was pulling out incredible save after incredible save for years on end. South has had some good goalkeepers during the 20 years post-NSL, but to get to the stage where your goalkeeper is the face of the club, winning league awards because of how many saves he makes when he should be making far fewer saves than most of his league contemporaries, is emblematic of what we have been about for the past five years.

Quintas loved South Melbourne Hellas. He was genuinely passionate about the club. Yet he never understood some of the core principles underpinning the club. That the club's supporters have, in the main, always wanted attacking football. Not necessarily pretty, possession football, but certainly attacking, front-foot football. It's an entertainment thing - we work during the week, we pay our money, we want to be entertained. Match day should be an occasion. We want to enjoy ourselves. Yet so much of what his teams provided was tedious, watching us bludgeon and grind our way to wins. Opposition supporters, and those missing fans of ours who only paid attention to the results and ladders, also didn't understand. "You're on top of the ladder, and you're still complaining?". It makes you sound ungrateful for being successful, but so many of us who actually watched the side were always wondering how we kept getting away with it, and how long it would be until it fell apart.

It's also an ego thing - no matter how much the fantasy deviates from reality, we still like to believe that we're a big club, one which expects to win every game that it plays, and one where a good number of teams whether coming to Lakeside or hosting us in their own ground, will gladly take a draw playing against us. Quintas repeatedly referred to South being a big club, yet his tactics and approach to the game often made us look and feel small. The greatest irony of all this came towards the end. While Ange Postecoglou was winning hearts and minds overseas for his rhetoric and monomania on playing a style of football centred on bringing joy to the fans watching, and then the Ferenc Puskas in Australia documentary Ange and the Boss making the argument that what made that South Melbourne Hellas team special was the devotion to joy, and letting players express themselves, and that there was an expectation among South fans that you would see the team attack; that attacking was its natural state.

How hard must it have been for people at the club to try and market the current team under those conditions? Already hamstrung by our irrelevance, our being in a backwater competition, of having no way out, and then when your most famous name, and all the video evidence of the past shows a desire to take the game on, to be forward on approach whenever possible, to be assertive; and all you could possibly cobble together in a highlights package showcasing the now, was goals from corners and long throws. The match day experience of the past five years, insofar as what was presented on the field, only reinforced in the mind of the people no longer going to our games that the current South Melbourne bears little resemblance to the former one. Whatever misfortune we've had under Quintas, and it has been there, and whatever winning record we had, and we did have a good one overall, the loss of the assertive, front-footed South Melbourne was a heavy price to pay.

So, I thank Esteban Quintas for his service to the club often under difficult circumstances, I acknowledge the good that he did, and I am well aware that he and I have very different opinions on how the game should be played, at least at this club. But I'm not sorry that he's gone. Now the club has to find someone to help us survive this season, and then someone to at least bring back the mentality of the famous Danny Blanchflower quote:

“The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It’s nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It is about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.”

Next game
Away to Eastern Lions today in the Dockerty Cup. We'll be coached by Leigh Minopoulos, who'll be assisted by Tyson Holmes.

Final thought
They tell me that the 2006 championship team meets up annually for a reunion. That they don't it with  and/or at the club tells me we have a very sorry cultural problem.

Hello, Nuna! Dandenong Thunder 4 South Melbourne 1

So, for the transport engineers out there, here was Saturday's method for getting to the game. Both main car parks at Sunshine station closed, so decided to take the bus up to the station instead, thinking I would get a cab on the way back because buses stop by the time I would get back. Instead of getting the bus from my nearest stop (about 50 metres away), I walked up to the next stop (about 300 metres up the road), because my nearest stop is a bit of a mess thanks to extensive road and footpath rehabilitation works.

The wait for the rail replacement bus wasn't more than a few minutes, a stopping all stations effort to North Melbourne. Once at North Melbourne the task was to get on a train to somewhere in the city to change to a Pakenham or Cranbourne service. That didn't take more than about five minutes, getting on a train to Frankston.

Oh yes, there's this thing which still throws me off sometimes, that a train from Werribee towards the city might nowadays come under a "Frankston" designation on the screens, because Werribee trains often run through to Frankston after reaching the city. So I took the Frankston train to Richmond from North Melbourne, and changed at Richmond to a Pakenham service, which again, I didn't have to wait long for. That went pretty smoothly, and then I got to Dandenong Station.

It was freezing, and there was a 20 minute wait for the 901 bus, so what else to do but keep watching the stream of the women's game against Heidelberg at Lakeside. The NPLW can be such an unsatisfying competition to watch because of the lack of depth and its inbuilt imbalances, but the South women this season... I don't know, there's also something annoying about the way they play. It's a bit showboaty, it's a bit pull finger out only when necessary, and more than a bit careless. Heidelberg are an OK team, but we made them look a lot better than they are - at least during the first half - because there was little desire on our part to play meaningful football in the middle of the park.

Sure, there was the dangerous (and pointless) backline passing around, which attracted pressure for no good reason. But midfield proficiency? It's been a problem for much of the season as far as I can tell, where the all the caution and possession based style of the back third becomes all about booting the ball into space and hoping Melina Ayres (mostly) can run on to a loose ball and smash the ball past a helpless keeper. But where's the midfield panache, the evidence of stylistic and player growth? Hard to see where I'm watching from, but hey, we e3nded up crunching the Bergers 7-0, so everything's good, right?

Finally got to the ground, super early - because if I'm going to hike it all the way to Dandenong on public transport, I might as well get as much football in as possible - and caught most of the reserves game, which we ended up losing 4-2. One tolerable but nevertheless overpriced chicken roll was not enough to ward off the cold, and double-socked or not, there was no chance that my feet weren't going to freeze on standing on cold concrete or on dewy grass. I was disheartened also with a conversation with one of the few former South players that still comes to our games, who wanted to place most of the blame for our recent poor run of results on our injury toll, and none whatsoever on the coaching methodology. Well, we all see the game differently; we're all blind men touching different parts of the same elephant.

Still more time to kill, and not many South fans in sight, because pretty much everyone's given up, possibly for good. Having ditched the Futbol24 app some time ago because there just isn't the space on my phone for more apps, I am nowadays checking up on NPL scores via flicking over briefly onto NPL Victoria YouTube streams. Do I like what I see? Not really. That's because I see good and mediocre teams punish the poor teams in ways that we could not, even when we were "good". So you see Hume cracking four past Eastern Lions, Oakleigh crushing Dandy City, Green Gully smashing Altona Magic - with my three seconds of live viewing of that match being some goal from 30 metres out - and Port crunching St Albans. All very good, very reassuring only insofar that there should be just enough bad teams in this league that they won't all be able to catch up to us in our current mediocre state. 

And then there was Avondale vs Bentleigh, which finished 3-1 to the home side, after they trailed early on. Now, apart from the observation being made that not only does Avondale have good footballers (which costs money, I admit), there's also the fact Avondale also play good football (which doesn't cost any money, really); the kind of football that you'd like to see your team play, whether your side has the kind of resources that Avondale has, or merely half of them. It's a question of attitude, to a certain extent. And I get it - sometimes situations cause you to play more circumspect football, sometimes you need to deploy a more defensive state of mind.

But Avondale, after trailing early on, against what is a defensively suspect but otherwise pretty decent outfit in Bentleigh, amassed 21 shots on goal, and 13 on target by the end of the game. Against Altona Magic last week, a team who had not won a game all year, and whom we trailed (and eventually lost to) 2-1, we could manage three shots on target, over 90+ minutes of football. Against Thunder, we had two timid shots early in the half, to 13 on goal and seven on target from Thunder. Of course numbers don't tell the whole story, because by the end of last Saturday night's game we had more shots on target to Thunder, but that only goes to show that if want to play attacking football that we can. 

Of course the instruction to our players is obviously to play awful, boring, dispiriting football, in the hopes that we will win 0-0; which will only happen if the opposition is stupid enough to play a suspended player. But what we witnessed on Saturday night would have got most coaches sacked. Hell, I would've had the coach sacked at halftime, or even 30 minutes in if that was an option. Apart from a moderately promising opening five minutes, the team spent the rest of the half basically camped in its own half, gifting the opposition possession and territory. Thunder have good some players, they're no mugs, but they're also no world beaters, and yet we could not get possession of the ball in the opposition half. 

1-0 down, and then 2-0 down, both goals coming from corners - which is three goals conceded from corners since lockdown ended - and probably lucky not to be further down. And despite all of that, we continued to try and do the stupidest things imaginable under the circumstances. Down and out, under siege, we invited even more pressure onto ourselves by trying to play out the back from every situation. The goal kicks were the worst of it. Pierce Clark, seemingly not trusted to just belt the ball long under any circumstances, would inevitably play the ball left or right (usually to his left), no further than the edge of the 18 yard box, whereupon usually Brad Norton would pass the ball back to Clark, who would be rushed upon by Thunder forwards who knew exactly what we we're going to do all along, and then good luck hoping that we wouldn't concede.

The lack of situational awareness from anyone on field or on the bench was astonishing. In a game of soccer, there's skill level, there's tactics, and there's psychology. Our skill level is good enough to be competitive against almost any team in this competition, but our tactics are dire, but we've already said that. But our situational awareness is also completely shot. You have an opponent that is fired up, is in the ascendancy, and looking to press high up the field. They want the game to be played at the same high tempo that's benefiting them at that moment of time. So instead of taking the sting out of the game, we try to match that tempo, try to knock the ball around right on our goal line, and keep playing the game on the opposition's terms.

It was astonishing stuff, watching South Melbourne psychologically capitulate to the extent that no matter how many times it failed, that our players would robotically perform Nunawading "Evolution of the Idea" playing out of the back. Sure, there had already been the robotic qualities earlier in the season with our retreats from midfield back to the keeper, but on Saturday night the situation had become deploringly bad. It was, dare I say it, Southern Stars 2013 bad, and I don't use that comparison lightly.  It was a gut wrenching, soul destroying, club destroying spectacle. Two subs made on the half hour mark only served to show that Quintas had got the starting line-up badly wrong, and that he has no switch-up from Plan A (whatever that means in a non hit it long to Harry Sawyer world) to whatever else he might have up his sleeve.

That we came out in the second half in a more positive frame of mind, pulled a goal back, and almost levelled the score was even more dispiriting. Clearly we have the talent on our books to play imperfect, but still generally good attacking football. But let's say for arguments sake that we did equalise. Let's even say for argument's sake that we somehow went on to win the game. That would only prove the point that we are being coached horrendously, and that just about anyone else in this state could do the job better. At this stage of the season, it's barely about personnel anymore. Tactically and psychologically, we are shot. No one out there playing for South is enjoying the game anymore, you can see that at least half the senior squad is beyond fucking miserable. It's been a grind for the whole season, salvaged only by a ridiculously fortunate unbeaten run to start the year, and no amount of Shepparton bonding trips and renditions of Sweet Caroline can make playing this kind of football under this manager feel worthwhile. 

Apparently on 3XY Radio Hellas on Sunday, the sports program read out a message from president Nick Maikousis that Quintas will remain as South coach for the rest of the season. You can read that in classic "he's got the full support of the board" style, which means he'll be sacked soon, but the reality is that we probably can't afford to pay out his contract. Why this is the case when we were told that Quintas' performance was tied to certain KPIs is anyone's guess, but it seems we are stuck with him until the end of this year, unless he falls on his own sword. 

So what's left to do? Hope the players perform a quiet mutiny, by taking over control of training and matchday themselves, completely cutting out management? 

(Big hint to any of our players stupid enough to read this blog - you should totally do this) 

I mean, what could possibly go wrong with such an approach that would be worse than the last two months worth of performances, and the misery you have (and we, the supporters) have been forced to endure?

Next game

FFA Cup qualifier tomorrow night against Oakleigh Cannons at Jack Edwards. A win here gets us into the national stage of the competition, and into the Dockerty Cup semi finals. No one expects us to win though.

Final thought

Big thanks to Johnny for giving me a lift back to Footscray, and to Kartsi for offering to give me a ride back to somewhere approximating civilisation. Then when I got back to Sunshine station on the rail replacement bus at about 10:30, there were no cabs in the vicinity, so I walked the kilometre and a half home. A tiptop end to a tiptop day.

Just a few things to keep the blog ticking over.

The hard lockdown is over, the sun shines occasionally, and Paul thinks it might be worth continuing to blog - even though blogging was already passe when he started, and he's now engrossed in another passe pastime, podcasting.

This year being just awful, what was there to say even if one was half-motivated - which one was most certainly not. Not much news of new signings or looking to the future, but the club has been making announcements about junior coaching appointments and such, which I am sure will work out just fine.

Still, the fact that this stuff is happening at all seems to suggest that the club believes that the year 2020 will eventually come to an end, and that there will be a 2021 (hard to believe, but I suppose anything could happen), and that football will be played in this hypothetical "new year", and thus preparations should be made for that eventuality.

He's aged terribly / but haven't we all

So the club put up a Facebook video with an update from (a weary looking and sounding) club president Nick Maikousis. Some chat about the national second division. Nothing particularly new here - reiteration that the club has always sought to play at the highest level possible, and chat about working on the model. But ah, the promise that any South Melbourne Hellas club in a hypothetical higher competition will be a community based and member based entity. Also some stuff about the South Melbourne Business Community initiative. 

The holding of the AGM will be problematic because of COVID restrictions,  but the club is working through that.

Notable persons

Former South Melbourne Hellas president, the late Sam Papasavas, has made it into the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The article is a well-rounded summary of Papasavas' versatility of public service, especially within the migrant and soccer spheres. As good as the article is, it's already been noted that the detail on Papasavas' tenure as National Soccer League chairman is in error - but I'm sure someone out there will take the necessary steps soon enough to correct

That's some language you got there. And you talk like that 24/7, huh?

So there's some kind of Brazilian A-League podcast or something on YouTube, and they had beloved post-NSL South Melbourne Hellas hero Fernando de Moraes on as their guest. I assume the entire hour and forty-five minutes is in Portuguese, and my Portuguese isn't crash-hot.

Ay, caramba, que mujer tonta! Veinte horas estudiar por nada!

Slightly easier to get a handle on is this Spanish language interview with our senior men's team coach Esteban Quintas, if only because there are ways to dump the whole site into translating tools to get the gist of what's going on. And what is going on? Well, there's a bit about Quintas' playing career and his transition from playing to coaching, and some stuff about his playing philosophy. 

Thinking back to when I read the article a week or two back, and trying to claw back memories of what was said, I'm less concerned about Quintas' methods - which seem convoluted to me, but hey, I'm no football professor, so what would I know - and more concerned with his assessment that Australian players are strong (yes), fast (yes), physical (yes), but don't necessarily lack in technique (what?). Quintas says (more or less) that Australian players lack for tactical knowledge and situational awareness (undeniably true).

While I have my doubts on Quintas' assessment of Australian players' technical prowess, what's more important here is that his assessment of Australian soccer's strengths and weaknesses - and that on field organisation and decision making is our major flaw - is what informs the way he coaches. Thus if you are the kind of person who has a higher interest in matters of a tactical nature, it might be worth the effort to get a translation of the interview to try and understand what it is that Quintas had been trying to get out team to do.

As for me, I think I'll stick with yelling out variations of "clear it", "up the line", and "box him in".

Community support

Here's an interesting story, on how South Melbourne is trying to make it easier for young footballers of African heritage to play in the NPL system. What's just as important is that it seems it's not just a South Melbourne initiative, but one that ties int broader efforts led by the Greek community, looking at mentoring African diasporic communities in establishing the community infrastructure that the Australian Greek community has created for itself over he past few decades.

Scene missing

Finally, we started out with the current president, and we finish up with a former one - and some of his mates for good measure. In a Soccer Scene article, writer Peter Papoulias, interviews George Vasilopoulos, Peter Filopoulos, and Peter Abraam in a piece nominally about the off-field talent and innovation fostered by clubs like (and in this case, specifically) South Melbourne Hellas; talent which has gone on to higher degrees of responsibility both within Australian and in other fields.

There's no denying that - much of both the on field and off field talent which was at South Melbourne during the 1990s (the focus of this article) has ended up holding down important roles across the Australian soccer industry - in media, coaching, administration at state and national level, and even at A-League levels as owners, sponsors, or board  an administrative positions.

But the most perplexing part of the article is the literal missing scene; like here is this innovative and successful club, which goes to Brazil and then without any real explanation, ends up where it is now. Like, how did the hell that happen? And before some people yell out "racism, Frank Lowy, and A-League" related conspiracies, my thoughts are more on what did the people leading the club through the 1990s and (immediately thereafter) do which contributed to the club being in a position where it could not even contemplate pursuing an A-League licence?

Ah, but this is retreading very old ground, and the world has moved on. Still, I'm intrigued by that bit which says that the club itself engaged with the producers of Acropolis Now to get more South content and branding on the show.

¿Esteban ha sido despedido? No parece probable.

The dark little corner of social media that deals with Australian soccer has been quietly buzzing with intimations that South Melbourne senior men's coach, Esteban Quintas, is no longer coach of South Melbourne's senior men's team. 

The rumours started because of this job listing by the club looking for a new senior head coach. South fans were perplexed, wondering if this was some bizarre new way of telling the public that the senior coach had been sacked. Non-South fans apparently scoffed at the combination of what they considered low pay and high experience and proficiency requirements.

So is the club actually looking for a new coach? If we follow the logic of one South fan who has made a comment on this issue... then probably not. Our friend on the forums suggests this is likely just part of the process of renewing Quintas' work visa, which requires that the club put up the job for new applicants. It may even be that the combination of a seemingly lowball monetary offer with high requirements is a way to put off potential applicants.

That, and the erratic grammar and references to the A-League and B-League, which may even indicate that this is a rehash of an employment ad the clubs used the last time we were looking for a senior coach.

I mean, it would be harsh to get rid of someone who hasn't lost a game in months. OK, I'll show myself out...

Advance preparation to smite the Alan Scotts of South Melbourne Hellas

It's been just over a week since the season finished, and typically no one has given a rat's about who won the title, which is as it should be when two teams no one cares about were the grand final participants. But as we gently ease into the quiet torpor of the off-season, noting as we did that Esteban Quintas was signed as our senior men's coach for 2020, one has to ask this question:

Who the hell chose that photo of Quintas for the official announcement of his appointment on Twitter? 

I mean, one of my brothers has a penchant for true-crime serial killer movies (and er, the slightly less real Law & Order: SVU) and for that reason, having seen a few of those movies myself, I am really creeped out by the blank, sweaty stare that Quintas is putting out here. You'd think that with Luke Radziminski's photo library efforts this year that the club couldn't have found anything better?

Anyway, I'd retweeted the notice, not out of either support or condemnation for the club hiring Quintas, only to note that it had happened; also to keep the club's social media metrics ticking over, even if the club no longer boasts about such things.

Not long after I did that, someone responded to the club's tweet, and I got a notification on it because I follow the relevant re-tweeter and because I'd retweeted the original post.

If this club has any ambition left the playing budget should be more than tripled on last season. The coaches themselves dont have the name to attract players so the board needs to step up and spend big to help the individuals they have chosen. No more excuses.

— George stefa (@Georgestefa1) September 20, 2019

A pretty merciless assessment of our 2020 prospects by old mate George, an opinion which exists at one end of the spectrum of fan reactions to Quintas' appointment. But once it was said, the comment would have fallen into obscurity had I not received another notification a few days later that Esteban Quintas himself had "liked" George's tweet.

So what was all that about I wondered? Is Quintas agreeing with George that he (Quintas) doesn't have the brand recognition among the Victorian playing establishment to attract to them to the club, and thus he would (like George) want to see the South board commit to a serious increase in the senio men's wage budget?

But then I dug a little deeper, and saw that Quintas had also "liked" the tweet below by another South fan, Jim Barres:

Sorry but not the man for the job

— Jim barres (@Jimbarres) September 20, 2019

And then it became clear to me that this was all about Quintas finding fuel for the motivation fires. Gosh, I hope he doesn't print these things out and stick them up on his office wall.

To be a little bit fair, Quintas did also "like" some posts  where he had been congratulated on his appointment by friends and well-wishers - but that's normal social media behaviour.

Then again, imagine if we could look forward to our own Choco Williams "Allan Scott, you were wrong moment!"? Considering our results over the past two seasons, one can only hope that our performances improve to the point where such antics could be possible.

Roster notes, grand final day notes

2020 SMFC senior squad roster as of 21/09/2019
It's not really a surprise - I mean, I think we kinda all expected this to go the way it did - but the club has finally announced that Esteban Quintas will continue as South Melbourne coach next season. After the two most talked about likely alternative options - even if those were more wish-desire rather than anything based in reality - in Scott Miller and Nick Tolios were snapped up by other clubs, it wasn't likely to go any other way.

And that's even if the late forum rumour of getting former championship player and current Moreland Zebras coach Fausto De Amicis had any truth to it.

Some people are willing to give Quintas and the club the benefit of the doubt - and the benefit of the off-season transfer window - but I think the more dominant reaction from our supporters has been a resigned disappointment to struggling again next year, and treating this appointment as a sign of a larger malaise within the club.

I've heard good things about some good things about Quintas, in that his training sessions are firs rate - but match day has been a mess this year, from tactics, to team selection, to Quintas' basic decorum. Then again, the club's PR blurb says that Quintas' "appointment has already been welcomed by all of our senior players", which might very well be true if it's limited to the two senior players we've managed to re-sign.

The injured Luke Adams, who spent much of the 2019 season as a sort of assistant to Quintas, has been officially appointed as Quintas' assistant for 2020. The only other news being bandied about is the possible signing of defender Lirim Elmazi from Altona Magic

Signed

• Brad Norton
• Marcus Schroen

Played for us in 2019 but now on the payroll in another guise

• Luke Adams

Played with us at the end of 2019 but who knows about next year

• Tom Aulton
• Keenan Gibson
• Peter Skapetis
• Nick Krousoratis 
• Perry Lambropoulos
• Kostas Stratomitros
• Gerrie Sylaidos
• Manny Aguek
• Ben Djiba
• Amir Jashari
• Giuseppe Marafioti
• Jake Marshall
• Will Orford
• Nikola Roganovic
• George Gerondaras
• Zac Bates
• Andrew Mesourouni
• Josh Dorron
• Melvin Becket

Exploring options in India

• Billy Konstantinidis

Maybe retiring

• Kristian Konstantinidis

Out

• Leigh Minopoulos (retired)

"I prefer the cat. He hates Mondays -
 I think we can all relate to that." 

Brief notes from grand final day (without any actual grand final notes)

Headed out last week to the Bubbledome for the grand final extravaganza, while only being interested in the first game, the promotion-relegation playoff between Dandenong Thunder and Bulleen.

I had media access to this, and gained entry to the venue via the ground level gate 5, and soon found that this year the crowd had been placed on the eastern side. Not wishing to walk all the way around to the other side of the ground, I decided to break one my personal rules of mixing with the hoi polloi and instead nestled into the press box on the western side.

The most notable sight on that side of the ground was the big set up being undertaken for the televised/streamed part of the day, with all three games being streamed not only on Football Victoria's channel's, but also on SBS' World Game page. I understand there were audio problems at some points of the first game (ranging from no audio to looped audio during replays), but FV have talked up the numbers watching (as you'd expect). One wonders if SBS, now lacking any sort of soccer match coverage, might invest in broadcasting more NPL games?

As for the game itself, it was not a completely turgid affair, but it tried hard to get there. Neither team showed any particular flair, and Bulleen in particular were cowardly in their approach against a team that had conceded goals against even the most inept attacks in 2019 (ie, South Melbourne). Every now and again a Bulleen player would make a break or beat his direct opponent, only to end up with no support from his teammates, who were lagging well behind the action. Eventually Thunder's Brandon Barnes - who otherwise had a poor game - latched onto an awful Lions defensive error late in the game, and saved Thunder's season, which has been Barnes' modus operandi for this year.

Then I went home, and caught the second half of one of the VFL prelims on TV, happy that Monday night football has been banished from the NPL for 2020.

Later it was announced that it was to be Barnes' last game for Thunder, as he was due to return to the UK with his young family. A thoroughly impressive goalscorer, and loyal to Thunder as well, but his scoring feats never led to Thunder actually challenging for the NPL title. It'll be a big hole to fill for Thunder, and his departure puts them on the back foot already for next season.

For those wondering about such things, even though the NPL 2 is becoming a 12 team division next year, I'm told that the promotion-relegation playoff will remain a feature. More discussion has swirled around other matters to do with grand final day though - including whether AAMI Park is a suitable venue for Victoria's grand final day showcase, and whether the triple-header format is the right way to go about things.

There were complaints from some of those who watched the grand final, criticising the Bubbledome's surface. The day before the grand final there had been a rugby league match, which necessitated high pressure watering to remove sponsor and ground markings from the surface. Then there were two games before the showpiece event, and it rained again during the game. Add to that the poor attendance, only some of which you could put down to the participation of Avondale and Bentleigh, two of the league's poorest drawing sides in a league full of teams with negligible supporter bases.

If it were up to me, I'd change these things about the finals. I'd work the season so that grand final day could be held on a Saturday, preferably the Saturday where the AFL has a bye week before its finals, which would mean no clashes with any footy matches. Sunday is a lousy day to hold a final, especially when the game finishes late.

Since we "have to have" a finals system, I'd get rid of this nonsense top six A-League style system which offers no benefit to the teams finishing at the top of the ladder, and either bring in the classic McIntyre final five, or if we have to have a top six, bring back the finals system that at least gives the top two teams the double chance.

I'd schedule the women's grand final for a separate day, ala 2017, where the event could become its own gala day for women's football, instead of being uncomfortably smooshed between two men's games. I'd also limit the amount of games on the day to two. Three games is far too many, especially when by necessity of having to allow for the possibility of extra and penalties, there are huge stretches of time between each game.

And finally, we should acknowledge the value of what for our purposes would be boutique stadiums, and avoid the tempting but expensive lure of AAMI Park. That there are no perfect alternatives should not dissuade us from playing in venues more suited to our crowd sizes. Rotate the fixtures between Lakeside, Knights Stadium, the revamped Olympic Village, and whatever other ground provides adequate seating and cover. If one of the competing teams ends up being the de facto home team on the day, so be it.

Tangalakis resigns - Quintas new senior coach

Word had got around last night that Con Tangalakis was out, and today the club confirmed that news. The club have framed it as a resignation, which will do little to convince at least a good chunk of our support that it was a sacking in all but name.

After a positive start to the season, further wins have failed to materialise in the past four weeks. Some misfortune aside - Billy Konstantinidis' early season absence and later suspension among that bad luck - the weekly lineup put out on the field by Tanga never seemed to match what many fans thought was the optimal set up.

Two visa spots used up on defensive midfielders has also stumped people, but no issue has been as contentious as the usage, lack of usage, and misuse of Gerrie Sylaidos. Putting whatever conspiracy theories may exist aside for a moment, the one thing I can say with some certainty is that there was obvious friction between Tangalakis and long-serving players, who could not understand Sylaidos being removed from the field when matches were on the line.

What if any influence this actually had on Tanga's resignation only those close to the action know for sure.

Tanga helped get us out of a jam last year, with a team not of his own making. He used some youngsters, fought against an alleged fifth column from within the squad, as well as rumours that the club wasn't up to speed with its player wages. Yes we needed a bit of luck to avoid the relegation zone, but he was in charge when we avoided the drop.

He handled himself well as the club sought to bring back John Anastasiadis. There were always going to be those who doubted Tanga's suitability for a coaching gig at a club like South. Whether out of necessity or by natural occurrence, the budget is not what it was in recent years. Some of the pre-season recruiting, but especially the pre-season match selections, which emphasised variety over cementing a definitive starting eleven, had fans concerned.

But in the first three games at least, a good performance against Bentleigh, and two wins over Dandy City and Port, had people optimistic. Not just for the wins - whose performances were arguably not as good as the Bentleigh game - but for the way the team was playing. An expected loss against Avondale could be psychologically brushed aside, but the losses against Kingston and Pascoe Vale were in their own way devastating - we could've/should've beaten teams like that, but the failure to do so has us much closer to the relegation zone than anyone would be comfortable with.

Why after the draw with Green Gully though, and not say, after the FFA Cup with Essendon Royals, I don't know. Maybe they didn't want to repeat last year's mistake of letting what some may consider free-fall to continue unabated. Maybe someone's trying to head off a 'vibe'?

Luke Patitsas of the Sour Grapes blog made an interesting observation about the team last week:

I’m not sure if this is just a South Melbourne problem, but every time we miss golden opportunities, and are not already in the lead, its feel like the score is being undermined. It may be 0-0 on the scoresheet, but for me we are actually losing.

Is it possible that such a mindset had become prevalent in the players themselves? Maybe those of us outside the inner sanctum can only clutch at straws, like Tanga disappearing - as Kolman did - from club media duties, leaving it to the players to front the supporters.

Tanga's replacement is assistant coach Esteban Quintas, who has little senior coaching experience; just the one game in charge of Bendigo City back in 2016. Naturally quite a few people think we're doomed now, and I wish I could find reassuring words to allay those concerns, but I'm stumped. All we can do is support the team and hope that things improve from here on.