Needs More Cowbell - South 3 Knights 1

Amongst the questions that we pondered on the bus trip to Northcote - if Romeo and Juliet were around today, would they die their hair raven black, dress up in mourning clothes with the pale makeup and black eyeliner and sit under the clocks at Flinders Street Station on a Friday night? Gains, Steve from Broady and me also discussed the merits of Chekhov, Gogol and Vonnegut. We discussed the ceaseless contest between youth's faith in using the rare example over the elder's preference for basing their judgments on a form of experience which seeks to negate the improbable, yet possible?

What could bring up such weighty topic of conversation. Gianni De Nittis of course. We fought over both his legacy, whether he had any untapped potential, and the thought only occurs to me now, whether he simply managed to have scored in two massively important games in the space of two weeks, cementing his status as a VPL South legend but unfairly burdening him with expectations which he would seldom be able to meet in future.

We watched the majority of the under 21s contest. We don't talk much about the under 21s on here - after blitzing the field last season, this year has seen defensive frailties creep into their game. De Nittis had been relegated to the 21s, and opened the scoring with apparently a ripping goal. I couldn't see it from my vantage point inside the social club. I did however see him try to be tricky, lose the ball, and retaliate with tackle from behind. The offence saw him get a red card. As Vonnegut's Tralfamadoreans said, 'so it goes'. The game finished at 2-2.

The main event was an even affair for sixty minutes. Which is to say, the Knights played well without creating too many chances, while we were forced onto the sidelines with very little room to move in the middle. Our short passing game was non-existent, and we seemed to be clueless as to how to work out something which might get us a goal, other than Mick Malthouse style chip kicks along the outer side, which almost inevitably had Jesse Krncevic, turning and shooting off balance into the side netting, or straight at our old foe Martin John.

When Steven O'Dor gave away an obvious handball in the box, the world paused as the referee seemed to lag behind the rest of the crowd in acknowledging the /infringement. But once his consultation with the corresponding linesperson was done, the Knights got their penalty and a deserved lead despite Zaim Zeneli moving to the correct side. The Knights kept up the pressure, and probably should have made it 2-0, but for one slightly convoluted explanation, which is as follows.

During the game one of the many Georges at South Melbourne suggested that the Knights were of the same ilk as the South of 2008. That is, they could fight and scrap and even dominate a match, but their inability to score goals would always come back to haunt them. People like to see parallels between the past and the present as a way of making sense of the world, but that particular George may have been on to something there. Pound for pound the Knights were the better team for seventy minutes; they even had the lead - and yet they just couldn't jag the result.

South finally woke up, having made use of its substitutions in an effort to win the game. The most important of these was Daniel Vasilevski, though both Kyle Joryeff and Kamal Ibrahim added something for which Gasparis, Petrovich and Taseski had not. Still, for about ten minutes we spent most of our energy on trying to snag an unlikely long range effort. But then Vasilevski - the only player who should be allowed to take our shooting free kicks - put one away into the top corner where even the valiant efforts of Martin John could do nothing about it, and all of a sudden, we felt a draw would be a good result after playing so poorly.

But that plan was ruined when we scored again, Ibrahim setting up an easy finish for Krncevic, the prodigal son continuing to put goals away. And then we scored another one, Joryeff putting his name down to become the new Yusef Yusef by scoring a junk time goal to rub pure iodine into the open wounds of the visitors. The Knights deserved at least a draw, but such is the game of football that even relative dominance is nothing without putting the ball in the back of net.

We don't have the wood on too many sides these days, but the Knights for some reason continue to find ways to see us get the three points more often than not. While I was disappointed with the majority of the performance by our boys, there's a certain satisfaction in getting a win over an old rival when they gave it more than a good shake and it still wasn't enough.

Halcyon Days of Making an Idiot of Yourself

Once upon a time we had a sort of intern here by the name of Cliff Hussey, who was initially inspired to create a rival or complementary South Melbourne Hellas blog, before we roped him in to do match reports and provide shaky, nausea inducing videos. Does he still come to games? I don't know. Where is he nowadays? Lighting up the Melbourne social scene judging by his Facebook ramblings.

Apart from the disturbing memories of his bizarre emo dress sense, Cliff did leave us with some great artefacts, the pick of the bunch being this video of the now banned fan known as 'Columbo', doing his usual abuse the keeper shtick before making making a fool of himself by falling over the fence and making some random kid laugh.

Highlights from round 22 against Georgies

Some musings. How rainy was it last week?! Then how sunny?! Then rain, then sun. Poor cameraman. Poor camera. I can't decide if Kyle Joryeff is trying not to sound like a geezer. I'm going to miss Sunshine's keeper Martin John - here's hoping they get promoted again before he retires. How old is he, like a hundred and ten or something? Also chat with Nando, Zois and Rama.

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Fernando youtube video stats courtesy of Gains

Our buddy Gains posted the following data on smfcboard, noting perhaps indirectly at the irony of 500 people being at the game while nearly 275,000 hits have been registered for it online. This is all for the month of August - remembering that the clip wasn't even uploaded until the 15th August.

#1 - Most Viewed (This Month) - Sports - Australia
#6 - Most Viewed (This Month) - Australia
#6 - Top Favorited (This Month) - Sports - Australia
#14 - Top Rated (This Month) - Sports - Australia
#21 - Most Discussed (This Month) - Sports - Australia
#43 - Most Viewed (This Month) - Sports
#73 - Top Favorited (This Month) - Australia
#78 - Most Responded (This Month) - Sports - Australia

Stuff that happened today that demonstrates that world is getting krappier and a little bit more insane

• The video of Fernando scoring that cheeky goal has now surpassed 100,000 hits on youtube. Kinda insane, considering the viewership of the actual highlights of the games is at something like 400.
• The FFV's Gold Medal Night will apparently be hosted by Santa Cilauro. Proofreading overboard.
  
• Former defender Arthur Tsonis has won the South official tipping comp. His prize? A signed 2009 jersey. Ironic? Maybe. I say maybe because what is irony these days in this postmodern irony filled hell (Pope John Paul II 'separation from God) hole? That, and according to my brothers I'm apparently losing the ability to tell identify sarcasm and irony, akin to one of Sheldon's (The Big Bang Theory) issues with humanity in general. Which bring me to the next item.
  
• There was this Asian guy on the train - I only specify his ethnicity because it may give a clue as to what's going on, though I'm not sure - and he was wearing a blue adidas jacket. On the back it had 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. On the front it had the Liverpool insignia and the word 'Reds' in yellow. I have no idea what's going on there. Some sort of post-modern commentary on football colour schemes and merchandise? Someone still pining for the days of Everton Athletic and Football Grounds? Or just a clueless fanboi who hasn't even been to a game, like, ever?
  
• Someone has just now decided, four weeks into semester 2, that my placement for the stupid placement subject can't be the same thing as my special project.
  

On sportsmanship and such

Predictably, and not entirely without good reason, Fernando De Moraes' sneaky goal against Sunshine George Cross has raised all sorts of ethical questions and complaints.

Within the context of the behaviour expected by years of unspoken soccer precedent, De Moraes' actions are not justifiable. Within the actual rules of the game, there is nothing wrong at all; nothing for a referee to deal with except to signal a goal and get on with the game. And thus both sides of the issue have their merits. Ultimately though, the incident speaks to a deeper problem within the game, that of exalting one type of sportsmanship to the exlcusion of all others.

Throughout our post NSL existence, the era of the club I have watched with the most attention by far, I have seen the following. Hideous tackles, both deliberate and otherwise; frequent disrespect for referees; inciting of crowds; deliberate handballs; and perhaps worst of all, the condoning of all such behaviour under the guise of 'it's a man's game', or 'it's a passionate game', but mostly because people are prejudiced towards their clubs, against other clubs, but who need to appear unbiased to give themselves some sort of credibility.

To be perfectly blunt, this sort of sportsmanship nonsense irks me no end. If a player is seriously injured the referee has discretion to stop the game. Most of the time though, these instances contain at best very minor injuries, sometimes even to the extent that players will deliberately exaggerate their injuries to curb the other team's attacking momentum. The point being that, really, play should continue until such time as a natural stoppage comes up, or the referee deems the injured player's health to be in such jeopardy tha the game should be stopped.

For the record, yes, I cheered for the goal. It was no 'Hand of God' moment. Neither will it go down as one of the greatest moments in South history; I certainly hope it doesn't, anyway. And I'm not sure how Fernando will feel about it in years to come. But as someone who has for a very long time actively disliked these phony and mostly unnecessary stoppages of play, I hope that it may finally put an end - at this level at least - to the whole charade. Somehow I doubt it though. The hypocrisy the outrage is built on has been built up over many years, and its cultural foundations run deep. This incident will be a one off. The other types of poor sportsmanship - the lack of duty of care to fellow players, disrespect to the officials, taking advantage of the laws of the game for purposes other than which they were intended - will be repeated week in, week out, and barely a whimper will be raised in the manner it was raised for this incident.

South sneak through to finals, literally - Hellas 1 Georgies 0

You think you've seen it all in (genuine) Australian soccer, and then something like this happens.



Away to Hume next week. Zoric had missed a sitter before that goal, Sunshine showed very little, the wind played mayhem with the keepers and general play, but Sardelic replacing Tommich in goals did more than enough for me for him to keep his place. Not heading into the finals with anything remotely like devastating form, but all that's behind us now, and who knows what will happen from here on in? The first disaster was averted, that of missing the finals for the third consecutive year and in our anniversary year too. The next phase begins now.