It's not the end of world, yet - Oakleigh Cannons 4 South Melbourne 1

Necessary note
Anyone looking for the post on the Melbourne edition of the AAFC's roadshow, it's not included in this post. Probably tomorrow.

Was Andy Brennan subbed off at halftime, or did he merely
 transpose himself to another dimension? Photo: Mike Owen.

Omens, I don't believe in them, but...
It didn't start off well. First, the galette place off Flinders Lane I was going to have dinner at was closed for renovations. Then upon arrival at the ground, an apprentice loan shark handing out home loan pamphlets n behalf of a bank inside the gate couldn't take 'no' for answer after I told him that as a student I didn't have the secure financial standing of taking out a home loan. And then in the middle of a conversation about trains and public transport that I was having with (ex-South player) Gavin De Niese's dad, some bloke starts talking to me about the Macedonia issue, when if he'd waited five minutes he could have had that conversation with the kid wearing the blue Star of Vergina t-shirt.

But enough about omens of no meaning. Nothing gets the juices on the South forums going like a loss, so I guess there's that to be said for Friday's loss. Three games in, and everyone's an expert on season 2018, which is good for me, because I don't need to write any more South match reports for 2018. The gist of it is this. We play a different, cuter brand of football, one with a higher potential upside, but equally frightening possibility of getting mauled. It was apparently visible in those parts of the pre-season which I missed, and it has only be reinforced by our first three games.

It was the same lineup for a third game in a row, and though you wouldn't change a winning team unless you had to, you know that for the time being at least it's going to be the same lineup unless forced to be otherwise, and what's more, it's also going to be the same substitutions unless compelled otherwise. So, Brennan off for Minatel, and Pavlou on for Jawadi, and names pulled out of a hat or not at all for the third sub. Short of suspensions or injuries this is going to be it for at least until the mid-season transfer window, or until Marcus Schroen is ready to come back into the lineup.

That's not an out and out complaint. The first eleven is good enough to play well and do well, and the board has made what seems like a deliberate attempt to at least pay more than their usual lip service to youth development by having some youth players on the bench. But it also means that there's not nearly enough depth at the moment to implement Plan B when Plan A goes astray, only the chance to rest some players should Plan A be going along well enough during a game that such luxuries as putting on players promoted from the youth team would do no harm.

The first half, barring the fact that we didn't manage to score - thanks to the ball somehow not crossing the line in our best attack, and some crappier than you'd like crossing - was good enough. We had the better of the play, we looked decent going forward, and we won the ball back well when we had to. We were getting more pressure on us on the ball than we had the previous two weeks, but we still looked good, especially in moving the ball around midfield. Then the second half started with conceding a lobbed goal - people disagree on how much the keeper should be blamed, I'm on the side of not much after watching the video - and you didn't know which way this was going to go now. Getting the goal back only to concede again within seconds was sealer, in fairness.

Just on Oliver Minatel's equaliser. Yeah, there's an argument for wanting the dodgiest goals possible against your opponent, especially in a big game like this, but I was very close to the incident and I didn't feel much like celebrating. A large part of that was because for a while I was sure that one of the officials would eventually overrule the goal - after all, it was as blatant a handball as you could get. But there was another, secretly moralistic part of me that was kind of sickened by its shamelessness, because it didn't even look like Minatel needed to punch the ball into the goal, because he could've easily headed it in.

The officiating was pretty ordinary all around to be honest. How neither of those two karate leg chop attempts by Oakleigh within seconds of each other didn't get a yellow card says volumes about what is acceptable in Victorian soccer. To be fair though, Oakleigh looked a different team in the second half to what they've been putting up so far this season, and they played well. Lot of people caning our defence for this loss, and there's something to that - what was Konstantinidis doing dribbling along the edge of the box like that - but for mine more blame should go to the midfield, which disappeared from the field for long stretches of the second half.

Part of the problem was Brennan going off - either because of form or because of an injury - because even if he wasn't having a blinder going forward, he was doing well with Foschini in winning the ball back, and forcing Oakleigh to cough up the ball in midfield. When we fell behind for the second time, all sense of structure and attacking synchronisation went out the window, and we went back to long balls and not really believing that we could get back in the game.

Still, in my estimation it's not quite wrist-slashing time yet. Anyone moving the dial forward on the South Melbourne Hellas doomsday clock just because we lost another game against Oakleigh at Jack Edwards probably doesn't deserve to be in charge of said doomsday clock on the first place.

The one day of the year, which seems to be at almost every time we play away from home
Decent crowd at Oakleigh on Friday night, a few more than I expected upon kickoff because it looked like there was no one there when the game was starting. Fair enough, everyone loves to come see South lose, or win, or most likely whatever, because most of these people will only go to this and maybe one other NPL game for the season and not give it a second thought afterwards. It is what it is, and it's going to continue being what it is unless someone unlocks the secret of actually getting people to NPL games outside of a gimmick game.

There's no point getting too upset about it. It's funny though when you see Kingston and Oakleigh people having a go at a poor Bentleigh home crowd on the same night, when as if the roles were reversed that most of the people attending Friday night soccer wouldn't be Kingston Heath instead to watch a Green-South game, with the Oaks crowd lucky to get get intro triple figures.

As I noted on said forum:

Let's be honest, most teams in this league and the one below it have stuff all home support, less than stuff all away support, and rely on the visits of the two or three teams with slightly above stuff all support to bump up their attendance figures a couple of times a year.

And giving Pascoe Vale stick for not bringing away support when none of the minor Greek teams bring pretty much anyone ever to away games further than a five minute drive away is really something.

Next game
Pascoe Vale away at CB Smith Reserve in Fawkner on Friday night. Keep in mind that this game has a kickoff time of 8:15PM.

Meanwhile
The word going around the terraces on Friday was that the club attempted to get special dispensation from FFV to sign Nikola Roganovic as an injury replacement player for Alastair Bray, but the FFV said no. I'm hearing also that we'll be appealing that decision, Normally I'd be all for telling teams - any team, not just South - to suck it up, but in the case of an injured keeper over an outfielder, I'm more sympathetic. But if we were to get knocked back on appeal, one hopes that this is a standard that gets applied to all clubs from now on.

But I ask you, what is a contract?
For whatever it's worth, and who knows if it's actually worth anything, Matthew Foschini has been signed up until the end of 2020. So that's the right back slot sorted for the next few years. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile 2: Is he or isn't he?
While we're on the subject of contracts with mysterious and possibly disputable clauses, they say that Chris Taylor is set to become Green Gully's coach soon, with Arthur Papas set to depart for more lucrative lands. What a time to be alive.

Or not.

Contrary to earlier reports, Chris Taylor will NOT be replacing Arthur Papas at Green Gully.

— damirkulas (@DamirKulas) March 10, 2018

The good thing about the internet is that it gives you the full range of options when it comes to believing something about a particular person, circumstance, fact, and yet to be even tested fact.

Speaking of which
It's kinda cute when someone without access to certain long closed off founts of all Victorian soccer knowledge and innuendo sends you something as if you didn't see it three days before.

I'm not judging, but it is funny. And to be honest, there's much lamer behaviour on the internet.

Perpetual Motion Outrage Machine Dumpster Fire Car Crash
As far as the timeline of @smfc Twitter mentions go, there are good weeks and bad weeks, and there are quiet weeks and busy weeks. This week was bad and busy. I'm prevented from seeing a fair chunk of it, due to being a blocked by a regular poster to that timeline, but geez louise even I could figure out that there was a massive pile on Shouty Mike. Before that, people got sucked in to fighting with a Glory-supporting alt-right wannabe, arguing with him for what seemed like days, but was probably only a solid 36 hours.

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time online, there are some lessons to be learned from this week. On the former point, never, ever tweet. On the second issue, don't engage with people whose only purpose is trolling. I mean, people are free to do as they wish on social media, it's their free time, but is hammering away at someone who isn't going to change their mind worth that much of your time and effort?

Around the grounds, not this week
With both Knights and George Cross on the road this week I was looking forward to a weekend away from Knights Stadium. Then I looked up the FFA Cup fixtures, and saw Strathmore Split playing Bell Park at Somers Street, and I was all ready to go - until I saw it was set for the outside pitch. Any other day I would've been there with bells on, but with the mercury well over 35, it was a no from me. Shame, as there were a few goals in that game.

Final thought

I wish there was a prize, or some sort of t-shirt, or a customer loyalty card I could stamp, but there's nothing I can give you to reward you for that effort.

— Paul Mavroudis (@PaulMavroudis) March 11, 2018

Maybe a South of the Border t-shirt would be a good idea, but I'm no graphic designer.

There have been worse times - South Melbourne 4 Sorrento 1

Jesse Daley returns to Lakeside after working for Kenny Lowe as a swineherd. 

What could be worse than the loss against Kingston last Sunday, a loss which singlehandedly destroyed the future of the club? How about staring at the result of four years' worth of work and being frozen with anxiety, seeing only an incoherent mess of academic jargon where academic clarity should be. Even food tasted like crap, the manoushe I bought was like cardboard, the hot jam doughnuts undercooked mush. Thank goodness the weather turned nasty at about 4:30 and that there was a South game to go to break me out of my funk.

One rather good burger and several beers later (which we had to a little while for because someone told the kitchen to open later than they should have), my mood immeasurably improved. A good turnout - or so I thought - but the bandwagon of the previous round was tempered a bit a feeling that we should win the game in front of us.

There were many surprises in store on the night. Jesse Daley was back! It appears that he didn't get the contract at Perth Glory, and possibly flying over on the same plane as the Sorrento players, he started this match on the bench. There was also the state of the Lakeside pitch, which was waterlogged in some parts, which surprised me because there have been other matches in which it has rained and the ground has held up much better than it did on Wednesday night. And there was also Tim Mala in the starting line up, but still no Michael Eagar. Luke Pavlou was out and Matthew Foschini was back in the middle. But there was also no time to make sense out of any of that, because we were in front after a minute or so, a goal I almost missed because of someone wanting to have a chat with me and picking a very bad moment to do it. But I did get to see Leigh Minopoulos putting up his goal when it was easy enough to make a meal out of that chance.

Leigh Minopoulos in action on Wednesday night. Photo. Mike Owen.

Look, does this game need much analysis? They had some freaky tall players, tried hitting us on the counter, managed to scramble their way forward close enough a few times, but that says more I think about what we're doing as a team at the moment than any potency Sorrento may have had. The wet surface helped us more than it did them, and we knocked the ball around pretty well, though Chris Taylor doesn't seem that impressed with some of the decision making. Which is fine with me, the players can be happy with themselves all they like, but it's a coach's prerogative to be inversely unhappy especially if he doesn't think that instructions have adequately followed.

The 2-0 halftime lead, which included one of our better moves for the season, finished off first time by the People's Champ was quite deserved. Of course people will point to the 'key incident' of the sending off of Sean Canham, but we had things under control before that, and while things theoretically could have changed in the second half I have my doubts that they would have.

To limit description of the red card only to Canham's receiving a second yellow does the whole farce a disservice. Apparently he'd mouthed off on our Facebook page, which is convenient for me because who gives a stuff about Facebook? Anyway, during the first half Nikola Roganovic did one of his silly leaving the ball too long and waiting for the striker to 'make' Nikola pick the ball up, and in shades of Palm Beach two years ago there was a collision between Roganovic and the opposition forward. This time we got away with it, as Canham was adjudged to have violently fouled our man and was given a yellow card for his troubles.

Kristian Konstantinidis slides in to challenge an opponent.
Photo: Matthew Jackson.

Fast forward to later on, when we were 2-0 up late in the first half and Canham was running toward goal when both he and his South opponent seemed to collide. I didn't think it was a foul myself, but it didn't seem like a dive either; it was a classic 'play on' call as far as I was concerned. But the ref, who was in a much better position than us to be fair, called it a dive and dished out a second yellow card to Canham, and he was off. Which was all well and good except that Canham couldn't get off the field because he'd actually snapped his Achilles tendon. Of course none us in the stand knew this at the time, and thus the 'keyboard warrior' taunt came out, as did the last post (or flailing parts thereof), and all sorts of other hostility. Which is perfectly understandable from our end, but the reaction of some our players at the time seemed a bit over the top. All of it was made farcical as Canham was taken off the ground in completely the wrong direction for some reason.

It was all a bit of a mess to be honest, though I can understand how the referee came to his decision on it being a dive - someone snapping their Achilles would go down as if they'd been shot, rather like someone going for a dive. Now the ref is probably not a medical professional, and I don't know if he can rescind or change his mind on these decisions, but it seems as if the circumstances conspired against him, and of course Canham and Sorrento, and we got the rub of the green on that one.

In the second half it's fair to say that we didn't extend ourselves too much, and pretty soon Sorrento ran out of gas and we were able to take off some players and give blokess like Stefan Zinni and Jesse Daley a bit of a run. It would've been nice to bury them by a few more goals, and we had the chances to do so. It would've also been nice not to concede, but we did, from exactly the kind of situation we expected to concede against this mob: from a corner. But Nick Epifano's second took the edge off that bit of very mild disappointment.

Post-match in the social club was a jovial affair, as we watched extra time of the Sydney Croatia vs Alexandros match. I wasn't emotionally invested in either team winning to be honest, but there was a definitely a more pronounced anti-Heidelberg feeling in the room. That's bound to happen not just because they are our eternal rival, but also because of some Bergers people who happened to be in attendance, as well as every time George Katsakis' face comes on TV it seems to aggravate our people, which is understandable.

With that match over and my raspberry lemonade finished, it was time to go, which meant missing my connecting train to Sunshine and sitting alone at Flagstaff, tired but content, and with a Nestle Crunch for company for at least a few minutes.

The draw for the next round is on Tuesday night after the completion of the fixtures for this round, and won't we all be excited for that.

Next game
An NPL Victoria semi final some time next week against one of Avondale, Green Gully or Bentleigh, probably at home.

And you want to be my latex salesman
Now you know I don't like any of this business, never have, never will, but I feel that we must make at least a little note about the crowd number.

The official attendance was announced as being 939, the lowest tally of the four matches on the night, and a figure well down on the 2,600 odd that apparently turned up to our match against Edgeworth.

That announcement seemed to surprise a few of our own, who felt that the real number was either a  bit higher or a lot higher than that.

And so they poured forth onto social media to defend the club against the storm of social media nobodies who were using the posted figure as a way of making fun of our A-League ambitions.

More power to everyone on that front, because neither love nor hate are strong enough on their own to make the social media world go round. You really do need both.

Our lovable larrikin prez was also on the case, posting up an explanation on Twitter for the apparent discrepancy in the figures, along with a demand to change the official record to reflect that 'fact'.

You didn't count the 890 that got scanned in from the social club side.
Crowd was just under 2000.
Please amend your records.

— Leo Athanasakis (@LAthanasakis) August 23, 2017

Speaking only for myself, I have no idea about these things. I counted the seats once in order to correct one myth about Lakeside's capacity that anyone could've (but hadn't) easily corrected years before. Everything else is operational matters, which are out my control.

Situations like this aren't helped when you're the club who a) have been running your mouth off for the last few months about how many members you have, and b) have a hard-earned reputation over many years (whether deserved or not) for fudging crowd numbers up, down and sideways.

More pertinent here is the fact that our patron entry procedures are a dog's breakfast, and that being the case it means that any attempt to count a crowd accurately are doomed from the outset.

It's times like this where I wish it was like Scottish football where there is no shame attached to this nonsense, and we could therefore just announce the crowd accurately every week, and nobody would care if it the number was high or low.

Let's Save Roberto Carlos' House!
There were reports in the media yesterday that our future A-League coach Roberto Carlos was going to be sentenced to a two year prison stint for failing to pay child support to his former partner, who is the mother of two his children.

Naturally, because I saw this news on Twitter, this was retweeted mercilessly with references to him not being able to coach us as was our agreement.Thankfully the actual sentence Carlos received was only three months, which should be a relief to everyone at South Melbourne For A-League HQ.

If we do get a fundraiser going we should get Troy McClure to host it.
You may remember him from such SMFC fundraisers as 'Save Our South'
and 'Let's get Fox Sports for the social club!'.
'

Me, I'm more concerned that someone who had played at some of the biggest clubs in the world for many years has found himself in this dire financial situation - with apparently six other children and another on the way!

What makes this situation even worse is that the solution he's looking for to solve his money problems is a job that won't turn up for at least another couple of years if it even exists at all.

But instead of making light of this situation, we should find a way to help out a guy in need. I'm thinking we should hold a fundraising night, which we could maybe host at the casino, tickets $300...

Final thought
I like Anthony Colangelo as a journo, Twitterer, and as an occasional acquaintance, but his non-corroborated spitting allegation... I don't know, man. He kinda went full Donald Sutherland, and you never go full Donald Sutherland.