Friendly vs Manningham tomorrow

The match against Manningham is at Lakeside on Wednesday night, with kickoff at 8pm. Memberships will also be available for purchase and collection.

An assortment of items

Except for a lucky few, the flicker of love fades over time. Or at least it changes. Nothing stays as it was. But never doubt my commitment to this club on my good days. Sure, those good days might be fewer in number than they used to be, but what kind of idiot would otherwise take a train out to Dandenong on a Saturday evening for a practice match, unless his level of commitment was at some sort of peak?

I decided to add value to the trip by making a stop into the State Library, ostensibly to check out a couple things on newspaper microfilm. First, anything to do with two matches in Shepparton, one in 1960 and the other in 1961, between girls teams from Shepparton and Echuca, following a lead in a copy of Soccer News that has otherwise been lost to the digital ages. 

Going through the Shepparton News though, I did find one South Melbourne Hellas item of interest, a match report of a post-season friendly against Hakoah from October 1961, played at the Shepparton Showgrounds. There's all sorts of curious moments, but the one I want to focus on today is the observation by the journalist that Hellas played a short passing game, and Hakoah a long ball game. Oh, to be following a team that plays the short passing game that Hellas is adept at, instead of whatever it is we were trying to do the past few years.

Anyway, the journey from the State Library to Dandenong was interrupted by a rail replacement scheme, which meant that I missed the first bus connection to George Andrews Reserve from Dandy station, and had a 25 minute wait until the next bus... so vending machine chocolate and Christos Tsiolkas' latest thing to pass the time. Arriving to the ground five minutes late, I am made aware that we scored within the first 30 seconds of the game. But what game? I can safely say that collectively, our new and old attacking options look a cut above what he had last year, and that in general the whole team looks more assertive.

But it's just a pre-season friendly, against a mediocre looking opponent, who were absent their talismanic striker from last season because he's shopping himself around for better offers. So, several below par opponents might help build a bit of confidence and fitness, but it's nothing reliable to attach your hopes to. Even Marcus Schroen scoring another free kick - this one looking a lot more legit than some of the other ones against dodgier looking walls and goalkeepers - does nothing more than set up a situation where I get made when he doesn't get close during the whole season proper.

The thing is, however, that any sort of show of concern - of anticipation or of dread - would be stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. It used to be that there was chat about what every team is doing, who they'd signed, who they playing against pre-season. Now there's almost nothing. I know I've said it a few times, but this is really worrying. Hopefully the first few rounds, stacked with a couple of derbies for us, helps light things up, but at the moment we're in an awful, league-wide state of malaise, that might be only partly due to the pandemic.  

But like I said, love is a funny thing. A few years ago I would've moved heaven and earth schedule wise to get to South's next friendly, probably on Wednesday, likely against another lower league opponent. Instead I'll be at the Myer Music Bowl with a mate, at a concert by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. I was told a few years ago, by the most alarmingly intelligent and well-read student I came across in my uni teaching days, that the MSO was more or less a third-rate orchestra; but since I'm a comparative philistine in such matters, and the concert is free, that it doesn't matter so much as long as you have good company. 

And pandemic permitting, there'll be plenty of chances to see South this year, right?

Like doughnuts signings, and the possibility of more doughnuts signings to come

The club has signed another attacking player, one Jai Ingham. People may remember Ingham from his Hume City days; while others will remember him playing for Melbourne Victory, because they are bad people who watch the A-League. Ingham was very recently signed by Gold Coast Knights, who also put out a terse press release noting that Ingham was no longer a player of theirs. How long he remains one of ours, well, that's for Fate to decide.

In any case, it looks like we are throwing the cheque book at all sorts of older already credentialed people, while the stated goal, made so many AGMs, of trying to get more of our own juniors into the team, becomes something that only gets said at AGMs. "Yoof!", as the Victory fans used to say about something or other.

By the way, when is the next AGM?

Accredited again

Just a passing note that I have once again been accredited as an official media pass holder by Football Victoria. It was a near run thing though. I tried to apply roughly when the applications came out late last year, or early this year, but the system would not accept my photo upload. Wouldn't have a bar of it. Not interested. A sloppy email sent to the FV communications team alerting them to this fact, and letting them know to just to re-use last year's application if that was allowed, was met with no response. The application deadline drifted by, and I just figured to myself that maybe I would just pay to get into away games in 2022, I'm on a concession card anyway; and besides, the blog's output has been comparatively crap for years now.

Then FV extended the application time-frame, I tried the site again, and this time it worked. And later I got an email saying you are accredited, and isn't that nice? No need to lineup, no need to pay to get it, and all I need to do to maintain that status is keep up a reasonable output of nonsense. A more daunting task than it used to be.

Friendly on Saturday night at Thunder

7pm senior kickoff, 5pm for the u21s at George Andrews Reserve. 

Friendly against Pascoe Vale tonight

8:15PM at CB Smith Reserve. There's even a 21s curtain raiser beforehand. But there's also heavy storms being predicted, so you know, use your judgement. 

Friendly against Brunswick City tomorrow night

Kickoff at 7pm at an inexplicably open doors Lakeside.

And for the record, Brunswick City is an NPL2 team.

Friendly against Mornington on Saturday evening

Just like the headline suggests, a 4pm kickoff this Saturday at Dallas Brooks Park. Since attending this fixture would require a five-hour round trip by public transport, I won't be there. But you kids enjoy it if you make it out that way.

Friendly tonight against St Albans

On Sunday arvo I heard what were then unconfirmed rumours about South's senior men playing a friendly away at Churchill Reserve against St Albans; those rumours appear to be true.

Home duties mean I won't be there, a fact which is deeply upsetting to me. But if you yourself are keen to see who knows what kind of exhibition of football by who knows what melange of lineups, kickoff is 7:40PM.

Out / In / Still Here

Out

As the senior men's season has finally come to an end - the senior women's team season persists in their state cup tournament - we arrive at that point in the year where some of our senior men's team players are departing. To start off - Luke Pavlou, Zac Bates, and Gerrie Sylaidos are all officially on the way out. All three were the subject of rumours among fan circles to be on the way out, and so it has come to be. 

The player departure that South fans will be most viscerally unhappy about is Sylaidos, principally because the opinion exists that Gerrie didn't get a proper go under the coaching arrangement we have at the moment. Looking back, that's only half-true; Sylaidos played almost every match in 2019 (initially under Con Tangalakis, and then Esteban Quintas), 2020 was a bust for everyone, and 2021 wasn't a whole lot better than 2020.

And it's not like Gerrie didn't have his drawbacks. He struggled to run out games, and his small frame provided obvious disadvantages. However it's also fair to say that Quintas' frequent changing of Gerrie's role and position, the coach's lineup rotations, and especially his defensive set-ups, did not help to maximise the potential of a player whose best attributes lay in the forward third of the pitch. 

As for the psychology of Gerrie being in and out of the starting eleven, and having other non-winger players playing on the wing instead of him... that's for those closer to the situation to judge, but I can't imagine it helped Gerrie much when it seemed the coach would not or could not place his trust in Gerrie.

Still, maybe some of us on the terraces got too far ahead of ourselves with Sylaidos, and overrated him. But then again, if any of us overrated Gerrie, we were not alone. He was the league's 2018 under 21 player of the year, and had trials with Central Coast Mariners in mid-2019. We were impressed by the glimpses he'd shown, especially against us, and thought that there was much more to come. 

And because Gerrie was (in our minds at least) one of us - a South fan, or at least someone with South feeling - we wanted him not only to do well, but we also wanted to protect him from the opposition who targeted his light frame, from referees who wouldn't protect him those attacks, and from a coach with a game plan which seemed to be geared to getting the least out of Gerrie.

Zac Bates, too, was a player that was in and out of the starting lineup for reasons similar to Sylaidos. Starting eleven rotation policies didn't help Bates' cause, as did his inability to run out games. To that, Bates had the added problem of hamstrings which seemed perennially on the cusp of exploding. 

When he did manage to get on the field, there was a player with speed and the potential to frighten opposition defenders, especially those instructed to play a high line. But like a lot of his teammates Bates' finishing was just not good enough, and in a setup which created few chances on goal, every opportunity missed counted for more.

It would be interesting to see Bates with a proper preseason under his belt, as well as consistent and uninterrupted first-team football. He may just end up showing everyone that he was actually worth a better go at Lakeside. I fancy though that like Sylaidos - who like Bates, has ended up at Northcote - Bates will have become tired of Lakeside even if he was asked to stay.

Defensive midfielder Luke Pavlou has also gone, apparently by his own desire. I'm not sure why we brought him back for a second stint. Some will say he was one of our better players this year, but I don't think he ever overcame the deficiencies that were evident in his first stint - namely his skill with the ball when under pressure. That, and we already had other defensive midfielders who I think are better. 

To the official departures, we can also add two rumours. First, young defender Giorgi Zarbos is apparently out, which would not be a surprise given his very limited first team opportunities. More substantially, Neos Kosmos reported last week that midfielder Daniel Clark has agreed to lucrative terms with Oakleigh, knocking back offers from South and Bentleigh.

And honestly, I'm OK with that. I was never a fan, and that's no secret. A journeyman midfielder of little note from a club of similar mediocrity to our own, the signing screamed of a lack of ambition. Even from the point of view of trying to snaffle a bargain in cost-cutting times, I could not see where the upside was going to come from. And largely, it didn't.

I couldn't (most times) fault the effort Clark put in, but clearly as the player that more than most was designated as "the guy" - the one most relied upon to do good stuff that would lead to other good stuff - it just didn't work. And if you have any doubts that that's the job Daniel Clark was asked to do, think about how many games he missed; he was basically the first outfielder picked every game.

I sympathise to a degree with the predicament he repeatedly found himself in, being asked to be that creative everyman with very little numerical support, because of how far back we sat in most games. But even if you were a fan, or at least recoil from making him the scapegoat for our troubles, one must agree that Clark leaving would open up all sorts of possibilities. At the very least, it means that the fixation on that one player can be dispensed with in favour of something more flexible and dare I say. democratic.

No word on whatever it is that happened to goalkeeper Pierce Clark, and I suspect we will never get a satisfactory answer.

In

As with the departures, almost without exception every 2022 player signing announced by the club had already been foreshadowed either in the press or on the South forum. I've said it before, but the days of the Chris Taylor era vault are long behind us. Also, maybe it doesn't even matter if everyone knows what we're doing, and that getting upset or even defiantly nonplussed are not worth the bother.

So yes, Andy Brennan is back for a third go, but we've already spoken about that. Also coming onboard is Alun Webb, a forward most recently of Melbourne Knights, and defensive midfielder Pat Langlois of Hume. Signing two players from a single club in one go, especially as that club is one of the more proficient ones of recent times - especially as that club still has FFA Cup and Dockerty Cup matches to play - raises all sorts of questions.

Most of those questions to me come back to money - how much we're paying, and how much the relevant opposition club is no longer willing or perhaps able to pay. Hume City's major sponsor (for both front of shirt and stadium naming rights) is in a bit of strife. One doesn't to write off an entire club's short-term future based on one sponsor (potentially) leaving, but it does open the door to speculation.

Attacking player Henri Scott is the real wildcard so far, in that he wasn't someone whose signing was mooted anywhere else before it was announced. That, and he comes from Warragul in the state leagues, which is a baffling origin story, and something more like a (dare I say it) CT-era attempt to pluck one player out of obscurity.

Oh, and another Queenslander, forward Max Mikkola, just because.

Still Here

Brad Norton has signed for an eleventh season, putting him in the esteemed ranks of our longest serving players by number of seasons, with only players such as Paul Trimboli and Steve Blair ahead of him. Marcus Schroen is also coming back next year, as are Harrison Sawyer and Marco Jankovic. Fullback and winger Chris Irwin is also onboard for 2022, after missing the entire of 2021 with injury.

And one more thing

How's the homegrown, young talent plan going?

Been there, done that - South Melbourne 0 Melbourne City 3

As it turns out, just about every thought I had about Friday night's game, I already had in 2017, to the extent that I'm actually a bit stumped about what to write.  

I suppose I could note the major difference between then and now. Back then, there was a sense of desperation, eagerness, anticipation, and hype. We had a good team with an imperfect build-up to the game, and an A-League bid in the works. On a number of fronts we had made ourselves the centre of attention, to the extent that the entire experience felt like an audition in front of the entirety of Australian soccer.

Of course we were never actually a legitimate chance to succeeding at that aforementioned audition no matter how well we did; but there's no mistaking the fact that the entire club, from top-to-bottom, treated the game against Sydney FC as a matter of life and death for the club. The ensuing years have since shown that like any club, we are just as likely to hurt ourselves as be hurt by others. Oh, and then covid happened as well. 

As it happened, the 2017 effort didn't make an iota of difference to either our short or medium term prospects. We were trying to prove the wrong thing to the wrong people at the wrong time. Perhaps what the focus should have been on was proving to ourselves that we could rise to that level. What 2004 and its aftermath did was not just gut the club of fans and finance, but also of know-how. We had to start from the start, so to speak, on the field and off it.

It's not like the 2017 game didn't have its issues with ticketing and organisation, but it went well enough. If Friday night showed anything, it's that the club has really nothing much left to prove to the small cartel of people who control top-flight Australian soccer. Everyone with any influence knows what we can do, what we can offer, what we're about.  All that was left to do was to demonstrate to ourselves once more that we can hold events like this at a professional standard, and that we have over the course of the past 17 years accumulated some experience about how to run an event at this scale.

And thus dutiful preparation from our behind-the-scenes people aside, Friday night seemed to lack 2017's sense of danger. There were no outsized concerns about whether our crowd would be big enough, or whether people would behave, or even if the team would get completely crunched. 

Again, covid provided some cover on all those fronts. The official crowd of 4,219 was apparently just short of the venue's covid capacity limit of 4,500. Anyone getting upset or choosing to mock the fact that we didn't reach that limit would be better of acknowledging that it is rare for capacity at any sporting to be reached, ever, even for the highest profile games. A recent example was the 2021 A-League grand final, where AAMI Park's 30,050 capacity was reduced by 50% due to covid, but managed a crowd about 1,000 short of the 15,000 cap.

Having a near (conditional) full-house didn't make stumping up $25 for a ticket that much more palatable for many people, especially with a lack of kids and concession offerings. But one must also acknowledge that the club has so few chances to cash in on games like this, that it must be hard for the people in charge not to try and leverage the situation for all it is worth. At least this year members had the chance of getting complimentary tickets, unlike last time.

The crowd was majority South, but admonishing the lack of a Melbourne City fan turnout seems a bit harsh. Doubtless some of their regular ordinary mum and dad fans would have baulked at the ticket prices; more likely, many of them would have been unaware the game was even on. More surprising was that City's active support couldn't even fill out a bay in the northern stand; considering how little of their team they've been able to see in recent covid affected years, it was a bit strange.

On the field, I was prepared for the worst. Funnily enough, I was both pleasantly surprised and genuinely appalled. Surprised and pleased that we didn't ship more goals. Appalled that from the beginning we didn't even pretend that we had any intention of getting the ball and trying to possess it, maybe even launch an attack. Some have made the comment that apart from the exaggerated scale of City's dominance, in general the South side on the park didn't look that much different in tactical approach to the one that was dominated by Eastern Lions during the earlier rounds of the cup.

Still, apart from the coach, I sympathise with almost everyone else involved on the game side of things. In 2021 we were the 9th best team of a second tier competition that got cancelled several months ago, with a match-day squad made up of semi-pros and a bench filled out by kids. Just be glad that we only lost 3-0, and instead get upset the at things that really matter - like that ridiculous decision to take a short corner during that three minute burst of goodness in the second half. 

Everything else I could make allowances for, but that decision was just astonishing. I could not believe it. It made no sense. I'm getting angry again just thinking about it. Maybe it's time to make an adjustment to the club's constitution to ban short corners, except when killing the clock at the end of a game. Tactical approach aside, I couldn't fault the effort of the team. Given they had so little of the ball, they ran and ran and ran, and did what they could. Ben Djiba stood out above all our players, defending stoutly throughout the game.

Apart from all our other shortcomings and disadvantages, we were playing the well-drilled champions of Australia, who were fitter, more skillful, and more coordinated than any South team has been since 2017. As with the 2017 match against Sydney FC, the difference in speed of movement and speed of thought was immediately apparent. Drop some of City's players down to our level, surrounded by players who weren't quite good enough to make it, give them day jobs, and irregular life schedules, and see what would happen. While you may still see moments of individual class, it'd be a lot harder to single-handedly bring up the standard of those around you.

Of course that's just a rinse-repeat of one of the good arguments for a proper second division, but that's a story for an interminable future. While we South plebs wait for that day to arrive or for someone with more clout to make it happen, we have to deal with our team and our league as they are. Here's to 2022 then.

Ticketing information for upcoming FFA Cup game released

Pre-season 2022 (or what some of you are calling FFA Cup 2021) rolls on.

The club has signed a new keeper, one Javier Diaz Lopez of Bentleigh Greens, a Spaniard. Diaz Lopez will be eligible for the cup game against Melbourne City, though his signing does beg the question: what's the situation with Pierce Clark? Lot of rumours flying about - well, two that I've seen - which you'll have to go digging for yourselves. 

For the announcement of Diaz Lopez, the club tried to do one of its traditional social media big bombshell at 6pm angles, but were beaten to the punch by Neos Kosmos journo Alekos Katsifaras. Katsifaras also notes that South has signed forward Alun Webb, most recently of Melbourne Knights, and Andy Brennan, most recently of Hume City.

Neither player will be eligible to play in the cup game, but more to the point: Andy Brennan, again! Again! Now I like Andy, have done so for a long time, and I still think he could do a nice job at this level, but come on! Can't we just move on? Or is the angle we're playing the classic South move of signing a guy because he scored against us recently? Anyway, the putative signings of Webb and Brennan indicates a big shakeup at season's (eventual) close of our attacking stocks. Let the speculation begin, in your own free time. Or in the comments section, whatever.

As part of preparations for the cup game, the team has of course been training, and even managed to have a closed doors hit out at Lakeside with another 2021 FFA Cup aspirant, Avondale. We won the game 2-0, Yianni Panakos and Jake Marshall the scorers. Gerrie Sylaidos also played in that game, as did a player it took a little while for be remember the name of. Take from all of that what you will.

More importantly I suppose, ticketing information has been released for the cup fixture, and for South members and season ticket holders it's a mixed bag. Any financial South Melbourne member or season ticket holder- that is someone who has paid for a membership or season ticket in 2021 - will not be charged for entry to the game. 

That's a fairly big gesture on behalf of the club, considering that they had already provided discounted 2021 memberships for 2020 members. 

The catch however is that eligible members and season ticket holders must pick up their tickets from the club itself, of which further details will be released by the club in the coming days. That could be a pain in the arse for those who work or live nowhere near Lakeside. 

For regular punters looking to attend the game, tickets will be available online only from 3pm today, with no tickets being sold on the day of the game. 

The other thing of course, is that the game will only be open to those who have received two doses of a covid vaccine, and can of course provide proof of their double-vaccinated status on the day.