Patience is wearing thin. The initial goodwill on offer is diminishing. Memories of the good (or at least better) performances from earlier in the season are receding into the distance.
Everything feels increasingly toxic. Photo: Luke Radziminksi.
Which is not to say that yesterday was a complete disaster on the field. We didn't lose the game. The performance was good in moments, and erratic in others. There were long stretches of the game, especially in the first half, where we dominated play, but our defensive frailties came to the fore again, and basically the first chance that Gully had, they scored from. Most disappointingly, the goal we conceded came straight up the middle, where I assume we're meant to have two defensive midfielders to provide cover for our central defenders.
At least we got the goal back very quickly, which calmed down the nerves of the supporters for a few minutes. Krousouratis, who had an energetic but ultimately unfulfilling performance, at least tested out ex-South keeper Jerrad Tyson on this occasions to the extent that he parried the ball to Gerrie Sylaidos, whose patience with the shot seemed to stop time itself. Thank goodness he scored.
There was no Kristian Konstantinidis, who having apparently recovered from the flu (assuming that was the cause of his absence last week), was out this week because he was recovering from an ingrown toenail. One wonders what affliction - real or imagined - will keep him out of next week's game.
(I'm reminded here somewhat tangentially of one of our favourite defunct segments, Renco Van Eeken Fruit Watch, where readers of South of the Border were encouraged to keep an eye out for whatever piece of fruit the injured striker was eating during the 2013 season. But I digress.)
There was no Billy Konstantinidis, who looks like he'll have to wear a five game suspension, unless of course the club finds success at an appeal or tribunal hearing on the matter. But assuming the penalty won't be lessened, that's one game down and four to go, including the cup game later this month.
The wind and rain and cold has finally arrived. Hello winter football. Photo: Cindy Nitsos.
Pep Marafioti, who I have advocated as the most appealing stop gap option for striker, worked hard, was often starved of timely and/or appropriate supply, made some poor runs, and had two chances on goal from which he should have scored at least one. I'm thinking particularly here of the chance in the first half, where was probably offside (uncalled) and had plenty of time to choose a side instead of waiting to be shut down by his opponent.
(The moment in the second half where a few people have thrown him under the bus for not passing to Gerrie on the right wing seem a bit harsh; Pep looked like he was closed down very quickly on that side by his Gully opponent, and only a just over-hit touch on his way to the byline from the same sequence of play prevented a chance being created in the six yard box.)
Other players put up some good moments, and some equally awful ones. The communication at the back is messy at best. Perry Lambropoulos had probably his best game for us at right back, and even offered something going forward for the first time this season (modest as that was), but at his worst almost looked like he tripped over the ball. Hesitation on that side of the field was very concerning. The left hand side seemed to hold up reasonably well by comparison
I continue to struggle in understanding the team setup and the substitution decisions. What's most concerning is that I can't help but wonder if the players think the same way, too. It's quite possible Tangalakis has lost the playing group, or at least veteran elements of it. At Kingston, KK was apparently shouting at him about defensive issues; at Pascoe Vale, Schroen was unhappy about Gerrie being benched; and yesterday Minopoulos shrugged his shoulders and shook his head when Gerrie was subbed off. You have one proven game-breaker, the kind of player a lot of other clubs would love to have on their books, and yet the level of trust or estimation that Tanga has for Gerrie seems far below what many pundits and even more South supporters have.
We're not in the relegation zone, but we're in a relegation battle.
Talk about Tanga's future at the club
Lot of talk going around that he's been sacked, but I'm waiting for the club to make the announcement, and not just because it's still April 1st.
Next game
Melbourne Knights away on Friday night.
Keep in mind that this match kicks off at 7:45PM, and that there is no curtain raiser.
On the couch
Saturday provided many options, one of which was to go to the senior women's game against Box Hill United at Wembley Park. Checked the PTV site, bus replacements from Camberwell to Ringwood. No thanks. Chucked it on the old YouTube instead, and saw something I hadn't seem from our women's team this season - a team that was switched on from the start. Raced away to a 2-0 start, and the coughed up a goal to be only 2-1 up. The final margin was eventually 4-2 our way, the same as the week before, but this was the best we'd looked in a while. Not a patch on what we were doing last year, and you have to wonder how far we are behind Calder, but it's a long season, and as long we can get to the finals - which we should be able to do pretty easily - we should be able to do something.
Around the grounds Upscale
Having decided not to go out to Box Hill South, I went out to Ardeer instead for Westgate vs Altona East. So many regrets, not so much for the game which went predictably the way of Westgate (3-0). Westgate have this habit of playing games at 6pm on Saturday nights, which always end up being freezing. Never mind the lights, which are poor, I've been to plenty of games in the cold, but Westgate's home night games are uniformly unpleasant when it comes to the climate. I'd always wondered what the appeal of playing the games at that time was, and all I can think of is that they're trying to get as close to a Balkan mountain village idea of cold. Speaking of the Balkans, some mob called Balkan Grill has taken over the Westgate canteen, and I had to do a double take when I saw someone cooking who was wearing a chef's style white coat; seeing a cevapi roll at $10 and every other option at least $3 more than was a bit of a concern. This is the club that prides itself in being mean street working class - they even call their ground 'The Ghetto', stupid name as that may be. Has the gentrification of Sunshine accelerated that quickly?
Final thought
At least we kept our non-Northcote undefeated run at John Cain Memorial Park going. Small mercies.
After Saturday night's results, there was not much sleep to be had. While nominally a good result for us, in that they took points off each other, the draw between Northcote and Hume saw us drop down into the relegation slots. Even worse, Kingston pulled their finger out against a lacklustre Avondale, and jumped up a few spots at our expense. So there we were on Saturday night, and into Sunday, sitting in second last spot, with a game in hand, but nothing else to latch on to.
Then when you rock up to a game and you hear so many different squad and lineup configurations that you have no idea what's real and what isn't, that doesn't fill you with any confidence either. No Matthew Foschini seemed pretty certain, he being suspended with five yellows. No Schroen (still suspended) and no Jawadi (still injured) was also something to bank on. But what of everyone else?
Previously, word on the street was that Milos Lujic had made his one appearance in between serving his five match suspension and leaving for Russia, so we were going to see Ndumba Makeche start... no! Milos was due to start, and Makeche on the bench. Jerrad Tyson was meant to be off to India, having received an offer too good to refuse to play there. He would be replaced by Zaim Zeneli (currently of promotion to NPL2 hunting North Sunshine) and/or Nikola Roganovic (currently or recently filling in at Richmond), except Tyson started this game and who knows for sure when he'll go exactly and who will replace him.
There were reputed doubts about Brad Norton';s fitness for the match, but that rumour was at least put to bed when he told me that he would be playing. But the surprises kept coming. Kristian Konstantinidis was reputedly struggling with personal issues, and likely to start on the bench, replaced in the starting lineup by... Tim Mala! Well, that turned out to be half true. KK started the game and played most of it, and Timmy Mala came on later on.
Such "getting the gang back together" shenanigans smacked of the end of Golden Gordon or every hokey American sports movie you can think of - minus the reformed outsider delinquent. Actually, speaking of reformed outsider delinquents, what of the People's Champ? He didn't play last week. He was gone from the club. He was, finally, a former South Melbourne player. Except that didn't happen. Somehow, through the reputed magical intervention of mediation, new coaching assistant (or something like that) Con Tangalakis, and a team bonding barbecue(?!), everything was sorted out well enough that everyone's *redacted* player was back in the staring lineup.
It was me, Clarendon Corner! It was me, all along, South Melbourne!
No doubt this whole situation has been handled incredibly poorly for so many years by so many parties, but having tolerated it for long enough until it finally broke of its own volition, everyone immediately concerned could have at least come up with a more creative way of doing things. For instance, would it not have been better for the club to make an announcement that Nick Epifano had left Lakeside, only to be replaced by a new player (El Boyo Loco or whatever) from "parts unknown", wearing a mask or some sort of disguise, who would play brilliantly over the course of the second half of the season, before finally revealing his true identity for the purposes of finally going over with his face-turn or, even better, going for a monster-heel double-down. Look, we're in the entertainment business, and I'm just trying to help.
If you wanted even more surprises, there was no Christos "Patrida" Intzidis in the starting lineup, with the returning-from-Scandinavia Luke Adams taking his place in central defence, and surprisingly perhaps Intzidis not even used in the role of defensive midfield. With Luke Pavlou departed, and Foschini suspended, that role was taken up by... Oliver Minatel! Oliver Mintael, reputed winger who's barely played on the wing (his apparent preferred position) due to the injury and suspension situation of the club. Oliver Minatel, who even when he has played as a winger, has showed little. Oliver Minatel, whose almost entire worth to the club thus far has been four goals of varying degrees of novelty value.
And yet, he was actually quite good in the role. I'm not going to go over the top and say that it was a transformative experience - he could be found out next week for all we know - but for this game it worked well enough. Minatel seems to read the game well, but more importantly, being in that position meant he was in the game a lot more whether he liked it or not. (And for whatever it's worth, he did apparently volunteer for the role). Being much more in the game rather than being stranded up front or out wide meant that he was able to influence a game in ways that he has not been able to do so previously in 2018.
The sputtering at best midfield of last week became a lot more fluid as well, the new jelling with the old in promising ways, albeit mostly from counter-attacks. Again, small sample size and all that, but we were counter-attacking well and smoothly, transitioning quickly from defence to attack. Of course counter attacking is much easier to do when a) you have a lead and b) you have a lead in part because you haven't conceded after seven seconds. It was probably just an accident that the scoreboard didn't kick in properly until about 15 seconds into the game.
So yes, going ahead early makes the opposition have to come out and chase the game and therefore makes counter attacking easier, at least in theory. What was astonishing about the early lead we took is that the Dandenong player didn't get a yellow card for that vicious tackle but also, considering how our season has been going, that Milos Lujic didn't miss the penalty. Indeed, he put it right into the top corner. The second goal was a good finish from the People's Champ after being released on the break. The third goal, almost unseen, came from a short corner, and thus I'm not comfortable with it being counted in the first half tally.
Three-nil at the break would suggest we were all over Thunder, but that was not quite the case. It was a far more free-flowing, end-to-end, and much more competitive affair than that. Thunder probably struggled to create as many clear cut chances as we were doing, but they could've scored, and had they done so you wonder how the game would've gone, what with our penchant for rapid self-immolation this year. Thankfully, that never came about. We only added one more goal in the second half, Ndumba Makeche tucking away an easy back post chance, and everybody was happy to get out of this game with all three points, and out of the relegation zone.
It was a terrifying 18 or so hours in the red zone - and there's no guarantees that we won't be back there again soon - but the wash up of the win on Sunday was that we actually distanced ourselves ever so slightly from two members of the chasing pack. What's more, we got ourselves back into positive goal difference, which in dire situations like this, is worth a half a point by itself. Oh, and there seemed to be renewed effort and desire in the squad. No one's sure if that newfound lust for battle will last the first test of true adversity, but it was exciting to have it back for at least 90 minutes.
Next game
Oakleigh at home on Saturday evening. For those who concern themselves with such triviliaties, it will be Chris Taylor's first game at Lakeside since his sacking, and his first game back after his mid-season trip to Europe. Of course, it is also worth noting that after the game, the social club will be screening the Socceroos vs France World Cup match, for which he club has said you will need to book tables for if you wish to sit down and watch the game instead of stand - that's $50 per head, and you get meal platters, etc. It's also worth noting that rather than the under 20s curtain raiser, our NPLW side will be playing against Alamein, with kickoff at 2:30PM.
Shortlist shenanigans
Those hoping for closure on the matter of the A-League expansion process will have to wait a couple more days at least. Today was the day - yes, I know it's a public holiday, but this is Australian soccer after all - where there was meant to be an announcement of the shortlist for the A-League expansion hopefuls.
No decision on A-League expansion short list for at least a couple more days. Have been told Deloittes went back with few more Q’s to the groups. So they are waiting for some replies.
That kind of make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach is of course remarkably reassuring, as are rumours that the licence fee will be $15 million. Not that any of that matters.
Around the grounds ...and if you're in jail, break out!!!
As promised to no one in particular last week, I headed north across the wrong side of the tracks to the catch up game between Westgate and Whittlesea United. Yes, Tansel Baser was there for the visitors, but that mattered not when Westgate opened the scoring after two minutes. But then Whittlesea took the game by the scruff of the neck, scoring three goals in the next 20 minutes. The pick of the bunch was the equaliser, which was a solo effort with the player in question dribbling past three or four opponents and slotting his goal just inside the post. Considering the usual standard of this league, it wasn't just beautiful, but transcendent, a distillation of everything good about football. At 3-1 it looked like Whittlesea were going to run away with it, but the first half settled down after that. After halftime Westgate were much improved, but they were wasteful in front of goal. They got one back, which made the game really interesting, but that's all they got.
Final thought
Safe travels to all those heading to Russia for the World Cup.
Yes, it's true. I have done everything in my powers to push the writing of this post to whenever the latest possible moment was. I read a novel from start to finish for the first time since January. I went on ridiculously long bus trips with one of my brothers so that he could order some new glasses. I watched a hell of a lot of TV that even I'm embarrassed to admit that I watched - though I stopped short at the Denton interview of Gene Simmons. I even read the letters pages of Royal Auto, where people who like going on car trips to see lighthouses or complaining about less than stellar driving by their fellow motorists go because they haven't discovered the black hole of social media.
Spoilt as we have been these past few years with something approximating relative success, being now mired in something very much more akin to complete and utter suckage makes being a South fan less tolerable. The suddenness of that transformation adds to the misery. At least when we sucked in the years 2007 to (June/July) 2013, that sucking felt like a warm blanket: yes we sucked, but in the VPL years it became basically all we knew, and on some level you could justify turning up to watch mediocre season after mediocre season. After all, the club was probably going to cark it soon, so what did it matter if we won or lost?
But winning changed the feeling, made the real or imagined post-NSL death spiral of the club feel less real. But winning has gone, so here we are, back to the old feeling, but much worse. Lining up with what could be considered a makeshift midfield at best - no Schroen, Epifano, Jawadi, Brennan, Pavlou, and instead fielding newly signed and probably out of position Howard and Marafioti, and a busted up Minopoulos - expectations were low. Sure there was a returning after five weeks' suspension and before he leaves for Russia next week Milos Lujic, but that was probably just as much down to new striker signing Ndumba Makeche's international clearance not coming through as anything. Unless of course Makeche actually isn't very good, and we were going to start Milos regardless.
Of course none of that mattered in the slightest because we conceded a goal after seven seconds. SEVEN SECONDS! I can only remember seeing such a thing happen in the flesh once, and even then it was a state league two reserves game and there were mitigating circumstances of an absolute fool of a referee who made a big deal before kickoff about the colour of the long sleeves worn under the jerseys, and despite that there were still no real excuses for copping that goal. The blokes who copped that goal for us on Sunday are experienced, well-remunerated, and any number of other positive epithets you can choose to use. You can point to discord and disquiet, low morale, poor coaching, any number of things, but you should still never cop a goal within seven second of play.
At least wait thirty seconds! That implies that there may have been some neat passing, or a piece of stunning bad luck, or at least some semblance of someone trying to provide an obstacle to conceding the goal. The only obstacle to us conceding was a hopelessly stranded Jerrad Tyson in goals, and what he could seriously do when seeing that blue and white Red Sea open in front of him except hope for the absolute best while expecting the absolute worst?
After that, we put in some effort to try and get back that goal, but it was rather like the proverbial dirty, slimy, airborne pig. No amount of rationalisation could convince anyone that it was still any good. Brad Norton, the one man seemingly willing to front up and take any responsibility for what has been going on this year, did his best; but as for the rest, whether new signing or old hand, nothing clicked, nothing worked, and nothing looked like working. And when you're going through a dire run of form, all the things which work out when you're going well - opposition mistakes, referee decisions, a cleared ball landing in or at the edge of the box with one of yours ready to hit it home - all goes the window, making things even harder.
I mean, there were neat touches, and lots of crosses and corners, but rarely any of these things in consecutive order, and thus rarely a moment where there seemed to be any coherence in our path towards goal. Everything seems forced and predictable now. And then the ball gets turned over, and then the other side of problem comes out, players out of position, players being played out of position, and players making fundamental errors of skill and concentration. Sure we lasted more than seven seconds without conceding after halftime, but the goal we copped three minutes into the second half was little better than the one we copped in the first. If there was any doubt that we were going to get back in this game, it was extinguished then and there.
Late on we actually managed to score, Oliver Minatel bundling home what we hoped but did not dare believe could be the goal that would kick start a comeback, and it turns out that it didn't. This is not 2017 after all. Sure we pumped balls forward, but never really got close, just as we hadn't got close for the rest of the game. Now, critical as I have been of Minatel this season, I will give him this much credit - even though his four goals in 2018 have been the arsiest collection of goals in a South shirt since Kevin Nelson's half season with us in 2006, at least he's managed to get them! While everyone else fiddles while Rome burns or wallows in their own misery, Minatel has something to point to as a contribution. Call it clutching at straws if you like, but in a shipwreck situation you try and grab onto anything you can to stay afloat.
I can't even say Bulleen played that well. They looked like the bottom of the table team that they are, but they still created three or four genuine chances compared to our measly half chances of crosses met by no one or players off balance or caught easily by the Bulleen keeper. And I don't mean to sell Bulleen short, because they did the job they came to do, but even out of form the calibre of players we had out there shouldn't have let the situation deteriorate so much. But we are so much less the sum of our parts at the moment that anything resembling competence from our opponents makes things seem impossible from our end. Indeed, the last game we won, against Kingston, was as much due to Kingston's incompetence in the two goals they coughed up to us as it was due to anything we did ourselves.
Where improvement will come in the short term, let alone the rest of the season as a whole, is anyone's guess, but I don't think anyone's particularly optimistic. At some point Marcus Schroen will come back into the side, hopefully a fit Iqi. Maybe this Ndumba guy will show us that the Malaysian third division is a step up from the NPL? We're somehow still outside the relegation zone, but that won't last - indeed that could happen as early ads Saturday night if Northcote and Hume play out a draw. There's half a season's worth of games to go for us, but seemingly no one inside the club who knows how to "dig up, stupid".
Next game
Dandenong Thunder at home.
Mid-season ins and out
There are a lot of rumours flying around about who's in and who's out, and those rumours are getting increasingly extreme as befits our current crisis. Among the factual elements:
Ins
Luke Adams (miscellaneous frozen tundra)
Giuseppe "Pep" Marafioti (Oakleigh)
George Howard (APIA, not the insurance company unless he has a day job there)
Ndumba Makeche (Malaysia)
Outs
Andy Brennan (Oakleigh)
Luke Pavlou (Oakleigh)
Keegan Coulter (dunno)
Ajdin Fetahagic (*shrugs shoulders*)
After that though... I don't know. There have been persistent rumours that night club proprietor and recently ousted Oakleigh Cannons co-coach Con Tangalakis will be coming in as an assistant or mentor or something for Sasa Kolman. That hasn't happened yet, it may not ever happen, or it could happen really subtly and one day he'll just happen to be there as if he was always there.
Not that it was any of our business, and it may not even become relevant regardless, but I always wondered how a co-coaching arrangement worked. I mean, co-captains is a stupid enough arrangement, but unless you're in a sport like cricket or rugby union where captains have some tangible responsibility aside from deciding which end to kick to, captaincy is probably a fairly overrated concept in sports; though I say this with no first-hand experience of having had to serve under a captain in any sport. But co-coaches? Who is ultimately responsible for success or failure? Typically, my mind goes to toward Andorra's dual-prince arrangement, though even there I assume that's mostly ceremonial in function.
As for the rest of the transfer window, I don't know if there are any other players lined up for entry or exit. A lot of that probably depends on the fate of the matter below.
A Gannon Television production, for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The whereabouts and fate of the People's Champ against Bulleen went largely unremarked upon, surprisingly. I suppose when you cop a goal within seven seconds of starting, trivial things like that seem to matter a lot less. Still, there are no official reports of what the ultimate fate is for Nick Epifano regarding his tenure at South. The overwhelming consensus of the rumour mill is that he is no longer at South, or that he is on his way out of the club. Somebody told me or I read somewhere that his name was taken down from his locker, but I have no idea if this is true or whether the players even have their names above their lockers.
While agreeing that he is out of the club, the various rumour mongers can't agree on just where he will or where he has ended up. Oakleigh to reunite with Chris Taylor? Avondale, whom he reputedly was set to join up with after the end of the 2017 season? Heidelberg, with his mate Andrew Cartanos? At the time of print, no one seemed to know for sure. Neither does anyone know whether these or any other potential destination clubs have room in their PPS caps - assuming anyone's still bothering to tally those up - or whether potential destination clubs even want him, seeing Epifano a disruptive and needy dressing room presence that they could do without, regardless of his talent.
And then of course you have those of our fans who view these things pragmatically and/or vindictively, who suggest that as an unwilling but nevertheless contracted player, the People's Champ should be made to play out the rest of the season in the under 20s especially if we can't get a decent transfer fee for him. I get the logic of that kind of sentiment, but... actually there is no but. Surely we should do what's in South's best interests here, right? It's coming across all very high school at the moment. Considering Epifano's inability to bust out a convincing highbrow pro-wrestling style face-turn, such a development in the storyline probably suits the low-rent Australian teen soap-opera the whole Epifano saga has actually resembled.
Andrew Howe's Socceroos Encyclopaedia
Last Tuesday, Andrew Howe's national tour to launch his Socceroos Encyclopaedia made its Melbourne stop, in our very own social club. It being a Tuesday (training) night and the proceedings getting underway at about 6:00PM perhaps made it difficult for people to attend; nevertheless to my mind the turnout was disappointing. At about 30 odd people, there was a distinct lack of South fans, general Australian soccer and Socceroos fans, and especially former Socceroos. Look, I get that it's a book launch, and not exactly the hottest ticket in town in Australian soccer circles, but when we complain that we don't get enough positive press and that we don't get enough of our stories told, and then we refuse to support those who are doing some of the heavy lifting - and in Howe's case, some of the heaviest lifting over a considerable period of time - then how surely we lose some credibility as a self-righteous and always indignant soccer culture.
Anyway, that little rant out of the way, let's turn our attention to the festivities at hand. Bonita Mersiadies, (the publisher of the book via her Fair Play press, a new player in the local soccer publishing scene) was overseas, so it fell to former South Melbourne Hellas board member and current AAFC spruiker Tom Kalas to introduce the book, who did a good job. Then it was time for the man of the moment to do his thing. Howe provided a shortened version of the presentation he gave at the PFA's history conference a couple of weeks before (and I will get to finishing that write up, I swear), discussing trends of migration and ethnic origins of the Socceroos, as well the national men's journeys across the world over the past 96 years.
Then several Socceroos in attendance - Heidelberg's Jim Tansey and Gary Cole, South Melbourne's
George Christopoulos, Jimmy Armstrong, Alan Davidson, Con Boutsianis, and Ted Smith - recounted brief highlights and recollections of playing for Australia. This can be seen below in George Cotsanis' video of that portion of the event.
Afterwards, I appreciated those Socceroos present - later joined by a late arriving FFV president and former Socceroo Kimon Taliadoros - taking the time to sign the books for those fans who had made the effort to turn up for the launch. I'm not usually an autograph hunter or prone to fan boy antics (except for one particular example from many years ago, but that's another story), and usually the author's signature is more than enough. But I made sure to go around collecting all the signatures available. I also enjoyed the conversations had with some of the players, especially about Middle Park and trying to identify the characters in South's Team of the Century painting.
As for the book itself... it's a beast of a hardcover, retailing at around $70. I'm not a fan of hardcover books myself, but I've no regrets over my purchase. It's beautifully presented, plenty of colour photographs, and the kind of thing that should find its way into every public library and into the home. Along with the biographies of each Socceroo, the book also included statistical and demographic analysis, and special features on four World Cup captains, which don't shy away from the personal toll that role can take on a player.
A Matildas version is also in the works, set for publication next year, which will tell a very different but equally important story. If the quality of that production comes anywhere close to this book, it'll also be worth purchasing. One feels also that with the 100th anniversary of the first Australian national team game coming up in 2022, that there could be a bumper centenary edition coming up.
Comment moderation issue
I'm slower in approving comments on here lately because they're no longer being emailed to me for approval. That's a Google issue, which I hope is sorted out soon.
Around the grounds Shiny swinging metallic balls
Sometimes if South is going really badly or has lost an important match, I don't have the heart to go to other matches. And sometimes South is going so badly, that going to another match, one I can watch as a neutral, is actually kind of pleasurable. I don't mind the cold when the sun disappears behind a cloud or some trees. I don't mind the dewy grass, or the bracing winds. I don't even mind the dire football likely to be on offer. I don't even have a formula for deciding whether to go or not when I'm in one of these moods. At best it's a Newton's cradle; sometimes the metallic misery balls swing one way, and then another. So, after doing the weekly supermarket trip on Saturday I decided to drive to Ardeer Reserve for Westgate vs Corio. I hadn't seen Westgate play since they moved back to the newly renovated Ardeer Reserve this season, after spending last year playing home games around the corner from my house. I hadn't seen Corio for three years.
I bought my cevapi roll, resisted the urge to buy a "Косово је Србија" wristband, and settled in to watch the game. I got chatting to the Whittlesea United assistant coach who was there to watch Westgate - they play them this week in a catch-up game - and learned that Tansel Baser is still kicking arse for Whittlesea at 40 years of age. Corio took the lead from the one indisputable moment of quality in the game; a brilliant through ball cut up the Westgate defence, and the poor touch of the Corio forward actually saw the ball slip out of reach while also making the home side's keeper collide with said forward, giving away a penalty. The penalty was saved, but the rebound tucked away, and thus we settled in for about 80 minutes of Corio sitting back, soaking up pressure, and Westgate not really having any idea how to break that down. Oh, they got close a couple of times from set pieces - and one disallowed goal had the locals in a frenzy, which then ended up in a bizarrely amicable discussion between the crowd and the officiating linesman on the outer side - but they could've played for another 90 minutes and still not have found the equaliser.
Still, I look forward to seeing Tansel in action there this week.
Final thought
The loukoumades people couldn't even organise to have crushed walnuts on hand. End times are nearer than even I'd imagined.
I took a little longer to get around to this post not because of some sort of despair, or anger, but because I didn't know what to say. I did some reading, I went and watched a couple of other games, and yet still I didn't find myself particularly motivated to write this post. Maybe because I had expected we'd lose this game? Sure we'd beaten them in our last meeting and they were coming off a three day break, but that was different. This time around their three day break was not so bad, because they rested a good portion of their squad.
It's actually kind of funny - after beating North Geelong, Melbourne Knights and Hume on the road, the only team we beat in the league was Bentleigh - in fact we won more games in the FFA Cup in that period than in the league. So basically our form has gone out the window, though who knows why... the usual gimmick for the club, at least under Chris Taylor, is to start solidly, slip up in the middle somewhere, and time our best run for the end of the season. Perhaps because we sucked in the middle, had to claw our way back in the middle, and then had the money issues (which some say still exist...), everything's just come to a point where everyone is mentally and physically drained. Or the team is just not that good this year. It's been able to scrape and fight and pinch wins against the odds in circumstances say we shouldn't have.
Milos Lujic has scored a lot of goals, but in the last month or two it feels like the well has dried up a bit. The early part of the season his tally was initially buffeted by penalties, but his four year bonanza had to stall at some point. And the service and style hasn't helped. Players like Marcus Schroen and Matthew Millar have fallen away. Schroen has the ability to turn a game on its head even when he's having a down day, but those efforts seem to few and far between. Millar is the opposite, a workhorse whose turns to shine on Friday night were left wanting no fewer than four times.
Michael Eagar has ended up on the bench for several weeks, for reasons no one I've spoken to seems to understand... some fans seem to think Eagar is on the way out. Luke Adams and Kristian Konstatinidis have been good, KK more than that when he keeps his feet, but Eagar was one of the players that turned the season around when he returned from injury after our horror start to the season. The other player to contribute to that turnaround was Nick Epifano, but on Friday night he wavered between his best and worst. He was a menace to Bentleigh on the left hand side, but also went missing, regressing to his bouts of low self-esteem. Leigh Minopoulos was handy, but was dragged. He doesn't have the stamina. Jesse Daley came on, and could've done more.
Luke Pavlou came on, a decision which confounded those of us who wanted us to chase the win. Stefan Zinni's pace was never used. Considering that Zinni played a good deal of the pre-season, often as a starter, and considering that we were apparently disappointed to see him leave for his Wanderers stint, upon his return we haven't seen much of him. Where we could've used someone with fresh legs, someone who could exploit a tired opposition and rejuvenate our own spirits, we had old fashioned Chris Taylor caution. Not exactly the kind of thing some of us want to see before a game against the former Palm Beach Sharks.
Both teams ran and then walked themselves into a standstill. We had enough chances to win it in normal time, and didn't. In fact we probably started withdrawing into ourselves around the eighty minute mark, which I can understand if there's going to be a renewed emphasis on attack in extra time, but it didn't happen. At some point during extra time I walked down to the fence. By the penalty shootout I was back in the stand, waiting for us to lose it. We hit most of our penalties well enough, but Brad Norton's was tipped onto the post by the keeper. Every single one of their shots seemed unstoppable, but Nikola Roganovic had also seemingly resigned himself to not saving them. I'm not sure he even got close to any, but that's me and my bad eyes and pall of doom looking at it from a hundred metres away.
The team should not have found itself 2-0 down. It did well to get itself level, and it should've won the game, but nerve and skill failed us at critical moments. Tyson Holmes' goal to open the scoring will be the cause of some angst for our fans for some time. It was probably a handball, it likely shouldn't have stood but the officials didn't and probably couldn't see it clearly. Neither did our players, who are more than happy to call for even non-existent handballs, seem to get up in arms at the decisions. And while Holmes should never have had the chance to even get his head or hand on the ball, neither can we get on our high horse about these things, lest we forget another 2-2 finish and we earned that point.
Though of course that's a logical response to such matters, and there's no imperative for you folk to be held to that standard.
If it feels like I've singled out a lot of people for the loss, that's not the intention. The squad is a good one, it has deficiencies, but so does the rest of the league. The team did well enough to finish second, but under the current nonsense finals system, received little more advantage for doing so than a home game and in this case a short turnaround for our opponent. They should either bring in a fairer finals system - my preference is the McIntyre final five - or ditch the finals entirely. But that's another debate for another team.
It feels odd not having anything to show for this season, having won the championship in two of the past three seasons and a Dockerty Cup in between those. Maybe this will shake things up a bit during the off-season. But of course there's also our...
Next game
Our FFA Cup quarter-final in a few weeks time...
FFA Cup news
Hahahaha, lol, roflcopter etc. We've been drawn against Gold Coast City, the former Palm Beach Sharks.
The match has been scheduled for Wednesday September 20th, 7:30PM at Robina Stadium, Robina - otherwise known as CBUS Stadium, you know, the place we played at the last time we played these guys.
I'd like to have been able to go, but I've got a specialist's appointment the next day. Also, I hate the Gold Coast. But as for the rest of you, start booking your flights and accommodation before the algorithms pick up that people are interested in heading up for the game.
Who knows what form we'll be in by that stage - probably no form, because it will have been 19 days since our last official game, and probably the same in the event that we can't rustle up some local oafs to play against in the mean time.
Gold Coast City will be in much the same position as us, except for playing at home. The prize here is an almost certain lucrative home gate against an A-League opponent, for our boys who lost the corresponding fixture a couple of years ago a measure of redemption, but really it's about the cash. We need the money, we need to show off our magnificent stadium, we need to keep up the delusions of grandeur and relevance. Speaking of which
I got to the ground before 5:30, but apparently those who got to the ground closer to the 7:30 kickoff faced long queues, with many people not getting into the ground until 15 minutes into the game. Now I assumed that the main gate would be opened, but apparently the club thought it could get away with having two people at the social club entrance. As if charging members for entry wasn't going to piss off enough people! What are the few absolute basics that every club needs to be able to sort out? Cobbling together a senior team; securing a patch of grass to play out a season; rustling up enough cash to pay the refs; having some sort of food service; where necessary, being able to organise orderly entry and exit points if the venue demands such.
Everything else seems optional, and I know that we have particular circumstances which make our situation less than ideal, but one never stops being in awe of how we make things even more difficult for ourselves. In amid all that...
The WNPL team keeps rolling on. They're on top of the table going into the last round of the home and away season, two points ahead of Calder. We play Geelong at Lakeside on Saturday afternoon. I'd love to have been able to go, but I made a promise to Clifton Hill coach Leigh Tsoumerkas to go see his team at Quarries Park before the season was out, and time just flies when you try and put something like that off.
Apart from matches played as double headers, some of which I watched the entirety of and others I only saw bits and pieces of, I would've liked to have seen more of their games. Most of the women's away games being on the very wrong side of town for me with atrocious public transport connections made things harder, but the one game they played near my place - against Calder in Keilor - I skipped because I went and saw Altona East vs Rosebud in an early round FFA Cup match instead. I guess some part of me knew that it would be the only time I'd watch East win a game all season.
Nevertheless there'll be a finals campaign for the women to get on board with soon, and I look forward to doing so.
'Clog wogs are not real wogs' part 7472902
Look, it was my own fault for looking, and it'll be my fault again when I do the same tomorrow and the day after that
There were some preliminary sketches here about something or other that I was going to post about something I read on Twitter, but I thought better of it and bailed. I might unwisely revisit it someday, if and when I get annoyed by that same theme. Around the grounds That's it! If I go, I'm taking you to hell with me!
The fixture was last placed Altona East vs second last placed Westgate. Two mediocre sides who have done their best to undeservedly avoid relegation in the past few seasons but were now this close to going down together. Taking into account possible tribunal decision ramifications and theoretical league reshuffles, the win here for either side would give them a chance to survive at the expense of the other. So of course they drew the game. East went in front twice, Westgate equalised twice. Westgate took a 3-2 lead, but in a classic example of mutually assured orthodox brotherhood destruction, East equalised with about a minute to go. There were great goals and great drama, and in the end a great big nothing result for two very ordinary sides who deserve to go down, and who would maybe even benefit from being relegated, but who may yet survive due to nothing else but arcane post-season machinations.
Strange priorities
Aside from our own involvement, I haven't been a to VPL or NPL Victoria grand final for many years. I missed the 2013 Northcote vs Bentleigh lunchtime at AAMI Park affair. I missed the 2012 Dandy Thunder rocket flare/Oakleigh choke. I missed the 2011 Green Gully win/ Oakleigh Choke. In fact the last time I went to one of these deciders was in 2010, and that was as much to see the Bubbledome as anything. But as for relegation and promotion playoffs, well that's a different story. As long as there isn't an A-League team's youth side playing in the game, I do my best to get along. This year is going to be extra special, because Melbourne Knights are going to be playing sister club Dandenong City in a match to decide whether Knights can legitimately call themselves the most important Croatian club in Melbourne for another year, while simultaneously seeing to it that Dandy City have pissed a lot of cash up the wall. Happy days that this year this fixture will coincide with the grand final day, at Lakeside on Sunday. City won their way to a playoff having finished runner up to Dandy Thunder in NPL 2 East, and proved their league to be stronger than the West side by pretty comfortably beating Moreland Zebras 1-0. You know I didn't even notice that Steven Topalovic was sent off in this game for City? Apart from being a lesson to look up from my phone every so often, it made no difference to the game whatsoever. Dandy City took longer than they should've to open the scoring against a very mediocre opponent, but were rarely under threat themselves. Losing Topa for next week will make things harder. Me, I look forward to an enthralling contest, one which satisfies me so much that I would not feel guilty in skipping the grand final afterwards, like I didn't care about skipping the meaningless Dandy Thunder vs Northcote game held after the City-Zebras match.
Final thought
It feels like the end even though it's not. One day it will be over and perhaps we won't feel that it is.
The Setting
Every now and again, when a good crowd turns up for what might be considered by a neutral as a meaningful affair of a South match, I like to note in these pages that the occasion 'felt like a real game'. Of course, for South fans, every game is important and meaningful, no?
It feels a bit alien, impersonal and lacks a spectacular city backdrop but as a replacement venue not bad.
Go South! pic.twitter.com/xsn9ZK1tYF
So, because Brazil wanted to use Lakeside exclusively for training preparations, we found ourselves at the Bubbledome. No complaints from me as a one off, and I think most South fans, whether regular Bubbledome visitors or first timers, enjoyed the novelty of the experience. Those first ten minutes especially felt surreal, some strange mishmash of past and future that shouldn't have been, but was. Then the game eventually did its bit to overcome the uncanniness of the setting, and attention was then mostly on the players.
I don't like to predict crowds or count them, but I was expecting no more than 1,200 or so. The public holiday long weekend, the relatively lake kickoff, the lack of media attention, and all the usual banes of this state league existence. Some of that would be offset by the novelty value, the odd neutral making the trip in, the fact that it was South vs Heidelberg in a near top of the table clash, but those expecting miracles of several thousand to turn up were to my mind misguided.
The fact that close to 2,500 (officially 2,365) turned up was a good result. It was not earth shattering, but neither was it embarrassing. The club had promoted the game through its social media channels, the FFV did their bit, and the Berger fans came out in good numbers. One fan noted afterwards that a crowd like that at Lakeside would have been electric - and I won't argue with that - but it was hardly a disaster. It helped that, so far as I could tell, South itself did not put a number out into the public sphere that would be considered as a pass mark. Sure, it's true that you miss all of the shots you don't take, but by avoiding setting a definitive target, the crowd number did not become the be all and end all of the day.
Catch her if you can: Melina Ayres celebrates as South's WNPL side
keep pace with the ladder leaders after beating Alamein 3-1.
Photo: Mark Avellino.
I was surprised that rather than just opening the entirety of the western stand and leaving the rest of the ground closed off to the general public, that the folks in charge went for a bit more of a customer focused approach, opening the lower deck on the western side, but also each of the goal ends. South of the Border and associates got to the ground well before kick-off for the men's game, and had little issue with quickly getting our tickets and getting in. I'm not sure if lines closer to start time were more problematic. Security outside the ground was a bit intense for an NPL match, being standard major events stadium practice of bag searches and empty pocket metal scans, but inside the ground everything seemed fairly casual.
(the food and drink prices I'm told were ridiculous; it makes you appreciate the relative pleasures of local grounds, and for me at least, what we have with our social club)
As you'd expect there was no segregation of fans, though there was a certain amount of natural selection; South fans tending to take up areas of the southern side of the available space, including the behind the goals, while the Bergers took up northern areas. Security inside the venue seemed non-intrusive, the only interference in our area being to tell people to not stand on seats, which seems like a reasonable enough request. I don't understand why people stand on seats anyway when they don't need to do so in order to see the game. Clarendon Corner's minimal banner and confetti display received no hassle. Clarendon Corner's numbers were fine, and the chanting more frequent and committed than usual. The most memorable chant? Off the top of my head, 'shit ground, no fans'. Oh, and anything primary school level in order to outdo some Berger juniors on the wing.
Then there were the seagulls. The seagulls are infamous, of course, and Lakeside is not immune to their appearance - we are not so far from the ocean, after all. But the seagull problem at Bubbledome is something else. The kookaburra noise intermittently played over the speakers to disperse them was also almost as irritating as the seagulls to some. I was later told that the same sound is also played at the MCG, but I can't say I've ever heard it, maybe because I was too busy abusing Travis Cloke at the time. Anyway, I can't say with any authority whether the sound affects worked,
The stadium music was too loud, and its musical selections - with the exception of a bit of Pulp's 'Commin People' - not much better than Lakeside's offerings. The benches from the 2015 Asian Cup didn't make an appearance, and thus we had the famous Bunnings chairs instead. The scoreboard was in full operation, simulcasting the live stream. Most importantly, the grass and line markings all seemed up to scratch, which was a relief after the Wallabies had played on the field the day before. The Match Itself
As we were making our way to the ground from the pub on Swan Street, I noted to one of the fans along for the walk that I no longer felt confident about any South game. So different to the NSL days in that regard, and so out of synch with the fact that in the Chris Taylor era we've been able to amass several long undefeated streaks. And as much as I hate to say it, the novelty of having an open doors match at Bubbledome also left one wondering about the contrived social media reaction would be if we lost this game. But that's just me being unnecessarily sensitive, as per usual.
For all Heidelberg's complaints about having to field a sort of makeshift defense - which seemed to me to centre mostly around Steven Pace being out injured - it's not like we didn't have our own issue. Milos Lujic had injured a hamstring during the week, or so they said, so I wasn't expecting him to be out there yesterday, but there he was, metaphorically on one leg, Seeing him out there didn't fill me with confidence - it was certainly a gamble, but I guess the powers that be felt that the situation warranted the risk. I had felt, and still feel, that we've been very fortunate to not have Milos miss many games, and that while what do no doubt works most of the time, it would be interesting - from a strictly scientific point of view, of course - to see how the team would play without him. I'd expect that properly set up, it would be probably be less clinical, but it would also be much more flexible and unpredictable.
But that's getting ahead of ourselves a bit. Our defense also had a notable absence, in that Tim Mala was missing because of the red card he got in our game two weeks ago against Port. So what was the plan going to be for this time around without a known right back? Would Taylor play defensive mid Luke Pavlou there for a third time, having copped eight goals in the two games he was slotted in there? Thankfully not! Matthew Foschini was put there, and he played rather well. The big threat for Heidelberg around the final third is of course Kenny Athiu. It's not just his size, but also his mobility which causes opposition defenses problems. And in the first fifteen minutes or so, we were on the back foot, scrambling around a bit. But after that, we seemed to control the game. As one unfairly maligned supporter noted, apart from playing in his natural position, Foschini was also able to play those passes down the line better than Mala usually does.
Nick Epifano's shot on its way for 3-0. Photo: Mark Avellino
Our wide play - our best feature when we play well under Taylor - was at its best last night. On the other hand, the Bergers would get to wide areas, or into the corners, and get stuck; snookered if you will. Our counter-attacks, so often a weak point of ours, have become a bit more a reliable outlet for us. Going two goals up before half-time - a slightly fortunate goal for Nick Epifano, and well taken one on one by Lujic - made things much easier to sort out for the second half. Lujic was subbed for Leigh Minopoulos, and while we played a bit more conservatively in the second half - we always controlled the nature of the game. As an aside, it will be interesting to see how Lujic's hamstring issue is managed over this next little bit - provided that he didn't aggravate the matter in his 45 minute stint yesterday.
We should have added to our lead well before the Peoples' Champ tapped in Jesse Daley's pass with about ten or so to play, but that's to nitpick unnecessarily. Our desperation for the contest across the board was excellent. Our organisation was usually pretty good. Even at our most vulnerable Nikola Roganovic only had to make sparing saves, the most spectacular of which was when the game was well over. If I was to pick out something which annoyed me, it was our continuing tendency this season to collect yellow cards from unnecessarily aggressive fouls or assorted inessential nonsense. Yellow cards get collected out of custom anyway, and the more games you play the more you'll get. Coming up to a crowded bit of the schedule though, it will be a problem when we have to shuffle things around more so than you would like. But that's where the much vaunted depth comes into play.
Unfamiliar venue, familiar routine: Nikola Roganovic, as he usually does
after a game, celebrating with South Melbourne fans. Photo: Mark Avellino.
The ladder as it stands is a complicated situation, what with the teams at the top, including ourselves, having various numbers of games in hand, sometimes against each other. The important thing is that we've kept in touch with the ladder leaders, especially Heidelberg, who could've skipped away with a win yesterday. We also extend what is an absurdly long unbeaten run. It's a long way from the dire start to the season.
In conclusion
A good win, and most people seemed to enjoy the event. It was also nice to be able to share the experience with everyone else, as opposed to what happened last year. Next game
Sunday at Lakeside against St Albans. Coming and goings
Liam McCormick has departed the club, joining Dandenong City. Meanwhile, we've signed young midfielder Bardhi Hysolli from Bulleen. I have no idea who he is, which doesn't mean he's no good. We've also gone for a Spanish forward, David Barca Moreno, from Getafe B. I feel like I've seen this move played before, but I can't put my finger on it. His international clearance reportedly came through this week, but not his local clearance, There is talk that Andy Kecojevic has gone overseas, but nothing official at the time of print.
Intergalactic Space Hussy department
For Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, caught two-timing us with the Dandenong A-League bid.
Around the grounds Half arsed
Among even the most sartorially oblivious of men can be found a certain niche for fashion trends - the soccer jersey. And thus I spent part of a Friday night at Somers Street observing a conversation about colours, shades, cuts and fabric; about makers, years, taste, and at times an unapologetic preference for unpopular styles. As for the game itself, it was rubbish. Knights are barely keeping their head above water, being at the start of a very long rebuild. Bentleigh meanwhile went about their business completely half-arsed. While else would they play Andy Brennan when he is clearly battling with injury? The game seemed set to take its expected course, when Bentleigh took the lead in the first half via Lambros Honos. Knights were bound to get one chance which they would need to make the most of - and Tom Cahill blasted his penalty into the back of the net. Then Bentleigh had a player sent off, and you wondered how Knights would manage to stuff this one up. The answer? By conceding a woefully soft goal with the last kick of the game, And I never got to find out for sure if Knights ever had an Umbro kit in their history.
The proverbial, dare I say, quintessential six-point game
Westgate, the home team, were on three points. Altona East, the away side, were of four. South of the Border's correspondent, having not had lunch, was hungry. Westgate scored, early in the second half, and won the game. Altona East had their chance, saw it saved, and lost the game. I had a cevapi, was satisfied, and walked home for dinner after the match. Where everyone involved lost: when someone decided to have this game kickoff after 6:00PM. It was cold when the game began, and it was bloody cold when the game ended. Dead set, this bloke rocked up to watch the game early in the second half wearing shorts and thongs and I was *this close* to getting his mates to stage an intervention. As you can see, it was not the most thrilling of affairs.
Making hay while the sun shines
Approaching the gates, I pull out my media pass. One bloke at the gate is OK with it, another guy demands a more rigorous examination. That's no surprise - who from the media would bother to cover this game? So after I explain that I'm a freelancer, I eventually go through. The old blokes in front of the social club - some of whom I know from other grounds - are comparing their ages. I buy a souv - and you know it's a big game when they have a separate booth for buying tickets away from the food outlet - and wander through the social club. The picture frames tell the story. Of humble origins, in photo and in print. Of volunteers who built the social club building in the late 1980s. Of being proud of playing South, and beating us. Western Suburbs had a brief bit of limelight in 2007 and 2008, when they reached the lofty heights of the Victorian Premier League. They got a new grandstand and media box out of the stint, and good luck to them for that. Nowadays things are a bit more grim, down in State League 1. Myself, it's moment like these, sitting in the stand during the tail end of the reserves, wondering how I got here. Yarraville had the better of the first half, and should have capitalised on their chances. They didn't, and during the second half, five or so minutes of napping undid the visitors. The first goal was a chip over the keeper from angle; the second goal a lofted ball from a midfield free kick which sailed over the Yarraville keeper, and which almost no one expected let alone saw. Yarraville only managed to wake up late, and score in the dying seconds.
Final thought
The staff at the Richmond Club Hotel really should have given me a pen so I could get the out of date map on one of the walls up to speed.
OK, so just about no-one was there to see it for who knows what reasons, but those who were there saw it and were pleased by it. Well, maybe - but who wants to go deep into the hearts of Hellas fans?
You can't say there wasn't a plan, and that it wasn't carried off with aplomb. Do people still use that word, aplomb? Seems like the kind of word that was long ago destroyed due to overuse by sports broadcasters. South let Pascoe Vale, with their much vaunted attack led by Davey van 't Schip come to it time and time again, and survived most of what Paco threw at them. Us? Why not. for the time being it seems we're mostly on the same page.
In return, we went up the other end the bare minimum of times, and scored three goals. The first two were hardly pretty - the first of which saw a ball headed forward, then headed forward again, ending up with the flatfooted Paco defender being out sprinted by Matty Millar who proceeded to chip the ball over the keeper. For all the flak I've given him, I keep forgetting that Millar won the NPL's young player award last year.
The second goal was almost as bad, a free kick from out wide by Nick Epifano, headed sideways by Milos Lujic, which the commentator on the South Melbourne produced video will say was deliberate but to which I will disagree, and not just for the sake of being a contrarian. It found Luke Adams unmarked at the back post, who tucked the ball away well. So after having signed Carl Piergianni as some kind of English non-league superstar defender - with his penchant for scoring goals the added bonus of the acquisition - it's the same old faces doing the business.
Adams popping up at the back post to get his one goal a year ('he scores once a year) and an injury free Michael Eagar playing something like his old self. Of course that's no slight on Piergianni, like everyone else who isn't Milos Lujic and at a pinch the People's Champ, he has to earn his position, and with Adams coming off injured he may get a starting get on Friday. Oh, and credit on the defensive front also to Tim Mala, whom I've had in the 'sack him' crosshairs for some time now, and yet who has improved significantly in the last few weeks or so. Maybe he took the news of Kristian Konstantinidis' reduced suspension as a motivating factor in order to lift his performance?
But back to the main thrust of the game. We sat back, absorbed pressure, hit on the counter and scored from set pieces. That won't work against every team, but it did work this week because while Pascoe Vale have a potent attack, or at least one potent attacker, them not being allowed to shoot from within the 18 yard box made things harder for them, as did former South man Joey Yousseff trying to score with anything other than his head.
They were also a bit of a shambles at the back - and a bit slow, too - and we were right to take advantage of that. Marcus Schroen's clever and perfectly weighted pass to the People's Champ, who scored with a class finish was a very nice sequence of play, but it also depended on exploiting the opposition defense being slow and out of position. And there's a lesson in that for everyone - we watch our team every week, and because of this and because we are South fans, we get to know all our weaknesses on a very intimate level.
But we (in the general sense, you know, those South fans who have lives or who don't turn up to non-South NPL games other than to do Dodgy Asian Betting calls.) don't watch other teams, and don't get to see how bad they can be or learn their general and specific weaknesses. And a variation of the old (new) adage applies - if they were really any good, they wouldn't be playing in this league.
So, just on that, Nikola Roganovic's goalkeeping efforts ranged from the expected - full length diving saves; to the not so good - where a regulation catch somehow went through his legs and almost into his own net; to the sublime, a triple effort to keep out van 't Schip and one of his buddies from scoring when it should have nearly been a given. But, there's that other lesson: all goals count the same no matter how pretty they are or aren't, and all no goals are worth exactly diddly squat regardless of the effort applied into achieving that diddly squat.
So a slightly flattering 3-0, another home win, another step further away from the relegation, another step closer towards the top six. The injuries to Millar and Adams on a short turnaround aren't good news, but Luke Pavlou did OK filling in for Millar, Piergianni wouldn't mind another chance to prove his worth.
Next game
Bentleigh Greens at Kingston Heath on Friday night.
FFA Cup news
The draw for the next round is on Friday. Still a few games to be played in the current round at the time of publishing.
Desserts
I saw last week somewhere that 'desserts' backward is 'stressed'. Coincidence? Probably, but there was some stress in the terraces about the lack of loukoumades. Where are the loukoumades people? Are they ever going to turn up? Why can't they shoot them out of novelty cannons into the crowd? What would the liability insurance be like if a loukoumada with peanuts hit was shot by a cannon into the crowd and hit someone with a nut allergy?
Maybe this problem is confined to three of four people, but for all the good cheer and service that the social club has provided, where are the desserts? And no, I'm not going to come into the club on my day off just because you have pancakes on those days.
More document uploads
Super thanks to Todd Giles for several Newcastle KB programmes from the late 1970s and early 1980s; glad that South of the Border could help fill in with some of the gaps in your collection. Thanks also to Ian Syson for the 2006 home game against Heidelberg. You can of course find those things here.
The jewel in this week's crown is the Vic Soccer '88 annual. Borrowed from Mark Boric, it took me way too long to scan considering its magnificence - as Boric has noted, it's what every season summary or yearbook should aspire to. Team photos of NSL, State Leagues, Amateurs and Victorian State Representative Junior teams. An amazing document.
I've also scanned some old Carlton programmes. I haven't linked to them anywhere, because it's all getting a bit unwieldy, but if you want those I can send you the links. Really need to set up that separate Oz soccer library site.
This photo of an Apex gang member wearing a South jacket while being interviewed for A Current Affair has been doing the social media rounds. For those confused by the jacket's colour scheme and provenance, it's apparently from the long defunct affiliation with the Piranhas academy set up. The more pressing concern is that people are apparently still watching A Current Affair.
Around the grounds ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Pumpkin Seeds
Another Saturday afternoon, and another trip around the corner to Castley Reserve, because Westgate seem to have received an inordinate number of home games - in their home away from home - to start the season. No complaints from me, except to note that they play some pretty rubbish soccer. This time Westgate's opponents were Keilor Park who were apparently having a very good season; Hard for me to tell from watching them plod around this match. In the first half, Keilor tried to pass their way into the 18 yard box, which didn't work well because they're not that talented and because Westgate were sitting pretty deep. Having limited the effectiveness of their opponents, and managed to eke out the only two chances of the first half - at least of which they should have scored from - Westgate decided to change their setup in the second half. They conceded a goal from a corner and never looked like they could get that goal back. At least the cevapi roll was decent. The small Altona Magic contingent in attendance would have learned nothing from this game.
Final thought
My blogging celebrity only goes so far, with last week another Paul receiving misdirected credit from a club legend about the things he writes on the internet.
Leigh Minopoulos had a good game on Sunday. Photo: Hume City.
Such has been the season thus far that I don't know what to expect from South Melbourne in any given game. Most surprisingly, in this game we actually played pretty well. It was an open game, but while we gave Hume the first good chance of the game via Nick Hegarty, after that there was little doubt that we were the better team - at least until about the 60th minute or so.
Shaking off last week's mediocre performance, Leigh Minopoulos looked particularly good on the right hand side. Matthew Millar continues to frustrate, but in the past few weeks he's managed to be more effective. His effort never drops below a high level, but his skill level lets him down too often - to my mind, it's almost like watching an Aussie rules player playing soccer - remarkable endurance and desire for the contest, but lacking the kind of proficiency.
Nevertheless, he was skillful enough to control the rebound of a Nick Epifano cross, slotting the ball into the corner and giving us a deserved lead. While we continued to press for another goal, the game then became mired in sloppy tackles and bad officiating. Before we'd scored, Milos Lujic - who seems to be slowly coming back to form, even though he didn't score here - should have been awarded a penalty after LITERALLY BEING WRESTLED TO THE GROUND.
I cannot fathom how it wasn't given. Amazingly, that was the least of the ref's stuff ups, as he then started letting retaliation go unpunished, and we all know what happens when you do that - players start taking that as a license to act like dickheads. You give some of those blokes an inch, and they'll take a mile. It didn't end up with people coming to blows, as can happen in the worst case scenarios, but it did up becoming a tit-for-tat affair in that regard.
Matthew Millar's placement for the winning goal was pretty precise.
Photo: Hume City.
Former South defender Brian Bran got two yellow cards (both justified, and oddly enough both for fouls, not irrelevant nonsense), and then, for who knows what reason, the team started playing as if we were down to nine men and needing to preserve the lead at all costs. It wasn't that Hume played particularly well, though like many sides down to ten men but still only a goal down, they lifted their intensity accordingly. It was more the fact that our side had lost the plot completely.
Those last 25 minutes were bizarre in how frantic our play was, being unable to make our numerical advantage count either in terms of fitness, or in tactics, or in psychology. While some have chosen to single out the People's Champ for having an especially poor last half hour or so after having up to that point played quite well - the whole midfield basically disappeared, and the defense was able only to to give the ball back to our opponents.
To their credit, for the most part the South defense did very well in keeping Hume from creating meaningful chances. Watching the highlights, Attila Offli's late chance looked much more dangerous than it probably was in real time, with Nikola Roganovic cutting down the angles well, forcing Offli to shoot over the top and over the bar. Set pieces were the only other major threat presented by Hume, and for the most part they were not up to scratch despite an array of options (OK, at least two) they didn't do very much with any of their set pieces.
Perhaps the circumstances were such that direct play was considered their main chance at scoring, but it's been a while since I've seen a Hume side play that direct. I suppose if you have a big body like Liam Boland up front, there are worse plans, but considering our defensive weakness continues to be primarily against teams who play the ball on the ground, it was a strange choice to be so adamant on that singular approach. That they had any say in the matter is the disappointing thing. A second goal - and we still managed to create chances - would have killed this off properly. (see Knights vs Oakleigh in 'around the grounds' for an example of what happens when you do this)
Whatever happened, the result went our way, making it three wins in a row, and four games unbeaten in the league. It's a step closer to the top six, just two (!) games away from the top of the table, and just as importantly, three points away from the playoff relegation spot. While one can obsess about the largely self-inflicted near self-destruction, we shouldn't forget the first hour or so, where we played our best football of the season against a side that will be near be there or thereabouts come season's end.
Extra-curricular activities
The game was marred - I don't know if that's the right word to use, but let's go with it for the time being - by a sort of competitive 'trumpet off' between South's own Harry and some of the visiting Hume fans. Now in the interests of less inaccuracy (rather than old fashioned and rather dull 'accuracy'), we should note that there were no trumpets used. As Harry has made clear in the past, he does not play a trumpet, but rather a bugle. As for the relevant Hume persons, they were playing what sounded like prerecorded tunes through a megaphone. Why they were allowed to use a megaphone I don't know, but for those who find one messily played bugle too much to handle, it was beyond the pale so to speak.
It created a sort of carnival of horrors vibe, albeit in broad daylight and without all the trappings necessary for the full effect to take hold, such as rides which I wouldn't go on if you paid me, dodgy games of skill (notwithstanding the team's efforts in the last 25 minutes), and an overwhelming sense of impending doom which could just be nausea from eating way too much junk food. However, one did as one is forced to do in many things Australian soccer, and just put up with it.
Unfortunately at the end of the game near the players race, some rather more distasteful scenes reportedly happened. As I was keen to get in and out of the social club as quickly as possible so I could go home, I didn't see what happened; thus I'm not going to repeat specific allegations of what allegedly happened. I will note that the overwhelming consensus seems to be that the blame for whatever occurred should rest on a minority of Hume's supporters, and not with the South fans in the vicinity, who were there to celebrate with our players after a win, as has become the custom at the reconfigured Lakeside.
Next game
At home this Wednesday night against NPL 2 side Box Hill United in the FFA Cup. Entry for all patrons will be via the social club entrance. Prices for non-members are $10 adult, $7 concession. I was a bit surprised to see that the club chose to stream the game against Hume City live on Facebook - I'm not sure if at this stage they'll be doing the same for this match, but I suppose it's possible.
For those wondering about entry in general
It seems to be that for most games the club will be employing only the social club entry. For games likely to have a bigger attendance, Gate 2 will be opened for non-South members. If you're in any doubt about what the arrangement will be for any given week, your best bet is to keep up to date with the club's social media accounts. This is likely due to cost saving in not needing to employ several State Sports Centre Trust staff members for a superfluous gate on fixtures not likely to draw too many people; of course the club would also see the benefit of, where possible, funneling people through the social club.
While I've found the service in the social club to be improving week
on week, our mate Dave had a bit of trouble getting his
chicken burger delivered in a timely manner.
Continuing social club musings
One of the more unforeseen happenings - especially considering that even though it's a new social club, it's still in the same location as the old one - is how disorienting it feels coming out of the social club and all of a sudden having a game about to start.
Anyway, in line with the advice of one of the board members, along with a bit of common sense (I know, I know), my approach on critiquing the social club operation has been to give the people running the social club a solid month or so to settle into their rhythms, before one goes into a more delirious mode of criticism.
Not that I would ever be anything other than meticulously fair in my criticism, of course.
As the social club meal service begins to settle down, things are beginning to gently hit their stride. This week for example the full menu was available throughout the day. Thus one could go 'traditional' and go for a souv - which seemed to get larger and larger each time I looked at one coming out of the kitchen - or one could go a bit more nouveau riche and go for something like the salmon. I had the plain burger this week, and I was not disappointed. There's talk also that there'll be further tweaks to the menu as a whole; even this week, the meat platter that was served to patrons differed from the one that was served last week.
Provisional things that I learned from this week included:
While it's self-evident to a degree, the earlier you get there to order a meal, the better. This seems to go for everything except souvs, which seem to be done pretty quickly no matter what time of day you order one. I haven't stayed behind for long after a game yet, so I can't comment on the speed of meal service after a game.
Probably the worst time to order food would be around the time the kitchen is preparing the post-match feed for the curtain raiser match, which also coincides with when the majority of people rock up to the venue.
If something's taking a bit too long or isn't quite up to your satisfaction, don't be shy in taking it up with staff in a respectful manner. They seem to be pretty keen to impress and make people feel at home.
Be prepared for the occasional bout of confusion between sit down and take away meals.
The in-house music is at best only marginally better than what's played outside. Still, if they include naff retro gems like this every now and again, I'm not going to complain too much.
Do not lean back on your chair, do not twist your body such that you twist the chair, and basically do not sit on any of the chairs in any way that would be classified as improper chair usage.
A social club suggestion
This wasn't my idea, but it's worth a mention - a hall of fame for everyone who has accidentally broken one of the chairs in the social club.
A little something about the rules of the game (something which will come back to haunt me) Here's a decent video from FFV - which I wish had been promoted a bit harder - explaining changes to certain rules that have been implemented this season, including denial of an obvious goal scoring opportunity, or what is colloquially (and incorrectly) known as the 'last man' rule. It's certainly worth a look for any follower of the game.
How appealling!
The club appealed Kristian Konstantinidis' six month ban and somehow got it reduced to a 16 match ban, which could see Konstantinidis return to action sometime in July instead of a week or two before the grand final. Something to do with the difference between a single photograph and a video.
It's not easy being a South fan these days, but there are moments which are
more spiritually alienating than others. One of those involves finding yourself wearing your South scarf or other merchandise in a crowd of footy
fans, as is often the case for those like me who use public transport. After
the Hume game I found myself at Southern Cross Station inadvertently
mingling with the mainstream masses who had just left the St Kilda vs
Geelong game at Docklamds. At least no one mistook me for a
North Melbourne fan.
Around the grounds If Jason Hicks played for Bentleigh, he'd be scoring those sitters, ala Tyson Holmes
Having waited until almost the latest possible moment to see if Knights had put up their video from last week's game, I admitted defeat and decided to head out to Somers Street for their match against Oakleigh. I geared up for my usual attempt to hustle my way into the car park for free courtesy of my media pass, but there was no one manning the gate. The reserves game had been called off due to the state of the pitch, but the senior match would go ahead. While the ref had decided the senior match could and would go ahead, both teams were apparently more than happy for the match to have been postponed. Five minutes into a game that would be affected by uneven and dead bounces and unsure footing, Knights would have wished that the ref had called it off. Knights goalkeeper Fraser Chalmers, who should've been sent off last for Bruce Lee antics, got sent off for fouling Nate Foster - who I am always shocked to learn is back in Victoria - who was through on goal and sure to score. So Knights were down to ten men, and down a goal courtesy of the resulting penalty. And yet they proceeded to produce three great chances, at least one of which should've ended up in an equaliser. None of them did, and Oakleigh got a second before halftime, another just after halftime, and three more for good measure to inflict a pretty demoralising defeat on the home side.
When it rains, it pours, metaphorically speaking
The next day, I was at Westgate vs Banyule, looking at the sky and wondering why I hadn't brought my umbrella - and whether it was worth going home to get, and whether I'd bother to return if it started raining. As to the game itself, both defenses were pretty ordinary, but Banyule had a plan going forward and Westgate didn't. That doesn't explain everything that went wrong for the home side, but it's as good a start as any. Banyule were also more skillful than their opponents, and didn't get a man sent off for threatening to rape the 'mum, dad, brother and sister' of an opponent. All up it finished a ridiculous 8-3 to Banyule - a scoreline so absurd, and a margin so comfortable, that one of the Banyule players was able to periodically receive updates on the Footscray-Brisbane match from a mate on the sideline. How very Melbourne.
Final thought
While Lisa De Vanna is clearly a class or two above the WNPL, she's still a joy to watch. It's well worth making some time to watch her play while she's with us. And that's not a slight on the rest of the team either - there's some good up-and-comers in the squad, many of them surprisingly young and with improvement yet to come.
