A concurrent battle for who finishes where in the top four is just the start of a weekend to savour, writes Tom Smithies.
And just like that, it comes down to the final kicks. After more than 13,500 minutes of Isuzu UTE A-League action since kick-off last November, the final round of 2022-23 carries huge significance for almost every team on the table.
By the beneficence of fate, we have the A-League’s first example of concurrent matches where each result affects the finishing spot of the teams in the other. Everybody needs a crash course in the equations of the league table heading into Friday night, when Adelaide United host Central Coast Mariners and Melbourne City face Western Sydney Wanderers, but also for the subsequent four games on Saturday that have ramifications right down the table.
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This, in a nutshell, is what legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson used to call squeaky bum time, distilled down to 90 minutes. This is where the nerves of gungo-ho coaches who have preached attack all season get tested in the face of the temptation to suddenly play things safe.
If you just need just a draw, like Adelaide do to secure second, it has to affect a team’s mentality. On the flipside, a team like Melbourne City with the Premier’s Plate already secured must surely have an eye on staying fit for the finals and avoiding the risk of injury. How all these influences come to bear is one of the most fascinating aspects of the weekend, particularly when a stray goal can change everything.
Grabbing second spot behind City earns you a week off but more importantly passage direct to the two-legged Semi Finals; finishing third to sixth means facing an Elimination Final first, the winners of 3rd v 6th and 4th v 5th advancing to those Semi Finals. Finally, on June 3, the winners of those semis will meet in the Grand Final.
So as it stands, the Mariners would meet Wellington Phoenix, while the Wanderers and Sydney FC would go head-to-head in a mouth-watering derby in the Elimination final.
The two-legged Semi Finals would then see City play Wanderers/Sydney and Adelaide go up against the Mariners/Phoenix.
There will be rallying calls in dressing rooms the length of the country, but some more convincing than others. Wellington Phoenix know that after their strange implosion – the last five games producing one point and the concession of 17 goals – that another defeat against Macarthur FC could allow Perth Glory to dislodge them from the final spot in the finals.
Newcastle Jets and Western United can dream of effecting incredible wins to reverse hugely negative goal differences and somehow sneak into the top six. More to the point, all of Perth, Newcastle, Western, Melbourne Victory, Brisbane Roar and Macarthur can sneak into seventh or eighth, and thus avoid the Australia Cup play-offs that await the teams finishing fourth.
It’s hard to think of a season with a more concertinaed table as a whole, and the unique nature of this final round is in having concurrent games on Friday night where three of the four teams are vying to finish above each other. But remarkably it’s the not the tightest final round the A-League has produced, in terms of the top four.
A tick over 15 years ago, the 2007-08 season reached quite the crescendo with a final round where any team in the top four – half of the competition in those days – could have finished in top spot and won the Premier’s Plate.
Queensland Roar, as the club was then known, Sydney FC, the Mariners and Newcastle went into that final round all tied on 31 points, and with goal differences of +6, +4, + 3 and + 3 respectively. That’s what you call a logjam, but this finale would unfold in slow motion.
Newcastle went first, beating Perth on the Friday night to assume top spot temporarily. Next day the Mariners went a goal up against Wellington and in the 90th minute added another goal via Adam Kwasnik to go top again.
But then the Mariners faced 24 hours of agony, waiting for Sydney and then the Roar to play on Sunday evening. Twice Sydney went ahead and at 2-1 they threw everything at getting a third goal that they knew would lift them above the Mariners – and then Victory, with nothing to play for, equalised on the break. In front of more than 33,000 fans, the Sky Blues did everything but score in the final minutes.
Finally it came down to Queensland Roar playing away at Adelaide, needing a win to secure the Premiers Plate. But two first half goals for Adelaide, and a red card for the Roar’s Danny Tiatto, put paid to Miron Bleiberg’s side’s hopes, and the Mariners – having gathered at a pub on the Central Coast – had a brief but spectacular celebration.
This year we know who will hold the Premier’s Plate aloft, but beyond that the permutations are almost endless. The only shame is in having to wait until Friday for the final round to kick off.
