As the Isuzu UTE A-League Finals Series begins, the journey ends for the seven teams who fell short of the top six in 2024-25.
As the dust settles on the regular season, retired Socceroo Tommy Oar joined Sydney Morning Herald reporter Vince Rugari on this week’s episode of Total A-Leagues to assess the respective seasons of the teams that finished between seventh and 13th on the table.
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Oar’s team-by-team review included a rating out of 10 for all seven teams; one side received a 1/10 rating, with just two clubs receiving a pass mark.
Read on for the full list.
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13th place: Perth Glory
Perth Glory collected the wooden spoon for the second consecutive season in an underwhelming debut campaign for new head coach David Zdrilic.
A 6-1 loss to Macarthur Bulls in Round 1 set the tone for a disastrous start to the season in which Glory collected just two points from their opening eight games. Off-season recruitment of overseas imports missed the mark, highlighted by the mid-season exit of Cristian Caicedo, Luis Canga and Abdul Faisal amid a seven-player exodus that featured former club captain Mustafa Amini.
Glory were improved through the second half of the campaign and ended the regular season with two wins from three games, but couldn’t find the points needed to evade a bottom-placed finish.
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Tommy Oar’s Perth Glory season rating: 1/10
“It has to be a one out of 10,” Oar said.
“The way they started this season was diabolical, to be honest. They were not prepared for the season. Physically, their new signings didn’t gel, and they did steady the ship somewhat.
“But I think going into this off-season, they probably need some more proven A-League talent. And I think they’ll be busy in the shop window.”
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12th place: Brisbane Roar
Head coach Ruben Zadkovich is out the door after his first full season as Brisbane Roar head coach, as the club turn the page on a disappointing season that ended on a high note.
The Roar went winless through their first 12 games before breaking the drought against Sydney FC in January. Zadkovich’s side was last after 22 rounds but avoided the wooden spoon thanks to a 10-game run that featured just three defeats and included four wins and three draws.
The recruitment of Asumah Abubakar from Grasshopper Club Zurich in February helped to change Brisbane’s fortunes – as did the rise of 21-year-old Queenslander Sam Klein who bagged five goals in his last eight games to finish the season as Brisbane’s top scorer.
The Roar have appointed former Melbourne City and Adelaide United boss Michael Valkanis to lead the club’s Isuzu UTE A-League side forward as its new head coach.
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Tommy Oar’s Brisbane Roar season rating: 2/10
“They did have a late rally (that probably gave them a more credible final position than they otherwise maybe showed earlier in the season,” Oar said.
“But, it wasn’t enough for the fans there. I think there’ll be some big, big changes again.”
11th place: Wellington Phoenix
Wellington Phoenix reached a club-first Semi-Final last season, but suffered a significant drop off in head coach Giancarlo Italiano’s second season in charge, sliding to 11th place at the end of the 2024-25 regular season.
Italiano’s squad was decimated by off-season departures. Alex Paulsen, Nicholas Pennington, Oskar Zawada, Bozhidar Kraev, Ben Old and Finn Surman were all key first-team contributors in 2023-24 and their collective absence was sorely felt in a squad that needed more from new recruits Josh Oluwayemi, Hideki Ishige, Kazuki Nagasawa and injury-hampered duo Stefan Colakovski and Marco Rojas.
Colakovski suffered a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament injury in December, while Rojas’ return to the club was curtailed by an ankle injury which limited the New Zealand international to just seven appearances (two starts) before his premature release from the club in March.
Tommy Oar’s Wellington Phoenix season rating: 4/10
“I think they lost a lot of attacking talent at the back of last season,” Oar said.
“And I think they had too much reliance on Kosta Barbarouses. In any games they won, it seemed to be him pulling a rabbit out of the hat.
“I think they need to dip back into the transfer market, or give more opportunities to young attacking talent, I think, a bit more positivity in the way they set up as well.”
10th place: Central Coast Mariners
Much like the Phoenix, a swathe of off-season departures contributed to Central Coast Mariners’ sudden drop-off in 2024-25, having come into the season as two-time reigning Isuzu UTE A-League Champions.
The Mariners won a trophy treble last season, lifting the Isuzu UTE A-League Premiership and Championship trophies as well as securing the AFC Cup title. But head coach Mark Jackson lost key first-team members Dan Hall, Max Balard, Jacob Farrell and Josh Nisbet, the reigning Johnny Warren Medalist, in the off-season, as well as former captain Danny Vukovic who retired after the 2024 Grand Final.
The Mariners will, however, be buoyed by the emergence of several exciting young players in 2024-25, highlighted by teenage duo Haine Eames and Arthur De Lima, and young defender Nathan Paull.
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Tommy Oar’s Central Coast Mariners season rating: 4/10
“When you win the treble last year, or a form of a treble last year, and then go on to finish as low as they did this season, I think they’ll all be disappointed.
“But again, they had such a big clean-out of players that they had so much inexperience, and I think they do need to be busy in the transfer market.
“But I will say, I think they’ll be better for the experience. The likes of Haine Eames next year, stepping up to the plate will be better for his experience this year.”
9th place: Newcastle Jets
One of only two sides outside the top six to receive a pass mark from Tommy Oar at the end of the regular season, Newcastle Jets finished eight points shy of sixth in head coach Rob Stanton’s second and final campaign at the helm.
The Jets were a mixed bag in 2024-25; they lost eight of their first 12 league games, then went seven games unbeaten, before piecing together a disappointing seven-game run to the end of the season that featured just one win – a 6-0 smashing of the Mariners in the F3 Derby.
Young midfielders Clayton Taylor and Eli Adams were brilliant for the Jets in 2024-25, while an attacking combination of Lachie Rose and mid-season recruit Kota Mizunuma – who Newcastle will hope to retain for another season under new head coach Mark Milligan – showed glimpses of promise.
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Tommy Oar’s Newcastle Jets season rating: 5/10
“They’re probably my most unlucky team not to make the six,” Oar said.
“Ultimately, the table doesn’t lie. I think their performances were better than the table position suggests, but it’s a game about winning and losing. I think they did produce or bring out a lot of really exciting players.
“Eli Adams, for example, a breakout player, Clayton Taylor, he’s been exciting as well. But not being able to transfer the performances into points was costly for them.”
Eighth place: Macarthur Bulls
Macarthur Bulls began 2024-25 as strong top-six contenders but losing captain Valere Germain and fellow forwards Ariath Piol and Jed Drew to overseas clubs in the mid-season transfer window left head coach Mile Sterjovski bereft of attacking firepower as the Bulls limped to the finish line in eighth place.
Drew scored six goals and notched seven assists in his 13 games before his transfer to Austrian side TSV Hartberg in January. He ended the season as Macarthur’s third-highest scorer; Germain finished second on seven goals through just 17 games before his move to Japan and Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Piol scored three goals in nine games, including a Goal of the Season contender against Sydney FC, but was sold to Major League Soccer side Real Salt Lake in January.
Marin Jakolis did his best to lead the frontline in the trio’s absence and ended the season with 10 goals and 12 assists, becoming just the fourth player in Isuzu UTE A-League history to notch double digits for goals and assists in a single season.
Tommy Oar’s Macarthur Bulls season rating: 6/10
“Macarthur, I think they were very much in the six. And then, when you see the likes of Valere Germain and Jed Drew depart (mid-season), it was almost like the tale of two seasons for them,” Oar said.
“And after that happened, recovering from that is difficult. And Mile Sterjovski… I felt sorry for him. And they still have so much quality in their squad. I think that next year they probably need to sign one or two more defenders. I think they’re too top-heavy, like Sydney FC.
“But I think overall, the reason for their slide was kind of understandable.”
Seventh place: Sydney FC
Labelled the “most underwhelming” team of 2024-25 by Oar, Sydney FC missed out on the top six by just one point despite an eye-catching off-season headlined by the recruitment of former Bayern Munich and Juventus star Douglas Costa.
Sydney’s 53-goal tally was eclipsed by only two teams this season, but too often, their defensive frailty let them down. A-Leagues historian Andy Howe noted Sydney FC became the first side to finish in the bottom half of the table (including middle spot) scoring more than two goals per game (2.04 on average).
After Adelaide dropped points in the penultimate round of the season, Sydney needed just one point from their last two games to make the top six but defeats to Western United and Melbourne City gifted sixth spot to the Reds.
Tommy Oar’s Sydney FC season rating: 3/10
“At the start of the season, even the games they were winning, we saw that they were defensively, probably a little bit porous,” Oar said.
“Everybody was saying that they’re too aggressive with their press defensively, and they were getting caught in behind a lot, and I think that the team kind of lost confidence as a result. They started to retreat, and all of a sudden they were inviting attacks.
“This is a team that lost their last two games of the season when it was in their own hands. And I think that is kind of symptomatic of their season as a whole, because when when it came to the crunch and when the pressure was on, they weren’t able to deliver.
“Ultimately, it was probably the most underwhelming team of the season in terms of not living up to expectations.
“If you look at the number of attackers that they have in their squad, you know, Costa, Joe Lolley, Adrian Segecic, these are some of the best players in the competition. I think there were two top-heavy in their team. And I think that one or two defenders to kind of shore things up, and maybe one less attacker in the front third, probably would have been a better balance.”
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