As the Premiers Plate race goes down to the wire, how does a team keep their nerve when victory is so close? From tactics, to the mood, to game day, to waiting, Tom Smithies explains.
Of all Sir Alex Ferguson’s memorable phrases, “squeaky bum time” is absolutely the most evocative. After so long inching along the high wire, this is the moment when teams with everything to play for at the climax of the season have to avoid the temptation to look down.
Keeping your nerve when the stakes are at their highest is one of the characteristics of champion teams. As we stride towards the Isuzu UTE A-League season’s final handful of league games, there are myriad battles to secure various prizes.
Most pointedly, three teams are converging on first place, with Melbourne City, Western United and Melbourne Victory all desperate to land the Premiers Plate in the next few days. Coaches and players alike have to keep their cool, but the coaches above all are the ones who can model the sort of temperament that’s required.
Maybe that was Adelaide’s secret in 2015-16, the season that began with a string of losses before United climbed inexorably up the table and clinched the Premiers Plate in the final round thanks to a 2-0 win away at Melbourne City – who themselves had harboured hopes of finishing first.
“A coach’s mannerisms rub off on his players, as much as what he says,” remembers the man who scored Adelaide’s second goal in that win at city, Bruce Djite. “Every time we had a big game, Guillermo Amor was just so calm, and that set the tone. It rubs off on the players.
“All season he had that sort of European outlook where you aim to win at home and not lose away, so even in that game, where we needed a win in terms of the Premier’s Plate, he had the same attitude.
“That consistency helps; it took the pressure off, it’s just another 90 minutes. Of course we went out aiming to win, but not in a way that disrupted how we wanted to play.
“Once we won, of course, then we had to wait – we just needed Melbourne Victory to hold off Brisbane Roar the next day.”
Therein lies the agony for players with non-concurrent games – you can do your bit, but other results are out of your hands and come later. In 2008, the Mariners went into the final round of a ridiculously tight season as one of four teams – half the league! – on 31 points, and with little between the teams on goal difference.
On a night of heavy rain in Gosford, John Aloisi opened the scoring against Wellington Phoenix before Adam Kwasnik scored a vital second in injury time.
“I remember I turned to my assistant, Ian Ferguson, and said to him: ‘That’s the goal that will win us the league’,” said Lawrie McKinna, then the Mariners head coach. “One goal wouldn’t have been enough but the second meant we had a chance.
“All week we’d tried to keep it light, keep it fun – if you put pressure on yourself the players will feel it too. When things are so tight it’s easy to overthink what you’re saying and doing.
“By that stage everyone knows what to do against every team; it’s more about keeping the atmosphere upbeat.”
And then the waiting begins; both Adelaide in 2016 and the Mariners eight years earlier had to wait for other results over the weekend before being crowned Premiers.
“Now that’s nerve-wracking,” said Djite. “When you’re playing in a game, when you can affect the outcome, it’s fine. But watching and hoping? That’s when you’re sweating.
“Victory had put this young goalkeeper in, Lawrence Thomas, and he had the game of his life to keep Brisbane out. Our whole team was watching in a pub, and the tension was awful until the final whistle.”
Similarly the Mariners assembled in a pub in Terrigal to watch Adelaide host Queensland Roar in 2008, knowing an away win by 2-0 or more would snatch the Plate from their grasp.
As the clock wound down, with Adelaide 2-0 up, the celebrations got underway. “That was the first time I had a jager bomb,” recalls McKinna. “Someone went to the bar and order 20 of them. And then half the Central Coast heard we were at the pub and came down to celebrate with us. It was quite a night.”
