THE draw for the A-League and W-League seasons should probably be sponsored by a well-known brand of painkiller, such are the headache-inducing variables that inform its creation.
Ground availability, time zones, broadcaster needs, player welfare and minimum time periods between two sides meeting twice are just some of the factors fed into a supercomputer run for the Australian competitions by a US firm, Got Soccer, which also works with leagues in France, Scotland, Poland and Brazil.
This year the complications have been magnified by COVID-19 and the changing landscape of border restrictions, quarantining and the Asian Champions League bubble currently hosting Sydney FC, Perth Glory and Melbourne Victory in Qatar.
A host of parameters are fed into the Got Soccer software, such as when stadiums are blocked out by other sports or events – a schedule that in the case of smaller, council-run venues can change at short notice.
Periods of turf maintenance also have to be factored in, with both Central Coast and Campbelltown stadiums shutting for short periods this coming season.
The introduction of a 12th A-League team has led to the need for an increased number of timeslots, including Monday night games – not always popular with clubs for commercial reasons, and which hence have to be scrupulously shared out.
Similar balance has to be found in the hybrid nature of the A-League draw – 132 home and away games, plus an extra 24 to keep the regular season up to 26 games per team – while satisfying broadcaster requests for certain games in certain slots. Clubs also get to request certain opposition on certain dates that historically have rated well.
Each iteration of the draw can take hours for the software to produce thanks to myriad bespoke considerations, such as avoiding schedules where Perth fly across Australia, return for a home game, then immediately fly back to the Eastern Seaboard once more.
Similarly, some club deals specify a certain number of games at particular times of year, and there are minimum timeframes between fixtures to allow for player recovery.
Each time one of these myriad considerations changes it has to be fed into the Got Soccer algorithm, and then administrators have the unenviable task of deciding which of the factors is imperative and which might have to give way to avoid the process getting deadlocked.
The question of interstate travel has overshadowed much of the planning, requiring some core assumptions about which teams can travel where by the time the competitions get underway at the end of December. That’s even before unforeseeable events such as South Australia’s brief lockdown last week.
Paradoxically, the desire to showcase the A-League and W-League in parallel with as many doubleheaders as possible has caused further machinations, delaying finalisation of the W-League draw until the A-League schedule has been locked away.
