THERE are few things scarier than suddenly realising that Pim Verbeek is sitting behind you. Dean Heffernan’s karaoke does however, come tantalisingly close.
And so the Pim incident happened to me - there he was, perched there on one of Bluetongue Stadiums more comfortable seats, with that customary "Pim" look on his face at the Mariners' midweek ACL fixture.
It was good to see him there, even if, at half time, he seemed more excited about the free nibbles than the prospect of another half of Coastie/Pohang action.
To be fair, both the Mariners and the Jets ACL matches weren't exactly riveting stuff. The Jets were, well, the Jets and the whistle was blown too often for the Mariners to "uglily" lob the ball up the field to any sort of effect.
Having said that, we've only seen one ACL game. There were all sorts of upsets and unpredicted happenings on match day 1.
Was anyone else dumbfounded by Suwon Bluewings 4-1 thrashing of Kashima Antlers? I was left wondering what happened to the Antlers of last year, who won their group and made it through to the quarter finals, only to be knocked out by Adelaide (FYI, four out of Kashima's six ACL group stage matches last year were won by 4-8 goals).
What truly warmed my heart was to see, in the program, the seven youth league products named in the two squads. Hopefully, they'll get some game time (but not because of injuries, suspensions or a we've-got-nothing-to-lose situation).
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On the topic of the National Youth League...
One thing that has really been annoying me the past few weeks has been the A-League clubs awards nights.
Some clubs have given awards out to their best youth league player while others have mysteriously not done so or not publicly announced it.
For anyone who missed out, the awards were given to:
Queensland Roar youth best and fairest award: Chris Grossman
Sydney FC youth players' player award: Rhyan Grant
Perth Glory's most glorious youth player award: Scott Neville
Adelaide United youth most valuable player award: Michael Marrone
Personally, (i.e. if I was the one man, er, woman panel) I would've chosen the following:
Queensland Roar: Adam Sarota - He was the much deserving (official-as-judged-by-FFA) NYL player of the year.
Sydney FC: Rhyan Grant - I thought he was outstanding for youth and first team and proved that there are some good quality players in the NYL.
Perth Glory: Scott Neville - He proved himself in the first team and has signed for a further 3 years so we're bound to see more of him next season.
Adelaide United: Osama Malik - He played every game for the Reds and was excellent all season, but didn't see much time for the first team.
And from the rest of the teams...
Newcastle Jets: Brodie Mooy - We all saw him play at the end of last season for the first team when the Jets were down and out and that wasn't his best performance. He was actually very good for the Jets youth team.
Melbourne Victory: Mathew Theodore - He was a standout in what was not a brilliant season for the Victory young guns.
(This one was really, really hard to pick because I saw so many Mariners youth games - in the end I put the names of the three players I thought were the best in a hat and pulled one out):
Central Coast Mariners: Brady Smith - A very talented young attacker, he has excellent ability on the ball and might get some game time during the ACL (or rather, should get some game time, unless Lawrie really is completely bonkers).
What I want to know is if anyone out there in forum land has a NYL player of the season (for club or over the whole league)? Or am I the only one dedicated (or insane) enough to think about these things?!
