IT SEEMS everyone’s feeling a tad unwell lately.Jamie Harnwell was pounding the turf with his fists in pain and frustration after tearing his left hamstring; Lloyd Owusu obviously spent some time out on the Gold Coast contracting swine flu; and North Queensland Fury seemed to come down in a bout of the dreaded red mist as they hacked, smacked, and whacked Perth Glory players in Mandurah last week
Even yours truly has been suffering - I'm only just recovering from a chronic bout of vomiting brought on by FourFourTwo's ranking of Billy Celeski, Tarek Elrich, and Paul Reid as better players than Rhys Williams, Chris Coyne, Michael Beauchamp, and yes, even Brett Holman. Good lord, I think I feel it coming on again...
With footballers so liable to break limbs or become ill, there's a lot to be said for squad depth these days, especially in a salary-capped league like the A-League. You could go out and recruit the best two or three players from Australia, paying astronomical wages along the way, in the hope that they'll be enough to carry the rest of your squad who are being paid peanuts by comparison.
If you're prepared to recruit this way then by all means go for it - but don't come crying to me when all three key players pick up serious injuries in round two. The safer approach is to spread the quality out amongst your squad such that when your key players go down, you're not relying on has-beens and never-will-bes to carry you through the season. Somehow, some teams have managed to combine both approaches this year in some kind of "how aren't they breaking the cap" black magic.
A Brief Overview
Gold Coast United are one of these teams- they've managed to get Shane Smeltz, Jason Culina, and 10th-best-Australian-player-in-the-world (god, not again... BLEEEEARRRRGHHHHH!) Joel Porter. Backing these players up are Adam Griffiths, Tahj Minniecon, Ryan Griffiths, and three random Brazilians who might flop (but probably won't). As easy as it is to dislike Clive Palmer and his boys, you've got to admit that they've done a decent job when it comes to recruiting ahead of their inaugural season.
Likewise, Perth Glory seem to have conjured up something this year with the acquisition of three current Socceroos and a Bundesliga striker to accompany a squad featuring the likes of Harnwell, Tando Velaphi, Eugene Dadi, Adriano Pellegrino and a plethora of young stars. Indeed, the biggest challenge facing the Glory (apart from overcoming their regular injury curse) may well be deciding which players form their best XI. That said, of the Socceroos Perth recruited only Chris Coyne is good enough for FourFourTwo's Top 50; evidently we'd have been better off recruiting Celeski or Jedinak as our marquee instead of Sterjovski... (cue more vomit).
Around the rest of the league, it's pretty hit-and-miss as far as recruiting goes. From what I saw last week (and yes, it's a pre-season match so it means very little) North Queensland Fury are some way off having quality in depth; they looked insipid in the first half until the introduction of Robbie Fowler, David Williams, and Jason Spagnuolo sparked them to life in the second. The fitness and form of those players will be key to Fury's chances in their initial season.
Adelaide have the same solid core of players and a couple of potentially quite crafty acquisitions in Owusu and Shin; though it remains to be seen how hard the loss of "The Og" will hit them. Likewise, Brisbane Roar have an experienced (if not ageing) core mixed with some exciting young players, and Melbourne Victory have built upon last year's premiership-winning squad. All three will be there or thereabouts this year, more because of the recruitment done in past years rather than any spectacular off-season buys.
It's some kind of cruel irony for Australian football that two of our "worst" teams get to play in a league of champions each year. Still, that's the way it works and there's probably still some hard work to be done by both Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners this year. Newcastle have some stability issues to work through, while Central Coast look... well, one-dimensional. Central Coast are one of these teams who can quite often work extremely hard for very little reward; I'm by no means forgetting that they were semi-finalists last year; it's just that other teams seem to have made much bigger strides than they during the off-season.
This year's dark horses for me are Sydney FC and Wellington Pheonix. Sydney have a few promising youngsters that balance out some old heads, and a mysterious new foreign coach in the form of Vítezslav Lavicka. I love foreign coaches; depending on who they manage and where they come from, they're either hailed as tactical and technical geniuses- saviours of the Australian game come from afar - or second-grade migrants who are ruining our "Aussie game" and taking away jobs from "Aussie coaches". Only time will tell which ludicrous media stereotype Lavicka becomes.
Meanwhile, Pheonix have quietly and efficiently gone about their business and could cause quite a few upsets this year. Their attack looks dangerous, their midfield good enough to feed the newly recruited strikers, and it's really only the defence which looks a little shaky for mine. If they can plug their remaining gaps with some decent players, they'll be right up there this year - though the lack of a youth team will continue to ensure their depth is sorely tested.
So, on the whole, the A-League is looking pretty competitive this year. Which is pleasing; a stronger league is a greater attraction to young players wanting to play the game at a higher level; and hopefully we can get more talented youngsters going through our own clubs' youth systems instead of overseas academies.
