They say that one's success is the sum of all their failures.

For Perth Glory, that success seems to have been a long time coming. Yet
after last year's gallant effort in the grand final at Suncorp, the future looks justifiably bright for Western Australia's A-League team. In the off-season, the club seem to have finally learned their lessons in a number of key areas, and they come into season 2012/13 with a strong foundation both on and off the pitch.


A Balancing Act
A traditional problem that Perth has suffered is the inability to find the right balance in their squad. For example, a common complaint of fans for many years was the inability to field or recruit a recognised left back. In place of the traditional left-sided full back Glory coaches like Dave Mitchell elected to play strikers or wingers like Naum Sekulovski, or right backs like Scott Neville and Jamie Coyne, in the role of a left-sided defender in the belief that they'd do a good enough job. Whilst the players themselves can't be blamed in most cases, the simple fact is these moves did not work out and it exposed a number of deficiencies with the way Perth put their squad together.

It is a credit to Ian Ferguson that upon stepping up to the main role he addressed this problem with the recruiting of Dean Heffernan (er… twice), who had plenty of A-League experience. This has been further built upon this year with the signing of Scott Jamieson, a left-sided player who can perform in defence or midfield. In fact, perhaps the only criticism that could be levelled at the current squad is that in light of the loss of Scott Neville, there isn't really an immediate replacement for Josh Risdon at right back. That said, Bas van den Brink and Steve Pantelidis have both covered that position before, so it could be that with the addition of Michael Thwaite, Fergie feels that he has enough cover to deal with a loss of a player in any defensive position.


Counting The Cost
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past year or so, Tony Sage has been demanding that Glory spend less of his money. At the same time, the pressure has been put on the squad and coaching staff to improve on the mediocre returns that Sage has seen for the money he’s so far injected into the club. Since losing Mile Sterjovski to China last year, Glory has been without a second marquee to complement Shane Smeltz; but to be honest, you can’t really say that it’s weakened them too much. Indeed once Sterjovski left, Glory charged into the A-League finals and came within one well-documented incident of taking the grand final into extra time.

This season Glory have continued to avoid the temptation of signing marquee names on high wages. Having learned from the experiences of Lazaridis, Sterjovski, and Fowler, the club has ignored names like Heskey, Del Piero, Ono and Ballack and concentrated on improving an already solid squad. Young players have been promoted, and free agents like Harold, Zahra, and Thwaite obtained. Indeed, the club have gone further than just wage spend when looking at their bottom line – they’ve lodged a claim with the WA state government for $1.5 million worth of lost revenue as a result of the construction work that is currently taking place at nib Stadium.

It’s perhaps a little rich – the club has previously struggled to draw crowds above the newly reduced capacity of the ground – but you can imagine that the works are still damaging to their business, and as a result it is fair enough that compensation is claimed. The club should certainly be commended for standing up for itself in any case – past administrations would simply have taken it, or complained bitterly to anyone who cared to listen without taking any action.


Happy Fans Mean A Happy Club
Another past wrong that the club have corrected this year is the contentious issue of membership packs and season passes. The ‘business as usual’ approach for Glory was to have the packs arrive late, stocked with poor quality items – some of which may be missing – and to often have members going into week one (two, three…) of the season with no ticket to present at the gate. Happily, this season the club’s membership manager has done his utmost to ensure this doesn’t happen. The number of items contained in a membership pack has dropped slightly, but the quality of the merchandise has increased. Glory members this year have picked up a hat, bottle opener, scarf, lanyard, fridge magnet and sticker set far better than those produced in previous years.

What’s more, members who submitted applications in the first round of orders received their packs – and more importantly, their season tickets – well in advance of game one. This eliminated the need for awkward ‘collect your members pack at the game in round four’ moments that fans have seen in the past. Cleverly, the club has also ramped up the use of the club rooms at Inglewood United – there have been membership and merchandise stalls there at all pre-season games, and the Inglewood bar has no doubt made some good takings from Perth members this year. All up, there’s little to be unhappy about as a Glory member this year, even with the inconvenience of having to watch football at Subiaco Oval for a few rounds.


Culture Club
Even if all the above had never been a problem – if Glory always had a balanced squad, never overspent, and had a swathe of happy members – the simple fact is the WA side has always performed well below expectations in the A-League. For a club that will forever be the reigning back-to-back champions of the National Soccer League, finishes of 5th, 7th, 7th, 7th, 5th and 10th prior to last season’s grand final appearance simply aren’t good enough. In a salary-capped competition, it is a damning streak that speaks to a losing culture that had been established out west – or at the very least, an acceptance of mediocrity. We are talking about a team here that never once beat North Queensland Fury Football Club!

Happily, this too is now being corrected. Even before making the grand final, the club’s finish of 3rd last season was the best they’d ever managed in the A-League. The memorable run to the finals, which started with a gritty 1-1 draw in Newcastle at the turn of the year, included some big scalps such as a 4-1 shellacking of Melbourne Victory and that most rare of creatures – a victory against Central Coast Mariners, albeit at nib stadium. Indeed, perhaps the most significant gains made last season was the breaking of a few hoodoos, such as wins against Central Coast (the side won again on penalties in Gosford to win the preliminary final) and a willingness to not collapse when the odds are heavily against them (the 3-3 draw against favourites Brisbane Roar in Perth last January, and of course last weekend’s victory over the reigning champions). 

The emergence of a winning culture at Glory has happened at a time when they seem to have very much grown comfortable with their own particular style of A-League football. Often derided in the A-League for playing bog-standard 442 formations with long balls to tall forwards, Glory have carved out a niche as a hard-working side who like to attack and defend as a unit, based around a strong defence and arguably the A-League’s best striker. Claims of Glory being a ‘dirty’ side who like to ‘hoof’ simply don’t wash anymore – such a view of Ian Ferguson’s side is one dimensional, as while long diagonal balls can often present Smeltz with a chance to break open a defence, players like Liam Miller and Steven McGarry are equally adept at playing on the ground and dribbling through traffic. 

There are no passengers in Fergie’s team – the full backs are expected to attack, the midfielders are expected to defend, and the forwards put constant pressure on even when not in possession. The team is fast breaking, which makes for exciting games at nib stadium, and tough to break down – which improves their reputation as easybeats on the road. The side’s ability to play a 4-2-3-1 (or its many variants) as well as more traditional 4-4-2 formations, point to a well-drilled team which has the ability to respond to changes in-game. That, more than anything else, is something that had been missing from the Glory game plan for a very long time.

 

As a dedicated fan of the club, it’s been pretty hard to defend some aspects of Perth Glory’s record in the A-League. In Season 2012-13 though, it looks like the club have finally learned from their collective mistakes – and it seems to be benefiting from this, both on and off the pitch. After all - when fan forums are once again mocking other teams, rather than one’s own, you know things mustn’t be too bad.