AFC Champions League 2013

[Gratis]

I can't agree with you naysayers less.
against a team that was clearly a cut above anyone we play in the a-league (not at their best either) I thought the performance was excellent and we were the better team. shame about the result, finishing let us down as did a few awkward bounces but had even a couple of those gone in talk would have been different. keep in mind that we need to play as well as we did against MV just to match it in the ACL, need to play better again to dominate against the best teams in Asia.

if we play like that against wanderers we'll shred them, and it's good signs for the ACL too.
good performance poor result

 

[Gratis]

Did not buy a package because I could not be sure of making any of the games.
Tonight I was ok.
Home at 5.30, quick shower, on the road again at 5.45. Get to the queue for tickets at 6.30, back to the road, beauty.
Mistake. Finally get ticket at 6.55. Ticketec lady said their computers were slow. Queue was over the road and down beside the Leagues club. Goodness knows when they got in.
No worries, I'm in. Now grab a bite on the way to my choice of seats. You've got to be kidding, only one food outlet open and the queue seems as long as that at the gate. Only one drinks outlet open as well, similar queue. Oh well I came to watch football not eat and drink.
Head up to a vacant seat. Lady asks to see my ticket. I show her. "You can't sit here" she says, "these seats are reserved."
"How do you get a reserved seat" says me remembering the announcement that all seats would be GA with no reserving. "I don't know", she says "I just work here". Grab a seat down the end at least I will be able to keep an eye on the incompetent offside calls.
Half time dive down for a feed and drink. Queues still as bad. Check out what is available and decide even if I wait there will be nothing left (similar experience last Sat. night). I see a sign over the bar pointing to "more bars". LOL, I see the supervisor and tell him the sign is a fraud. He tells me don't tell him, complain to the club, they are to blame.

I wonder why the Asian cup is not well attended, and how many of us idiots will bust a gut to get there next time or will we just stay at home and watch it on tv in comfort.

And the club wonders why they do not get more to the games.

shame that,
same with advertising - it should be treated as a showpiece
tournament

 

[MrCelery]

That's a bit harsh True Believer.

Not our best effort sure. But considering the credentials of the opposition, and the fact we came off a very hard run in the wet on the weekend, I'm not surprised we were a bit flat.

Our excellent defence was, as usual, miserly. They didn't really look like scoring.

There were some nice touches throughout the match, and we toiled well, but just needed someone to pull the trigger. And find a penalty taker.

My MOM was the ground announcer, who read out the names of the Suwon team perfectly!

 

[MrCelery]

Did not buy a package because I could not be sure of making any of the games.
Tonight I was ok.
Home at 5.30, quick shower, on the road again at 5.45. Get to the queue for tickets at 6.30, queue only back to the road, beauty.
Not beauty. Finally get ticket at 6.55. Ticketec lady said their computers were slow. Queue was over the road and down beside the Leagues club. Goodness knows when they got in.
No worries, I'm in. Now grab a bite on the way to my choice of seats. You've got to be kidding, only one food outlet open and the queue seems as long as that at the gate. Only one drinks outlet open as well, similar queue. Oh well I came to watch football not eat and drink.
Head up to a vacant seat. Lady asks to see my ticket. I show her. "You can't sit here" she says, "these seats are reserved."
"How do you get a reserved seat" says me remembering the announcement that all seats would be GA with no reserving. "I don't know", she says "I just work here". Grab a seat down the end, at least I will be able to keep an eye on the incompetent offside calls.
Half time, dive down for a feed and drink. Queues still as bad. Check out what is available and decide even if I wait there will be nothing left (similar experience last Sat. night). I see a sign over the bar pointing to "more bars". LOL, I see the supervisor and tell him the sign is a fraud. He tells me don't tell him, complain to the club, they are to blame.

I wonder why the Asian cup is not well attended, and how many of us idiots will bust a gut to get there next time or will we just stay at home and watch it on tv in comfort.

And the club wonders why they do not get more of us to the games.

I totally agree with this. I don't expect to travel down from Newcastle and then stand in massive queues for drinks and food in a 6K crowd.

I also heard complaints from other people who were moved due to the so-called 'reserved' seating. Some bad communication going on there.

Not a good experience tonight, sadly.

 

[Roy Law]

New Balls Please, it’s the ACL!​

Do they use a different ball in the ACL? Is it lighter, smaller, harder? Is it a Jabulani?
I expected a soporific encounter; the Koreans were always going defend deep and be hard to break down. What I did not expect was the embarrassing way that the Mariners players continually gave the ball away with their failure to find colleagues while under no pressure at all. It was if the ball was the same as the ill-conceived one used at the South Africa World Cup, the Jabulani. One Monty moment summed it up: not the penalty but the almost own goal. As he received the ball the easy pass was to play the ball to the right wing where two Mariners were in space, but instead he took the wrong option, turned inside and passed the ball back, far too strong, far too wide, and caught Ryan wrong footed, with the ball scarily going past the post for a corner. In one moment the opportunity to attack became a moment to defend. It was all so unnecessary.

The Mariners, of course, were their own worst enemies: they had the chances to bury this game. When the Man-of-Steel stepped up to the spot I thought thank goodness we can put this to bed but his shot had no conviction and now the Mariners have put themselves under pressure to survive the group. Duke’s miss was the worst; a cool customer in front of goal, good at one-on-one with the keeper, but he got it all wrong. A wonderful pass from Fitzgerald set him up for a simple left foot shot, to be passed into the far corner as he did against Nathan Coe, but he opted to hit the ball awkwardly with the outside of his right foot to the only gap the keeper could possibly cover.

Arnie rang the changes for this, resting Hutch and Patrick, saving Duke and Ibini to the bench. Defensively we were pretty sound, Anderson was very strong, but overall it didn’t really work. The football was laboured and predictable; it lacked tempo and energy. Bozanic struggled to impose himself on the game; Bojic’s eccentric style posed no threat; Sterjovski failed to ignite (not that we should be surprised by that). McGlinchey and Anderson both missed real opportunities in the first half and Sainsbury almost scored from a corner but it was in the second half that the Mariners lifted the tempo and had the chances. McGlinchey pressured the defence and had a great chance but hit it straight at the keeper; Sterjovski undid all his good work with a feeble cross which failed to find the unmarked McBreen. McBreen applauded the run but it was the sort of opportunity that has to be executed with professional precision. Duke ran free down the right and crossed the ball to no-one. Bojic stormed through and hit a shot almost onto the railway tracks; the replay showed he intended it to be a cross. When the Mariners patiently built a move he tried to place a left foot shot from 25 metres; a ludicrous attempt as he doesn’t possess left foot. And then a Suwon defender deliberately handled the ball in the penalty area...

It has to be conceded that that the ACL is a different type of competition and at a different level. The level of skill and execution required puts teams under pressure; the sort of pressure that exposes the best the A League has to offer. it is a great learning environment for the A League teams. Arnie was very conservative, too conservative for my liking, with his tactics but the Mariners still fashioned enough chances to win. It is vital to get off to a good start in any group competition and the Mariners failed on the night; Suwon will go home happy that they got the job done, confident that Australian teams offer no threat to their progress. It really should have been different.

I am struggling to name a MoM as no one really stood out but I will give it to young Nick Fitzgerald who got a rare run on start and didn’t let anyone down.
Anderson and Sainsbury can share the minor places, both defended with authority, but Suwong offered little going forward.

 

[Roy Law]

In regards to the ACL- focus needs to be on getting wins in the remaining home games and at least a draw in the away fixtures, in order to progress. Even in 2009, when it became obvious that Lawrie's time was drawing to an end, the biggest problem was defending set-pieces. This current squad is much better and capable of at least giving the ACL the best crack they've had yet...

Absolutely agree - whereas before we looked terribly vulnerable against Asian teams tonight we looked rock solid. It is a subtle but substantial improvement.

 

[kevrenor]

i wanted to boo them off the park . what a squandered opportunity.
the boys were disgraceful . anyone who watched our warm up shooting could see this fiasco
coming ...

YOU DUDS

True believer? Ironic?

 

[kevrenor]

He tells me don't tell him, complain to the club, they are to blame.

I wonder why the Asian cup is not well attended, and how many of us idiots will bust a gut to get there next time or will we just stay at home and watch it on tv in comfort.

And the club wonders why they do not get more of us to the games.

How is the club to blame .. the stadium makes those calls surely?

 

[MagpieMariner]

Very disappointing result tonight, I felt we played well enough to win that. Certainly we were the better team.
Who on earth made the decision to give the pen to Monty? We pay strikers to score goals, not DMs.
That Korean joker with the orange boots should have got a second yellow for the way he continually tried to distract the penalty. They're a pack of bloody cheats, thankfully the ref was a wake-up to them.

 

[true believer]

True believer? Ironic?

sorry rose coloured glasses .isn't whats called for kev .
it was an epic fail . you need to face that .

 

[pjennings]

Can anyone shed some light on who are likely to be the stronger teams in our group?

As for dropping 2 points I look at it this way. If we're to get 7 points this week I'm glad that we dropped the 2 tonight. There is time to amass enough points in the ACL in the remaining games. 3 points against MV last weekend and 3 against WSW are simply more important at this point.

 

[kevrenor]

sorry rose coloured glasses .isn't whats called for kev .
it was an epic fail . you need to face that .

Faced the fail .. yep .. the rest is rubbish histrionics!

 

[dibo]

Farken.

That is all.

 

[Forum Phoenix]

Damn some of you need some perspective...

Former South Korean national team manager Kim Ho took charge of the side from their first season in the K-League, and the team finished runners-up in the championship play-off that season. The championship was secured in 1998 and retained in 1999 as Suwon started to dominate Korean football.
Suwon lifted the Asian Club Championship (the predecessor to the AFC Champions League) twice in succession in 2001 and 2002, and also added the Asian Super Cup to their roll of honors on two occasions.
The departure of Kim Ho in 2003 saw Korean football legend Cha Bum-Kun appointed manager ahead of the 2004 season, and the club won its third league title in his debut season as manager.
Suwon finished runners-up in both major domestic competitions in 2006, as Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma claimed victory in the K-League championship playoff final and Chunnam Dragons won in the FA Cup final, thwarting Suwon's attempts to win the first ever domesticdouble in Korean football.
The 2008 season became one of the most successful seasons in the clubs history. Suwon achieved a domestic "double" by winning the K-League Championship and the League Cup...

Get the picture yet?

This is not the A league. We are playing against the best teams in Asia. And this is one of the best of the best. Suwong are an excellent side with literally ten times our budget spent on their squad. Yet on balance we outplayed them. This is the first time I have genuinely seen an A league side actually outplay and look better than a high quality Asian team and I have watched every match. Adelaide fluked some important wins against the run of play, and in other games were superbly competitive and worked very hard, and full credit to them, but they NEVER ever looked the better footballing side against a top quality Asian side. No one has till now imo.

Yes tonight we coulda/shoulda had them. No we can't take pens. And I'd also agree we weren't at our scintillating best, but we had changed nearly half our starting outfield players and were coming off a game 3 days ago, yet still we were the better side against very very good opposition. We just needed to net one. We didn't. That happens. A lot in football. And to be fair, their keeper was excellent tonight. Easily their best on park, which say volumes about the game also.

Chin up people, a point is a point, and that performance is something that can be built upon.

As to the club food and advertising. We are unfortunately experiencing where the rubber meets the road of being a cash strapped club. I don't think they don't get it, I especially don't think they don't care. I think that the obvious answer is they don't have a hell of a lot of f**king choice. Competing in the ACL takes some pretty serious coin.

The lines sucked, but tightening the belt to stay afloat is definitely more important.

 

[Gratis]

Spot on FP, great insight and perspective as usual. I 100% agree and was thrilled after watching that except for the result, but have to be happy with that too. There is time to rack up the remaining points and the boys will go into it now with some genuinely deserved confidence.

I think I worked out their budget was approximately 15 times ours - and that's just player wages! They weren't 15 times better. Credit CCM.

Another point worth a mention, the refereeing was really quite decent. Usually asian refs give fouls for a player going down after being lightly brushed by the oppositions wake wind. None of that crap last night.

Apparently the players decide for themselves who takes the penalty and McBreen wasn't confident

 

[timmers]

Disappointment is the main feeling for me, but just from what could have been.

I thought we were fairly dominant in the first half and only some very weak efforts to put the ball past the keeper were what kept it at 0-0. The second half was a bit more even with us looking stretched at the back a couple of times.

Thought we deserved the win though, and whilst that in itself is a great positive considering these guys are arguably the best team in the group, it is also a competition where you need to take every point you deserve. Kashiwa have now got 3 points away from home, Suwon have a point away from home and we have one point from a home game. So at some point we will most likely need a BIG performance in S.Korea or Japan to get through. Confident we can do it, just wishing we were up top with 3 points too.

Certainly no complaint about the officiating. From my position, it looked like the ref was a little swayed by the crowd - any free kick against us was picked up by on of the ARs. Good that we only picked up the one yellow.

Sainsbury was my mom - other than a mistake on the ball in the first half we was very strong, calm and assured

 

[nebakke]

Disappointed? Yes... VERY... But that in itself is probably a testament to how relatively well the boys held up last night. I expected nothing at the beginning of the game... I had decided that I too would be happy if we could at least come away without a loss, if, in-turn, it rests a couple of players to hopefully earn three points on Saturday.
By the end of the game, I felt a lot like I did throughout much of last year... Exhilarated at how well we'd controlled the game, excited by the chances created and down-right depressed at how little we put on-target.
Overall though, I thought it was fairly obvious that this was an entirely different style of football to the A-league games. In particular, I was frustrated at the beginning of the match, to watch us attempt to run the ball down the wings to pass it into the box for a goal, Brisbane-Berisha-style... I thought they'd proven nicely last year that, while A-league teams seem to be equally surprised by that approach every time, Asian teams seem to be better at shutting down the feed.
Once we stopped trying that, it certainly started to look a lot better.
Overall, I was positively surprised by the team's performance though. As much as I think Sterj cops a much worse rep than he deserves, I had all but given up hope with both him and Bozanic being the on-field men. That's not to say that I don't rate Ollie, just that last time he played in the DM role, he was appalling and the team played it's worst first half in a very long time.
Ollie was on fire though and I actually thought Sterj did good work last night.... Still, my excitement around the prospect of Bernie and the Duke starting was only strengthened, on top of last weekend's performance. If they go in on Saturday, we ought to do well

So yes, very disappointing, but mostly for the good reasons, if such a thing exists. If we can keep this up, we should do alright this year. It'll never be easy, but at least it should get easi-ER from here in a sense... We won't be facing another week like this one.

Oh yeah, and pleasantly surprised by the ref... He seemes a lot harder on player complaints, than the A-league refs, but that's not necessarily a bad thing I suppose. He seemed to have the game well under control and had some good calls, which was certainly a good start.

 

[true believer]

Faced the fail .. yep .. the rest is rubbish histrionics!

ok so your going the saccharine sweat route, good for you. "there'll always be next year"
in the real world, they were embarrassing .they were dreaming of WSW .the Koreans
were shite and will be going home with a gift

 

[true believer]

That's a bit harsh True Believer.

Not our best effort sure. But considering the credentials of the opposition, and the fact we came off a very hard run in the wet on the weekend, I'm not surprised we were a bit flat.

Our excellent defence was, as usual, miserly. They didn't really look like scoring.

There were some nice touches throughout the match, and we toiled well, but just needed someone to pull the trigger. And find a penalty taker.

My MOM was the ground announcer, who read out the names of the Suwon team perfectly!

sorry mr celery, australian football has excepted mediocrity for way to long.
the team never paid this game,the respected it needed .the koreans had nothing.
next time they'll be match fit and their timing will be fluid . we'll pay full price for a
half arse attitude.

 

[Gratis]

usually I can see both sides of the argument in these forums but not this time, I don't think you really appreciate the quality we were up against and how that made our performance look.play like that in the aleague and we romp it in