Socceroos/A-league

GCU wrote:i guess marquees are like designed to surprise, you know sergio van dijk didnt even realise he was a marquee until last week when he was told by a news reporter

Really?

Haha. That's great. What a wonderful surprise that would be.

yeah i think because adelaide didnt tell him that they moved him into their marquee spot

some clubs abuse the marquee option, put it that way, instead of using it to buy high profile stars on high wages, they just use it for the highest paid player in their squad already like van dijk is

they want to swap him with flores though, thats if he accepts the offer

but it is actually quite common for this to happen. hernandez is melbournes marquee for the upcoming season and he would of been their marquee last season had flopadinho not join the club.

gerald sibon was hearts foreign marquee last season, broich is brisbanes foreign marquee as well. they arent necessarily being paid crazy wages, but its just a way to avoid the cap

Ricardinho is back in Brazil though, isn't he?

yeah hes on loan there now.

the self professed "king of the dribble" better come back in a few months time 80 pounds lighter. i was misled man i promoted the guy quite a lot because i thought from his first game he was a beast of a player, next thing you know hes absolutely useless! $350,000 down the drain for MV

btw i just read an article about bridges retiring, and it says that hes now the "International Football & Business Development Manager" and will work in the jets new academy, great to see his sticking around hes got a lot of experience and would be great to tutor the young players.

see man, nathan tinkler is the kind of owner other a-league clubs are drooling about, hes doing everything right while my owner sits on his fat ass eating maccas

Lol. And he wasn't selected for the Champions League either? Such a shame. Surprised you guys only get 5 spots though. Imagine if that was a rule in UEFA? Only lower league teams could play in the tournament.

GCU wrote:btw i just read an article about bridges retiring, and it says that hes now the "International Football & Business Development Manager" and will work in the jets new academy, great to see his sticking around hes got a lot of experience and would be great to tutor the young players.

see man, nathan tinkler is the kind of owner other a-league clubs are drooling about, hes doing everything right while my owner sits on his fat ass eating maccas

Love your description, but did he have injury problems? 32 years is kinda young.

Scuba Steve wrote:Lol. And he wasn't selected for the Champions League either? Such a shame. Surprised you guys only get 5 spots though. Imagine if that was a rule in UEFA? Only lower league teams could play in the tournament.

yeah its pretty restrictive but i guess afc see that as a good thing as they want asian players to get game time and not foreigners

and yeah the fact that he didnt even make the afc squad when melbourne had an extra spot for him just shows how useless he was

uefa would never do anything like that, theyre all about the money bro and thats what your going to get when you watch english teams with 11 foreigners on the pitch vs a ukrainian team full of brazilians

and yeah bridges was young but he still got injured a lot. he missed a lot of the last couple of seasons plus im sure the kind of job opportunity tinkler offered to him must of been pretty good. tinkler is getting richer everyday his fortune went up $300 million in the last 6 months, he doesnt even know what he wants to do with that money lols

Sounds like New York man. Last two games, they have fielded 11 players with 11 different nationalities.

hahaha i was about to say that in the mls thread man! as good as they are playing they dont have a single american on the pitch half the time aside from agudelo! whats your opinion on that man, i think its great that the league is attracting some great foreigners but i would also like some americans to be involved more, i can understand maybe stereotypical generic team with maybe 5 or 6 foreigners in the XI with the rest american, but NYRB for the lst couple games fielded no americans in the starting side...crazy really imo

It's not that bad, but it is Ream and not Agudelo who has been the starter. And they do have a couple of young Americans that I would like to see play, but that isn't going to happen when they are winning.

@Beau - At least you have a owner

but not for long maybe

perth signs u-17 international jesse makarounas, the guy tore it up in uzbekistan at the u-16 champos last year
http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/202767,glory-snap-up-young-teen.aspx

Beau why do Glory always seem to assemble a great squad but never really perform?

well it depends on how you interpret it....some may call it a great squad, others may call it a bunch of over the hill players

i mean look at their recruitment for next season, nothing has changed! the only good signing was vukovic, but they still went out and got travis dodd and adam hughes, both over 30, injury prone and in hughes case, just a very mediocre player

while they were able to get rid of the a-leagues worst defender in jamie coyne, his replacement was someone who is almost as bad - evan berger.. i mean honestly, the scottish mafia at that club are ruining it. the club culture is not good, the fact that jacob burns won their player of the year award which is awarded by the staff(all scottish blokes) just says it all, they reward hard working hacks instead of the young, technical players

perhaps they should of done a lot better last season, but dave mitchell and his scottish homie ian ferguson are bloody hopeless mate they cant coach to save their life and they dont ever want to take responsibility for anything whenever theyre playing bad.

shane smeltz should be a top signing for them though, but thats what happens when you have th emoney, you look at the other signings that they made hastily...neil young? man are they serious, that dude should not even be earning pro wages and it will just hurt the chances of alex pearson(aussie u-20 keeper) of ever breaking through now that hes gone from possible 1st choice to 3rd choice

the club has no long term vision, they are just looking at the now and they think they can put together a good team of a bunch of 30 something year olds, man its not gonna work and the fans have every right to wonder whats going on. its a shame to because perth are the BIGGEST club in the a-league, they have the biggest history and historically the most fans, but their ground will yet again be empty next season because of these silly desicions.

they were supposed to of had a review at the end of last season but all they managd to do was kick mitchell out of the club, sage should of sacked every board member, member of staff and ferguson on top of it and started off fresh. its gonna be another torrid season for the glory watching them playing their 1950's brand of football

makarounas should of never signed for them, hell be stuck in the youth league for the next 2 seasons. either him or taggart will lose out from this for sure. shame too as he would benefit from any other club, he could of easily gone overseas as well but i can understand he wants to be close with his family in perth

Fair enough, I did actually enjoy reading that

So is it true that Kosta is on trial in Italy?

yea bro, fiorentina, would be a shame to see him go i like him. so lets hope he fails

GCU wrote:yea bro, fiorentina, would be a shame to see him go i like him. so lets hope he fails

Fiorentina

TBH I would be sad to see him go but you can't deny a player to go to Europe from Australia. I'm sure we'll find someone.

james meyer looked solid before he got injured, scored for fun too.

dario vidosic is out of contract after this season, hell prob look around i europe first but hed be a good signing for brissy, im sure hed love to come back to his home town and work with his dad again

kofi danning is off contract to, some might say hes finished but maybe he needs a fresh start, cant forget how good he used to be before his injury either

david williams is a big one, he wants to go to europe or asia but if he doesnt like whats up there hed be amassive signing for brissy

another u-20 international goes overseas, ryan edwards(son of alistair) signs for reading, and so does his brother cameron

http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/202778,young-aussie-duo-join-royals.aspx

GCU wrote:another u-20 international goes overseas, ryan edwards(son of alistair) signs for reading, and so does his brother cameron

http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/202778,young-aussie-duo-join-royals.aspx

Hope they do well.

Beau I haven't really been taking notice but do you know how the young Aussie in Spurs youth is doing?

Last I heard he was doing really well for them on trial.

massimo luongo, spurs signed him permanetly bro, gave him a 3 year deal and they already got him to skip the youth team and hes playing reguarly in the reserves, hes going well man. he was in the u-20 european camp last month and did pretty well

but im shocked to say hes got that dam cockney english accent already and hes only been there for a few months!!!!

GCU wrote:massimo luongo, spurs signed him permanetly bro, gave him a 3 year deal and they already got him to skip the youth team and hes playing reguarly in the reserves, hes going well man. he was in the u-20 european camp last month and did pretty well

but im shocked to say hes got that dam cockney english accent already and hes only been there for a few months!!!!

Fuck yeah star of the future

Thanks mate.

fink new article on twg says that in 2009, buckley rejected a revised tv deal from fox worth $210 million over 5 years(to 2015), or basically $42 million a year which is over double what the current deal is ($17 million a year till 2013) when the a-league peaked

he rejected it because he was holding out for more money and the option to broadcast on free to air TV

however in order for that method to be financially viable, its calculated that once the 2013 deal expired, he would of needed to have signed a new tv deal worth over $80 million a year to make the money back at the very least

what an utterly stupid risk he took, he should of took the deal because look where we are now. from a package worth $42 million a year to one that could be worth $3million(albeit without the socceroos, but still, you get my point)

that extra $26million a year is the difference between the broke as FFA, 10 team a-league with no cup comp that we see now, and a thriving FFA, 14 team league and a cup comp

the fury would of never been lost had we had those funds, rovers would be ready for next season and so would canberra and tasmania

Fuck me mate, could have basically put our league at risk

Best thread.