A-League giants – Melbourne Victory vs Brisbane Roar. South Melbourne legends – Ange Postecoglou vs Mehmet Durakovic. Attention seekers – Archie Thompson vs Ben Williams. Saturday night’s game was so many things – but one thing it wasn’t was boring.
The majority of discussion this week has been about the red card issued against Matthew Foschini, whether it was the right decision, and about the subsequent appeal which the FFA rejected – but was it really such a big deal? The majority of Victory fans appear to believe that Foschini barely touched Thomas Broich and that the German made a meal of the tackle, that Ben Williams was in too much of a rush to whip out the red card, and that the FFA are being unreasonable in refusing to overturn the decision.
The media, particularly those on Fox, particularly Mark ‘Wiggy’ Bosnich, have built things up to appear like some kind of crime was committed.
Those watching Wiggy on Fox Sports FC this week without having seen the match could have been forgiven for believing that Williams had taken a bow after each red card before dropping his shorts in front of the Victory bench. The main claim appears to be that Williams was making the game about him, and that he didn’t care about entertainment value. Those who say that it ruined the match evidently weren’t paying attention.
The majority of the excitement and drama on the evening was generated by Victory’s magnificent rear-guard action. Had the game ended up 5-2 to Roar you could have understood the complaints, but it didn’t – and the decisions of Ben Williams played their part in the drama as much as the passing of Eric Paartelu or the finishing of Archie Thompson. And what can you say about Archie? Much of the publicity this season has been based around Harry Kewell and how to fit him into the team, or how to build the team around him. Earlier in the season Archie had a bit of a whinge about being played out of position and being subbed off – but he’s soldiered on with the rest of the boys to prove he’s a team player. Harry has done the same.
There is no ‘I’ in team, but as Wendell Sailer says on Fox – there are five of them in ‘Individual brilliance’, and that’s exactly what Archie demonstrated on Saturday evening. Long may it continue. The size of the game, and the value provided, leaves one major question – where were the 15,000 fans who went to the Sydney and Heart games but didn’t go along to watch the best game of the season?
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