Mixed bag on Australia's first foray
Friday, 09 March 07, 09:56 PM · Comments(1)
Australian club football tasted Asian Champions League for the first time on Wednesday night, Sydney winning away to Shanghai Shenhua, Adelaide losing at home to Shandong Luneng. I held off on this update hoping footage of Ufuk Talay's stunning strike for Sydney would appear on YouTube so it could be embedded into the article, but you can see footage of it here nonetheless.
Adelaide's problems continued against Shandong in front of goal. Playing negative football for two years is going to be hard to shake, and Aurelio Vidmar has done nothing more than the word-perfect definition of an interim manager since taking over. Adelaide appear to be a distinct third banana in group G, and having already lost a home game will have to pull off some miracle results if they want to topple Shandong and Korean side Seongnam.
Despite a nervous finish, Sydney's 2-1 win in China shows they have gone some way to overcoming the defensive legacy of recently departed manager Terry Butcher, and are a genuine chance to qualify from their group. They have Urawa Reds in Sydney as their next match, in a game that will let us know if they are for real or not. Urawa only put three goals past Persik Kediri of Indonesia, in the past double-figure scorelines were the norm for Indonesian clubs on the continent, but cruise control won't get a win against Sydney.
Back "home", a decision is still yet to be made on the New Zealand based team for the 2007/8 A-League season. It is likely that Wellington will produce the capital required to move the Knights from Auckland, but there is still some hope that the deal falls through and Townsville, Australia will pick up the slack. If the Kiwis do keep their team, everyone expects it to be an infinite improvement on what was offered in the first two A-Leauge seasons.
Adelaide's problems continued against Shandong in front of goal. Playing negative football for two years is going to be hard to shake, and Aurelio Vidmar has done nothing more than the word-perfect definition of an interim manager since taking over. Adelaide appear to be a distinct third banana in group G, and having already lost a home game will have to pull off some miracle results if they want to topple Shandong and Korean side Seongnam.
Despite a nervous finish, Sydney's 2-1 win in China shows they have gone some way to overcoming the defensive legacy of recently departed manager Terry Butcher, and are a genuine chance to qualify from their group. They have Urawa Reds in Sydney as their next match, in a game that will let us know if they are for real or not. Urawa only put three goals past Persik Kediri of Indonesia, in the past double-figure scorelines were the norm for Indonesian clubs on the continent, but cruise control won't get a win against Sydney.
Back "home", a decision is still yet to be made on the New Zealand based team for the 2007/8 A-League season. It is likely that Wellington will produce the capital required to move the Knights from Auckland, but there is still some hope that the deal falls through and Townsville, Australia will pick up the slack. If the Kiwis do keep their team, everyone expects it to be an infinite improvement on what was offered in the first two A-Leauge seasons.
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AusTeo
Melbourne, AU
This is the regular column for the Melbourne Victory of Australia. The Victory is currently defending the A-League title and will play Asian Champions League at the end of the domestic campaign. There will also be the odd comment about the fortunes of the Australian national team.
1 Comments · Add yours
shanghai shenhua,is really bad,they never bring us good news