Daryl’s Notebook: What I learned from the opening weekend of the A-League Men

Image: RNZ News

The A-League Men celebrates its 20th anniversary this season, and it has observed many rule changes, teams joining and leaving, marquee players come and go. But at the end of the day, it is still the A-Liga that many Australian football fans look forward to watch and follow. As teams going all out for their marquee signings last window and many promising youngsters coming through the ranks, it is expected to be one of the greatest seasons of the A-League in its 20-year history. So, let’s not wait any longer!

Central Coast Mariners 0–0 Melbourne Victory

Image: Lismore City News

• Reason for choosing: Besides from the fact that this was the opening match of the new A-League season, the Mariners and Victory are two heritage and competitive teams in the league. For the Mariners, Mark Jackson has been building on the good work that Nick Montgomery did and lead the team to an AFC Cup title while successfully defending their Champions title, and he was able to do it with a mostly homegrown team and on limited resources. Meanwhile, Victory will be under new management of Patrick Kisnorbo, who led their cross-city rival, Melbourne City, to the Premier and Champions titles in 2021 and 2022 respectively. With a strong squad heading into this season, Victory are expected to be one of the favourites for the Premier title.
• Quick thoughts:
• While Victory did not control much of the ball early into the match, they have defended well as their defensive setup looked to lure the Mariners out wide and prevent any attempts to play through the block. When the Mariners had the ball inside of the final third, they used numerical advantage to dominate the wide space and blocked cross attempts that came from left-back Lucas Mauragis and Vitor Feijão.
• The host were also looking to play out from the back, but had to result in sending the ball over the top to Alou Kuol due to pressures coming from Victory. On a few occasions, they were able to find a breakthrough when either Kuol or Ryan Edmondson was able to win the aerial challenge and bring the ball down to the oncoming wide players. But overall, it still remained an ineffective attacking plan for the host.
• Defensively, however, the Mariners were hanging on thanks to the effort of their keeper Dylan Peraic-Cullen. Victory created chances well from both settled possession and counter-attacking situations, which they created through moving the ball out wide and allowed the wingers to dribble to the byline. There was a heavy reliance on attacks down the right, where the presence of winger Nishan Velupillay and attacking midfielder Zinédine Machach helped Victory progressed the ball easier.
• It was interesting to see that the Mariners only created two shots inside the first half while Victory created 8 shots in the same period. The only problem was the volume of shots on target as the ratio is very low. That, and Bruno Fornaroli’s missed penalty in the stoppage time, contributed to a relatively uneventful first half.
• Well, Roderick Miranda’s red card did not help make the game better. This would put Victory on the brakes as they slowed down with their attacking attempts. Josh Rawlins coming on for the away side seemed to confirm this as they switched to a 4–4–1 formation, a common formation for teams who play with 10-men as it provided defensive stability both centrally and out wide.
• Now it was Victory’s turn to set up a defensive block and they looked to be doing well in preventing the Mariners from creating and converting any noticeable chances. As mentioned, the 4–4–1 formation helped as it prevented the host from going through the block and forced them to move the ball wide. When the Mariners used crosses, Victory defenders dealt with them well and cleared the ball.
• Overall: Even though this was the opening match for the new A-League Men season, it felt slightly underwhelming from a fan point of view. However, the tactical perspective provided more with both teams setting up their defensive tactics well and prevented the opposition from creating meaningful chances. There seems to be more that both the Mariners and Victory can offer, but for now, the 2023 Grand Final rematch could only settled for a 0–0 draw.

Auckland 2–0 Brisbane Roar

Image: 1News NZ

• Reason for choosing: It is the battle between the new kid on the block and the kid who has “been there, done that”. Auckland came into this season strongly as they assembled a very strong Kiwi core while also bringing in highly experienced European players to support the team. With a championship-winning head coach on the sideline in Steve Corica, they too will also be considered as one of the teams challenging for the Premier title. One team who have won the Premier title in the past is Brisbane Roar under the management of Ange Postecoglou. But in recent years, the Roar have not had a successful period, with their closest attempt to win the title came in the 2023 Australia Cup final, where they failed to beat…Steve Corica’s Sydney side. So…there is definitely a bit of history contained in this clash
• Quick thoughts:
• Not too much happened in the first 10 minutes…besides from the situation that led to Harry van der Saag’s own goal. Feels like it was an unlucky situation since the ball just came across the goal and van der Saag probably instinctively put his leg out in an attempt to clear the ball. However, Roar players also looked slightly unorganised in that situation, allowing Auckland players to run into the box without being tighly marked. If van der Saag did not swing his leg out, the ball might have found someone at the back post.
• Auckland’s defensive block also showed some minor problems cause Roar was able to pull the midfielders wide then played through the block by hitting the space in front of the double pivot. But their back four still held up well to deny attempts to go into the box and keeper Alex Paulsen controlled most situations well. They also forced Roar to take long shots from outside of the box, which did not do much harm on Paulsen’s goal.
• I’m more interested in how Auckland played out from the back and attacked, however. Even though it was a simple “moving the opposition side-to-side” tactic, Auckland managed to find space in between Roar’s 4–4–2 defensive block by asking the midfielders to drop close to the centre-backs to receive the ball, then spring it out wide for the wingers to be in 1v1 situations with Roar’s full-backs. This tactic worked for them because in Dan Hall and Nando Pijnaker, they had two good ball-playing centre-backs for A-League quality as both were able to make line-breaking passes to find the likes of Jake Brimmer, Logan Rogerson, and Liam Gillion. Gillion and Rogerson also looked quite good out wide as they managed to beat Roar’s full-backs in 1v1 situations to get to the byline for a cross.
• One of the problems that Roar were facing was they looked like they needed an attacking outlet up front. The away side had Jay O’Shea, who was trying to create chances from deep as one of the #6. But as the Irish midfielder dropped closer to the centre-backs, it took him away from the attackers and he was not able to send them into spaces inside of the final third. It also did not help them when their wingers, Keegan Jelacic and Ben Halloran, were tightly marked by Auckland’s full-backs, leaving them unable to create any noticeable chances from out wide. Credits to Auckland’s defence for keeping Roar’s main chance-creating outlets quiet so far.
• Auckland seemed like they were more confident as time went on. They started to press higher and closer to Roar’s goal and, on a couple of occasions, they managed to force a turnover by the Roar’s defenders or midfielders and started a quick counter attack. The host just needed to find that final ball to Guillermo May and a second goal might not be too far away. However, the Uruguayan striker had contributed a lot in other aspects of Auckland’s play by winning duels and retaining possession for them inside of the final third.
• And…the game had evolved into a game of…fouls. With Roar pushing forward more to find the equaliser, Auckland attempted to stop some of their attacks by fouling Roar attackers in the middle third and conceded unharmful set pieces. Roar players then looked frustrated, and attempted to do the reverse…out of frustration.
• Roar still looked very lost with their attacking attempts, even after the introduction of Rafael Struick and Sam Klein. Now they were relying even more on Jelacic and Auckland seemed to mark Roar’s #23 even tighter and was more aggressive on him. As such, it was even harder for the away side to find a way into the penalty box, besides from hopeful crosses that came from both wings.
• In contrast, Auckland did exactly what they were not able to do from the first goal, which was connecting the cross to one of the players at the back post. Rogerson now has the privilege of scoring Auckland’s first inaugural goal after staying out of Antonee Burke-Gilroy’s eyesight and performed a tap-in at the back post.
• Overall: It was a decent performance from the new boys at their home stadium. This is still the early days, but signs are very promising for Auckland under Corica and they should not be underestimated for this season. Meanwhile, Roar just did not fix their problems from last season and they still looked very underwhelming even though the squad that they put out was not bad. If they are to realise their ambition of being back in the Finals, things need to change very very soon.

Macarthur 6–1 Perth Glory

Image: A-Leagues

• Reason for choosing: It is not a massive clash, but Macarthur and Perth Glory are two interesting teams for me. Macarthur experienced an…unusual off-season, to say the least, with roster changes (some were forced changes) taking the central stage. But they did put their off-field problems to the side and defended their Australia Cup title to put another title into the club’s trophy cabinet. That might put them as an unlikely candidate to secure a spot in the Finals and even advance further. Perth Glory also experienced changes, but positive ones as the new ownership group had their first full off-season period to install changes into the squad. Then, interesting manager David Zdrillic came in, along with plenty of new signings, they promise to play an attractive, Red Bull-esque style of football, which they did show somewhat in the Australia Cup.
• Quick thoughts:
• Right off the bat and Perth Glory already showed their intention to press high up the pitch. No surprise when Zdrillic had made it clear that he wanted Perth to play a Red Bull-esque style, so I expect direct football in possession and high-intensity pressing out of possession. Though it is interesting that they are setting up in a 5–3–2, which is not a Red Bull-endorsed formation…but most of the principles are still there.
• And…Macarthur’s opening goal came from an individual mistake that was forced by a Macarthur counter-press. The actual thing that Zdrillic wanted his Glory side to do. Unlucky for Luke Bodnar but his pass was very risky and that put Marin Jakoliš on through and Jed Drew ready for the rebound.
• Absolute no midfield support for Glory’s defence in Macarthur’s second goal. Credits to Drew for seeing the space that Jake Hollman was in, but Perth’s defensive shape was bad in that goal. Once Drew’s run pushed them close to the goal, the space around the penalty spot was left completely vacant and two Macarthur players was in that space unmarked. It was, more or less, an unavoidable goal for Glory.
• The problem with Glory’s counter-pressing was they committed too many players forward while also not maintaining good defensive organisation. This created a lot of space for both Jakoliš and Drew to operate in, which was what the host relied on during the first 20 minutes of the first half. Macarthur wingers also took on Glory defenders very well and managed to get pass them on many occasions, which allowed for crosses into the box for Valère Germain. As a result of both teams’ directness in style, the match turned into an end-to-end contest, which ended up being an entertaining match! And…organisation was the main cause for Macarthur’s third goal.
• Macarthur were just doing the simplest things well and used third man runs to get pass Glory’s press. Combining with the fact that they pushed their midfield forward and had no support for the defence, Glory consistently found themselves exposed at the back and could not be active in defence.
• A switch to a 4–4–2 in the second half allowed Glory to settle down a bit more, but the away side were still looking to press quite high, which still left a ton of space behind their defensive line. While they were able to shut off Macarthur’s attacking attempts down the wings, the host now switched to playing long passes and relied on counter-attacks to expose Glory.
• There was just no defensive organisation and support even into the defensive half. Germain’s second goal was scored way too easily as the French striker just escaped marking of the Glory defenders and got onto the end of Jakoliš’ cross to score a simple tap-in. Glory’s defence was having a very, very tough and abysmal day.
• At least that was a goal back for Glory after a bit of a scramble situation. It saved them from a complete blowout and a consolation to keep the players’ confidence up.
• Overall: That was definitely not a performance that I expected from Perth Glory. They were completely outplayed very early on in the first half and never had the opportunity to settle down. Once the problems were fixed, they were only able to slow Macarthur down but still could not get anything working offensively. Meanwhile, Macarthur approached this match with a plan and that plan worked like a charm. They knew Glory’s weaknesses, especially the ones in their defensive block, and capitalised them to their fullest to score 6 goals. A very strong performance from the host, and a lot more to work on for the away side.

Originally posted on talkingtactics.substack.com