For those of you outside Australia, the majority that is. The above mentioned 'leauge' is the 'premier' (ok enough inverted commas) Australian football competition.
You see after Australia made it into the last world cup, the majority of the population decided that soccer was cool (yes, football is a rather recent term for many Australian football followers). I don't remember exactly when the A-Leauge was originally formulated, but none the less, I don't believe it would have been as succesful as it is now were it not for the tremendous change in the Australia sporting imagination. All of a sudden many people who had never seen a champions leauge match or serie a match began talking about football, which is kinda weird, because before the world cup victories, not a WHOLE lot of people cared about football.
Anyway, enough rambling, back to the point. The A-Leauge. Before I go on I will admit my bias, I have never watched an entire match, fuck, I've never watched more than 15 minutes. So I might be entirely wrong with what I am about to account to you, none the less, pay attention.
About an hour ago there was a program on one of the Australian cable sports channels, a highlights program of the previous weeks A-Leauge matches. I didn't grab my attention till I saw the replay of Sydney vs Melbourne come on. Not quite sure what grabbed my attention so much, I think I may have seen it mentioned in the paper.
So anyway, the replay begins. This is what I saw. At some point during the game, a Melbourne player crosses a ball to the left wing, where a team of his is waiting. Not to be outdone a Sydney defender goes in to challenge the cross. After a few feet shuffling and a few yards gone fighting over the ball, the two players eventually end up on the sideline. This is where things get a bit funny. The two players although tangled up over the ball manage to break off eachother as they cross the line, they weren't going to fast at all. SOME HOW, the Melbourne player is unable to stop, you know, the way you sometimes find it hard to stop, after taking a few strides.. So he does what anyone would do: drop a shoulder into the nearest thing, that thing in case being the coach of Sydney.
YES, THATS RIGHT.
A footballer dropped a shoulder into the coach of the opposing team. Yeah, cause that happens.
It was totally avoidable, it served no purpose. Except of course to entertain the crowd. You see because thats what we're all about now isn't it. It's disgracful, it's bad enough in the champions leauge that you see players taking dives, but atleast its done in the hope of gaining your team an advantage. Horribly cuntish yes, but alot of europeans can be horribly cuntish, so it fits. What you don't see is outlandish 'stunts' caused for the benefit of the crowd alone. Fuck that noise.
Aside from that, the gameplay itself is just rediculous. You see players creating these amazing shots out of no where. The shots are rarely challenged, probably because they're so amazing lolO!LOL!! Please. Defence in the A-Leauge is a redundant term, along with anything associated with style, or grace.
The funniest thing however was the way they had edited the game for the replay. Everytime something positive would happen to Melbourne, the screen would cut to a wildy celebrating crowd. Wheew it got funny was when the same shot of the crowd was used whenever ANY thing happened to Melbourne. Finally when the game finished was the truth revealed, the celebrating crowd being the majority of an otherwise under capacity venue.
Because really, no one gives a fuck about A-Leauge, except the shitheads would want to be sold bullshit polished as gold. Gimmicks involving off field persons, rediculous tactics, a sick desire to be recognised as a professional venture.
Wow, what a rant, not to mention the fact that many people won't understand what the fuck I'm going on about. Some will, I hope. Till then, fuck the A-Leauge, support Football.
PS. feel free to pick me up on any grammatical or spelling mistakes, I cannot be bothered to spell check, ta.
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