{"id":13905,"date":"2014-04-15T23:02:59","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T13:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=13905"},"modified":"2014-04-25T23:05:39","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T13:05:39","slug":"a-league-201314-round-27-the-final-countdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=13905","title":{"rendered":"A-League 2013\/14 &#8211; Round 27 &#8211; The Final Countdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tagfootball.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5928\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tagfootball.jpg\" alt=\"tagfootball\" width=\"600\" height=\"75\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tagfootball.jpg 600w, http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tagfootball-300x37.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xpilZLoPJFI\" width=\"629\" height=\"354\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>NEWCASTLE JETS 2 ADELAIDE UNITED 0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>WELLINGTON PHOENIX 1 MELBOURNE VICTORY 4<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>MELBOURNE HEART 2 WESTERN SYDNEY WANDERERS 3<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>BRISBANE ROAR 0 CENTRAL COAST MARINERS 2<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>SYDNEY FC 1 PERTH GLORY 1<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Thats A Wrap<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/mcflynntifo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13194\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/mcflynntifo.jpg\" alt=\"mcflynntifo\" width=\"620\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/mcflynntifo.jpg 620w, http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/mcflynntifo-300x160.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The regular season of the 2013\/14 A-League concluded over the weekend.\u00a0 The final six spots are settled (Brisbane, WSW, CCM, Victory, Sydney FC and Adelaide) and sudden death tournament football begins next week.<\/p>\n<p>The season finished with a dour 2-0 home defeat for the Roar who were impotent in attack and created few opportunities against <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/blog\/2014\/apr\/15\/a-league-tactics-how-to-stop-brisbane-roar\">a clinical Central Coast Mariners team<\/a> who, after losing four games on the trot in January, have stormed up the ladder at the end of the season.\u00a0 The Roar looked like a team playing cautiously, careful not to concede any cards or injuries before the semi final.\u00a0 As ever, the murmurs around the grounds are a lot to do with Berisha.\u00a0 We&#8217;re pretty much resigned to the fact that we&#8217;re going to use him but we seem so much better off without him.<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>ELIMINATION ROUND<\/strong><\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">MELBOURNE VICTORY (4) vs SYDNEY FC (5)<\/h3>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">CENTRAL COAST MARINERS (3) vs ADELAIDE UNITED (6)<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>The highest seeded winner plays Western Sydney Wanderers (2) in the semi final.\u00a0 The lowest seeded winner plays Brisbane Roar (1) in the other semi final.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a strange outlook for the finals series.\u00a0 The Mariners are really the only form team in the mix.\u00a0 The other five teams in contention have all won just two of their last five games.\u00a0 The first two elimination matches both look to be even contests on paper.\u00a0 Sydney defeated Victory 5-0 in Melbourne the last time they visited but they have neither the form nor the consistency to suggest they&#8217;ll do it again.\u00a0 Having said that, I would love to play a home semi final against either of these two clubs.\u00a0 They&#8217;re both sides that the Roar has excellent form against.\u00a0 The Mariners and the Reds?\u00a0 Not so much.<\/p>\n<p>I would expect the Mariners to beat the Reds at Gosford Park.\u00a0 They have momentum on their side, are a pain in the arse to beat at the Sauce Bottle Fortress and they have a good record against Adelaide.\u00a0 Goals won&#8217;t be the problem for Josep Gombau and his men from the South.\u00a0 The challenge will be shoring up their wobbly old defence which concedes far too often.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>My Tips:\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><em>Central Coast Mariners and Sydney FC to advance.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>News and Notes<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s the end of the season for the Phoenix, Heart, Jets and Glory.\u00a0 Football doesn&#8217;t stand still for very long and the Nix have already dumped Stein Huysegems and Leo Bertos.\u00a0 Huysegems was good value for the Phoenix and scored the most goals for them this season.\u00a0 However, with Hernandez, Cunningham and Brockie in the squad, the Nix aren&#8217;t short of firepower.\u00a0 In fact, they&#8217;ve scored more goals than the Mariners and the Wanderers this season.\u00a0 It&#8217;s their defense thats the problem.<\/li>\n<li>Former championship winning coach Graham Arnold got sacked from his J-League club Vegalta Sendai after a winless run of eight games.\u00a0 The club won their very next game 2-0 away from home.\u00a0 It was a miserable and unsuccessful stint for Arnold and now he looks to return to Australia and will likely be courted by at least three clubs who are looking for new management.\u00a0 It&#8217;s not a great start for the prospects of A-League coaches looking to move abroad.<\/li>\n<li>The BPL, which concludes in a month, is headed for a thrilling finish with Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea all viable contenders.\u00a0 I watched Liverpool&#8217;s 3-2 win over Manchester City on Sunday and it was a cracking game.\u00a0 I&#8217;m tipping City to pip Liverpool to the post.<\/li>\n<li>Melbourne Heart have apparently already begun their transformation into Melbourne City with the club formalizing plans to change into a Sky Blue kit next season, a move that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com.au\/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CC4QqQIwAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smh.com.au%2Fsport%2Fsoccer%2Fsydney-fc-in-blue-over-new-melbourne-heart-colours-20140414-zqune.html&amp;ei=QKBMU9HfMtHakgX5k4CQAg&amp;usg=AFQjCNHWvweO04gwIueavQFYVBlKmQHaPg&amp;sig2=vikRCR7kXuXJ-3XBrstxhg\">Sydney FC are none to happy about<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Other than A-League Allstars vs Juventus game, we still don&#8217;t have confirmed friendly matches for the offseason yet although Manchester City, West Ham and Ajax are all clubs who have been named in the rumour mill.\u00a0 Happily, all these clubs are rumoured to be facing the Roar.\u00a0 Bring it on!<\/li>\n<li>How good are the tifo artists at Sydney FC?\u00a0 They sent off retiring player Terry McFlynn with a mind boggling detailed stained glass window motif of the former captain that put anything The Den have done in Brisbane to shame.<\/li>\n<li>This week saw the retirement of five Australian footballing veterans &#8211; Harry Kewell (Heart), Terry McFlynn (Sydney FC), Mile Sterjovski (CCM), Michael Bridges (Jets) and Jacob Burns (Glory).\u00a0 Four of them will be missed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The regular season ends with the Roar getting thumped at home by the Mariners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[218,342,1232],"class_list":["post-13905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-a-league","tag-brisbane-roar","tag-central-coast-mariners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13906,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13905\/revisions\/13906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}