Official Melbourne City Thread [R]

Hello,
I have just recently joined this forum because it is one of the few forums that actually offer information about the A –League and have a large member base from Australia. I am thinking of moving to Australia (Melbourne most likely) in the future for school and I am a HUGE football fan. I follow all the top leagues in the world from; League 1, Bundesliga, Premier League, Championship, Seria A and so on. I spend around 14 hours of day on football
I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind answering them for me of course.
1.
What is the rivalry between Melbourne Heart and Melbourne Victory? How is the fan bases spread? Is it like in some cities based on the North and South? Neighborhoods or what? Also why do people dislike Heart and why do people dislike Victory?

2.
What is the current level of the A-League? Both financially and playing wise. I’ve tried researching online but it’s quite challenging as there are not many video on the internet showing games or even highlights and the ones that do don’t really show too much as most things look good on YouTube.
3.
What is the Asian Champions league like? I’ve seen the rewards offered and so on and they are not even close to what UEFA offers is but that is understandable. But what is the quality of the football like?
4.
When does the A-League and Champions league start and is it possible to watch online? Are there any websites or forums I should be following?

I am extremely interested in Australian football and want to learn about it as much as possible as well as see what people from Australia think of football (soccer). I’ve posted this message on the Hearts official thread as well as Victory’s as I want to see the response from both teams and fans.
I would like to thank you in advance for answering my questions if you do and I apologize if my English is not the best as I am not a native speaker. Thank you

 

I can provide a bit of a fellow non-Australian perspective, but the more detailed answers will have to come from the Australian counterparts.

The Victory are one of the founding members of A-League while the Heart are a new club and just finished their second season. Rivalry wise, the #1 rivalry in A-League is the Victory/Sydney FC rivalry, but the Victory/Heart rivalry seems to have taken off quite nicely in the last two seasons. I don't believe there is really a Heart/Victory distribution of the various regions of Melbourne. From what I've seen, the primary reason a Heart fan has for being a Heart fan vs. a Victory fan is that the Heart are not the Victory. Something might develop beyond that, but with the Heart only being 2 seasons old, that will take time.

Financially, A-League is really struggling right now. I believe every team is losing money right now, with the Victory being the only one that might not be losing money and they've been losing money since they league was first formed. Soccer isn't even close to the most popular sport in Australia and this has caused A-League to really struggle. It had three seasons of growth, but then support really fell off a cliff and support for the league really collapsed until last season when it hopefully hit bottom and had some growth.

Playing wise, I'd place them more in line with League 1 over an entire season. On a single game basis they could be competitive with a Championship team, but would be relegated over the season because of lack of depth. They have a $2.5 million salary cap that every team must be below, but they do allow marquee players that do not impact the salary cap. The salary cap has, for obvious reasons, limited the quality of the players that are in A-League and most of the best Australian players are not in A-League, or, if they are in the league and are young, are on their way out of the league.

I haven't seen any ACL games, but the Japanese and Korean teams dominate with A-League a fairly significant step down from that.

A-League has a huge off-season with the regular season starting in early October and ending in late March. A-League determines their league champion via playoffs and those happen in April. So from the end of the playoffs in April to the start of the regular season in October you're stuck twiddling your thumbs.

 

That's quite surprising really, considering that most rivalries I know of are based on location (For example Athletico, Rayo, Getafe and Real are based on the different parts of Madrid) I was thinking that would be the case in Australia too, but I guess it's not.

Was there any specific reason for this massive drop in fanbase? I understand that football might not be a very popular sport in Australia compared to the likes of Rugby, Cricket or AFL but I find it hard to imagine that cities that have over 1 million of people can't attract 20,000 people to a stadium. I think that if clubs start aiming to attract local communities and in a way bond with them their revenue might rise from ticket,jersey and other sales. I've also done so more research and it seems that the owner of the clubs do have some of their own private wealth which means that they must be people with good relations, could they not attract some sort of sponsorship from the likes of Nike,Reebook and so on?

I understand the salary cap can be quite damaging to the squad death, hopefully if the revenues of the clubs start to rise and the love of the sport starts to grow this cap will be removed or at least increased because that is quite a small salary cap. Is the development of youth good?
I haven't seen any ACL games, but the Japanese and Korean teams dominate with A-League a fairly significant step down from that.

I've caught up on the ACL history and it does seem like the teams from those regions are dominating and that the likes of Arabic and Chinese team will dominate soon because of the massive salaries they can offer. It's a shame to see that Australia and NZ can't compete with them :/ Maybe if they manage to keep some very talent youth prospects they could achieve something and this would again increase the revenue.

That's a long time without any football... is there are chance to watch the games online?

Thank you for answering my questions, Australian football is growing on me rapidly.

 

A-League was created to specifically avoid this situation. Prior to A-League, Australia's top league was the National Soccer League (NSL) which consisted of teams that were associated with certain ethnic groups and when NSL went under one of the things they blamed was the ethnic associations. As a result A-League teams were created to appeal to the entire region, not just a specific group or community. Another thing working against the Heart is that they play in the same stadium as the Victory, so you don't get that geographic association of going to the local stadium instead of another stadium that is across town.

A-League is adding a Western Sydney team this season, so you will probably get a situation in Sydney similar to what you were expecting in Melbourne. Unfortunately not much is known about the Western Sydney team yet.

Lots of different reasons for the drop off. The newness factor wore off, the quality of play didn't increase as fast as some people would prefer, the TV contract isn't on a free TV station and Australians still aren't accustomed to pay-to-watch TV, if the locals did pay-to-watch they can see top flight European soccer on TV, so what's the point in watching A-League games, the FFA got distracted by the WC bid, etc. etc.

All of the A-League teams have youth development squads, but you'll have to wait for one of the Australians to wake up to tell you if it is good or not.

I'm not sure if the Middle East or Chinese teams will catch up to the Korean or Japanese teams in the near future. AFC has rules that restrict their teams to three foreign players + 1 AFC player, so, at most, teams can have 4 non-native players on their team. So while it is true that Middle East and Chinese teams are throwing ridiculous money at players, those players are A) looking for a retirement league, so aren't as likely to play as hard as they did back in Europe. B) are surrounded by crap players, so until those players improve, the Japanese and Korean teams will continue to dominate because they are better across the board.

There's a few online sites, but I'm not sure what they are. The games are on at 11pm or later for me, so the one game a week that is aired on Fox Soccer Channel is the only one I catch as I can DVR that while I sleep.

 

Since football is a smaller sport in Australia, the A-League was set up on a city by city basis in order to maximise crowds. For instance there would be one team representing Adelaide, another representing Brisbane etc. In the first year of the A-League there were 8 teams representing 7 different Australian cities and one New Zealand team.

Due to population and the Victorian culture of attending sports matches, the Victory were much larger than any other club it was logical to give Victoria a second team. Since Melbourne is much larger than the second largest Victorian 'city' (Geelong) the second Victorian team was also based in Melbourne. However the Heart have no geographical, class, sectarian or ethnic differences from the Victory so have struggled to gather supporters. It must be noted however that a lack of sectarian and ethnic differences is a very good thing.
The nine AFL clubs in Melbourne have geographical and class splits.

Sydney was always going to have a second team and will have a geographical split. This is because the city of Sydney is itself more geographicaly split then Melbourne (with Western Sydney being west of Parramatta). Melbourne is more of a circle.

Mainly loss of novelty and also the affect of many clubs struggling financially. The lack of FTA coverage also decreases access to matches as until recently only 20% of the population in the 'southern' states have had pay TV. This number has increased by a lot recently due to the new AFL TV rights and hopefully during the summer these new people may get into watching A-League.

The salary cap is to keep the teams even - it exists in all the professional Australian sporting leagues. We don't want a situation where Melbourne Victory and Sydney win the premiership every year. If for instance Adelaide had no chance of winning the premiership ever then nobody would support Adelaide.
Football is a minor sport in Australia with Australian Rules, Rugby League and Cricket being well ahead. Australia has a small population with only about 20 million people. Despite this Australia has made the last two world cups, is the second best team in Asia and is ranked in the top 25 teams in the world. Australian youth development is very good considering the status of the sport.

The A-League will never be able to compete with the AFL or NRL for wages. However EPL wages dwarf AFL and NRL wages. The ability for young Australian players to earn massive amounts of money in Europe will lead to more youngsters wanting to become footballers, which will lead to a stronger national team and greater interest in the game.

 

Yep, Heart flying under the radar.

 

Vincenzo is coming back home.

 

Perth v Heart photos.
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/PhNgLjXKRzG/A+League+Rd+3+Perth+v+Heart

 

It's Melbourne Derby time! Here is my write-up for the game:

Melbourne Heart
Melbourne Heart have not had an ideal start to the season only managing 3 wins and 5 losses in 13 matches and sitting in eighth position. The most recent loss came against league leaders Central Coast Mariners last week when they were defeated 2-0 at the hands of a Pedj Bojic brace. However, as they head into the Melbourne Derby for the second time this season they are sporting a much better record at home, only suffering defeat once.
Heart have only conceded 14 goals this season, but face concerns up front only managing 12 goals themselves led by Richard Garcia and Josip Tadic with 3 apiece. Hearts chances of a second derby win this season have been boosted with the long-awaited return of dynamic midfielder Jonatan Germano, putting Heart at almost full strength for this weekends tie.

Melbourne Victory
Melbourne Victory started slow this season under the reign of Ange Postecoglou, but are begining to hit some form of late with 3 wins in their past 6 matches. Last weeks 1-1 draw with Brisbane showed the attacking power that Victory are capable of but on the flip-side the instability of their defence. Michael Theo's superb performance denied the Victory of another win, but the draw leaving them in third place.
Despite Victory's winning records this season (5-2-4) they have conceded the most goals in the league behind Sydney FC and Newcastle Jets. Interestingly however, the Victory are playing at their favoured AAMI Park at which they are undefeated so far this season.

Prediction
The Melbourne derby is here for the second time this season after Heart took a 2-1 win in round one thanks to goals from Williams and MacAllister. Over the seven previous derby's the Victory (2.30) have only managed to win once while Heart (2.60) are searching for their fourth. Despite Melbourne Victory's poor record against their local rivals, we are predicting their recent offensive form and solid record at AAMI Park to get them over the line. Expect their shaky defence to concede, so if you're looking for better value 2-1 in the correct score market (8.50) could be your best bet.

 

Here's one of the modern-day ancient Mayans. Well done, champ.

 

Former National Soccer League giant South Melbourne FC has made a takeover offer for struggling Melbourne Heart FC

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/news/1149826/Takeover-bid-for-Melbourne-Heart-tabled

"The Melbourne Heart board has called a meeting for Wednesday to consider the sale of the club in a deal believed to be in the region of $3.5 million.
Heart's stadium deal at AAMI Park has expired and under any new arrangement the club will have to attract a home crowd of 15,000 to break even, which is well above Hearts average home gate last season of 8,560..."

I know the FFA won't like it, but give the bloody Greeks their club. It is financially 100x better than the Heart.

 

Melbourne v Western Sydney match photos.
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/XLCvPINU7DE/Melbourne+v+Western+Sydney/browse

 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...-melbourne-heart/story-fn63e0vj-1226808346531

It looks like they are going to be changing the name of the club to Melbourne City FC, but the question I have is will it be a complete rebrand to Manchester City colors, or will they keep the Heart's colors?

 

Very true, but it wouldn't be the first time teams in the same league have similar colors.

 

Gotta start repeating colors sometime, might as well start at 10 teams.

 

Take a look at the color scheme on their other farm team's website:

http://www.nycfc.com/

That should answer the question.

 

NYCFC is not a farm team and neither will Melbourne.