Entries Tagged 'Friendlies' ↓

Valentine’s Day is this Thursday, which I’m sure means that all of you will be busy taking someone special out for dinner.

Or, for the slightly less romantic option, you could take them to Epping Stadium to watch the Melbourne Victory take on Victorian Premier League side the Whittlesea Zebras.

The game kicks off at 7pm and is free entry. With the friendlies against Adelaide set to be played behind closed doors, this friendly may be one of the only chances to see Melbourne before the Asian Champions League gets going next month.

The Melbourne Victory and Adelaide United will be playing each other twice before the Asian Champions League begins, and then two more times during the group stage.

Hardly surprising news, but it is disappointing to hear that the matches will be behind closed doors, much like the Socceroos practice match on the weekend. I have no doubt that a friendly against Adelaide could draw a reasonable crowd – certainly enough to make Olympic Park come alive.

But alas, it seems the club are intent on making fans wait until March 12.

The dates

• Game 1: Wednesday 27th Feb in Melbourne (3.00pm kick-off)
• Game 2: Tuesday 4th March in Adelaide (1.30pm kick-off)
• Game 3: Tuesday 1st April in Adelaide (1.30pm kick-off)
• Game 4: Tuesday 15th April in Melbourne (3.00pm kick-off)

Source: The World Game

The Melbourne Victory will play the Socceroos behind closed doors on Saturday.

For Pim Verbeek, the friendly allows him another chance to watch his selection of A-League players before finalising his squad for the Qatar match.

It’s not clear who Archie Thompson, Rodrigo Vargas and Kevin Muscat will play for, considering they are all still up for a spot in the Socceroos, but you’d expect that Ernie Merrick will give some of his young blood an opportunity to impress – Nathan Elasi in particular.

There’s still some 44 days to go before Melbourne lines up against Wellington in the 1st round of the new season, but all’s not lost for the Victory fanatic dying to see the team in action. Here’s a round-up of what’s happening for the next month and a bit:

• Thursday, 12 July. Open training session at Olympic Park. 10:00am – 11:30am. Enter via the Western Grandstand.
• Sunday, 15 July. Melbourne Victory vs. Adelaide United. Aurora Stadium, Launceston. 1:00pm. Tickets available through Max Events.
• Thursday, 19 July. Open training session at Skilled Stadium, Geelong. 12:30pm – 2:00p. Enter via the Bob Davis gate.
• Sunday, 22 July. Melbourne Victory vs. Newcastle Jets. Skilled Stadium, Geelong. 2pm. Tickets available through Ticketmaster.
• Saturday, 28 July. Melbourne Victory vs. Perth Glory. Darwin Football Stadium, Darwin. 6:30pm. More information at the Football Northern Territory website.

Frankly, it’s not looking much better than the match against China. If Australian media wasn’t interested in the friendly against China, you can bet they won’t care about a friendly with Tianjin Teda – even if it is the Mayors’ Cup.

What about the Chinese media? I’ve searched through some P2P program guides for Chinese channels and come up with nothing. As far as I can tell, the game against Tianjin Teda will also not be on TV, be it Aussie or Chinese.

That said, if you know something I don’t, feel free to leave a comment and let the rest of us know how we can follow the game on Saturday night.

Details have unfortunately been incredibly sketchy, but reports are now in that the Victory has lost 1-0 to China tonight in a match played over three 30 minute thirds. The only goal in the match has been credited to Changchun Yatai midfielder Wang Dong, who headed the ball home in the 35th minute. Kaz Patafta and Matthew Kemp both managed to get a run. Naturally we never like to see a loss, but in reality it is not a bad result for a somewhat undermanned Melbourne against a national team in the final stages of preparation for a major tournament! Now let’s see how they do against Tianjin on Saturday.

It is great that Melbourne had the chance to play this match, but it is most unfortunate that the Victory could not cobble together even the most basic form of coverage. At the very least, surely it would have been feasible to get someone to SMS in some updates? After building up significant hype, it is a disappointing outcome for the die-hard fans.

Tonight’s game against China will not be televised. Not here, nor there. I have searched high and low. I’ve even gone through the laborious effort of translating Chinese pages into English through Google and turned up with nothing. It appears that the Melbourne vs. China match won’t even be showing in China.

But of course, if you know otherwise, please let us know by leaving a comment.

In any case, I thought it would be a fitting time for a pre-match roundup. This game is a friendly, and Merrick has pointed out that the result doesn’t matter. The Chinese are more likely to care about obtaining a win than we are: with the Asian Cup just a few days away, they will be keen to gain confidence from a solid win tonight. A loss would hurt us, but it would hurt them more.

The Victory squad is by no means its A-team. New recruits Kaz Patafta and Matthew Kemp will both get their first game, the latter buffering up the defence while Patafta will join Caceres and Allsopp up front to give Melbourne a three-pronged attack. The midfield will have to do without Brebner, who’s injured – but tall man Ljubo Milicevic, normally a central defender, will step up to support Muscat and Pantelidis in the midfield. Theoklitos keeps his spot in goals.

The fact that Milicevic is being put in midfield is somewhat telling, as it means that the Leijer/Vargas combo will once again be at the centre of the Victory defence, with Keenan and Kemp filling out the flanks. One of the questions this season will be whether Leijer and Vargas manage to keep their central spots, given the crowding of defensive players after the signings of Milicevic, Keenan and Kemp. Players are going to have to work very hard to earn their place in defence.

An article in the Australian today says that Sydney has won the bid to play David Beckham and Co. (aka. the LA Galaxy). The game’s set to be played at Telstra Stadium on November 27.

Sucks for Melbourne, who had been contending that we should get the game. No doubt we would have been able to pack the Telstra Dome for a game like that. But Sydney has won it.

Even more infuriating than that, though, is what Sydneysiders had to say about it all. George Perry, the CEO of Sydney FC, said:

“Where else would you play the game but in the best city in the world and against the best club in the country?”

Or check this out from NSW Premier Morris Lemma:

“Sydney is now the undisputed home of football in Australia and the fans have responded magnificently in recent times.”

Undisputed home of football? Best club in the country? What enormous boulder have these blokes been hiding under?

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch last week’s friendly against South Melbourne. But never fear, the Melbourne Victory website has posted up great videos of the goals for those of you who were also not able to make it to the game. Check them out there, or enjoy the slightly less refined version from YouTube below:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khHiaAKmxI8[/youtube]

OK, so he didn’t score 5 goals in the one game – settling for a measly 2 – but I have to say that Archie’s 2nd goal was phenomenal. Notice that he dribbled from the half way line? Bloody ripper, if you ask me.

Phil Chadwick from SportsAustralia.com has written an excellent article on the wildly disparate reports of last week’s game against South Melbourne FC by the Age and the Herald Sun. While the Age featured a match report under the headline “Melbourne Shows off its Class”, the Herald Sun painted a much bleaker picture, getting things rolling with the painful title: “14 Ejected after Soccer Fracas”.

It is true that flares were thrown and 14 fans were ejected. But this was by no means the only newsworthy thing that happened at the game. For one, the Victory played a solid game of football against the reigning Victorian Premier League champions. But even more significant was the popularity of the contest. As Chadwick pointed out:

It is mid-season for South in the Victorian Premier League, and pre-season for Victory. There was nothing riding on the game. Remarkably, on a cold, wintry Melbourne evening, more than 7,000 spectators turned up to watch.

That astonishing fact is worth repeating: Over 7,000 fans came out to watch a practice match, mid-week, in Melbourne, in winter.

Adelaide United struggled to equal that for a vital Asian Champions League game. That so many eager football fans turned out says a lot for the sporting and football culture in Melbourne. It says a lot for the solid supporter base of South Melbourne, and it says a lot for the growing relevance and credibility of football in this country.

Negative, one-sided reporting is hardly a rarity at the Herald Sun. When it comes to football (of the soccer variety), they appear to have been pissed off a long time ago. Maybe it’s because the Age has been a sponsor of the Melbourne Victory since the first season. Maybe it’s something more sinister. In any case, it’s bad news for the FFA and the Victory as they work hard at changing Australians’ mindset about football.