One round left in the A-League season and our CFG cousins down under can finish anywhere from their current standing of 3rd to 5th. Their last match of the regular season will air on ESPN3/WatchESPN App Sunday morning at 5 am. Their elimination final playoff match will occur the following weekend but is not yet scheduled.
Melbourne City 2017 A-League Playoffs
- Thread starter LeeNYCFC
- Start date
They play a 27 game season? Who plays a season with an odd number of games so everyone has a home/road imbalance? I guess everyone plays each other 3 times, but still. Weird Aussies.
Under the current format they alternate home/ road year to year so that any team they hosted twice the previous year they'll only host once the next. But yes definitely does not make for a uniform competition, so kudos to Melbourne City on a successful 14 road match season.
I don't think anyone really likes it that way, but it's kind of forced on them by the low revenues of A-League clubs. Bearing in mind that Australia is of a similar size to the continental US, so the annual travel is comparable to MLS, the clubs barely make $10m a year in total revenue, with Melbourne Victory setting a league record for profit a year ago by banking the princely sum of AUD$1.5m (USD$1.1m). In that kind of climate, clubs could genuinely go bust by having to add another five away games a season.
Oh I'm sure it makes sense. In fact, whenever a system incorporates an unusual feature, it almost always is due to unusual circumstances that makes it clearly the best option. People rarely depart from the norm otherwise.
In case you were wondering how the game ended up:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/footba...-to-home-final-after-losing-ninegoal-thriller
If you don't watch any of the other highlights, dear God at least please watch the final goal. It has to be seen to be believed (and I don't mean in the same way that Villa's did).
Incidentally, Melbourne City still finished 4th, which has set them up with a play-off match against...Perth Glory again.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/footba...-to-home-final-after-losing-ninegoal-thriller
If you don't watch any of the other highlights, dear God at least please watch the final goal. It has to be seen to be believed (and I don't mean in the same way that Villa's did).
Incidentally, Melbourne City still finished 4th, which has set them up with a play-off match against...Perth Glory again.
Melbourne City's season comes to an end losing 2-0 to Perth in Melbourne. The winner was already locked into facing Sydney, so chances of a deep run were slim. But, the performance was pretty lackluster and cemented Perth's dominance over City for the year after taking 7 points from 3 regular season matches.
Melbourne City will return when the A-League starts up again in October.
Melbourne City will return when the A-League starts up again in October.
In fairness, for their entire history Melbourne City have had very uninspiring managers, and when their long-standing useless heap of a previous manager left in January they ended up keeping his assistant as caretaker, despite him barely having any managerial experience. CFG recently brought in Roy Hodgson to do a bit of defensive coaching and to train up their coaching staff, and it says it all that their fans are for the most part clinging on to the hope that he might be retained as manager next season.
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