SM
Bigfooty Legend
Unpickable?
-
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A-League 2022/23 A-League Men Grand Final Thread - Melbourne City v Mariners
- Thread starter giggler99
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A-League
Unpickable?
SM
Bigfooty Legend
I'm aware of where he's going. Why does that make him unpickable?
royboy2
Average Old Bastard
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Good to see Melbourne City making a stand choosing to boycott the Grand final
SM
Bigfooty Legend
So that suddenly makes him unpickable for a game in ten days?
We picked players who were in Middle Eastern leagues..
- Thread starter
- Moderator
- #107
Never say this league and the Grand Final doesn't mean anything it means a hell of a lot to people the Mariners can attest to that.
keepup.com.au
‘The club was gone’: Mariners CEO breaks down in incredible Grand Final interview
At the height of the pandemic, the Mariners CEO was convinced: 'The club was gone'. On Saturday night, he watched his club win the Isuzu UTE A-League Championship.
keepup.com.au
SM
Bigfooty Legend
Ok? So answer my question about how he's unpickable for a game in ten days?
SM
Bigfooty Legend
Or he could come back on loan in the Indian offseason like ALF did in reverse. Just felt like calling him unpickable was a huge overreaction.
- Thread starter
- Moderator
- #114
Four Grand Finals in a row for City for one win! That's really poor no matter which way you look at it. In two of those loses they where favorites and bottled it hard! Do they celebrate the premiers plate a lot harder than they should? Is it a cultural thing within the club? Do they have Champion players and not a champion team etc..? Do they need a rebuild? new coach? Jesus its gonna be hard to have faith in Rado Vidosic after a 6-1 hammering in a Grand Final!
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CCM - 18 years of glorious history and tradition, not like those johnny-come-latelys trying to serve growing geographical regions
- Thread starter
- Moderator
- #116
Vince Rugari's recap on Jason Cummings and the Grand Final!
On Saturday night, he had the last laugh. Quite literally. The A-League grand final was his last match for the Central Coast Mariners, the club where the affable 27-year-old has turned his career around – and this was some way to go out, with a hat-trick and the Joe Marston Medal as best afield.
A big, fat, life-changing contract awaits for Cummings with Indian club Mohun Bagan, an open secret which he finally confirmed pre-match. He will go there as a champion of Australia, and with a special place in Mariners history, having spearheaded a stunning 6-1 rout of Melbourne City at CommBank Stadium to end the club’s 10-year silverware drought.
There is little doubt he will also spearhead the team’s celebrations, and probably win the best on ground award there, too.
“Have you ever seen the film Project X?” he said when asked, post-match, what the next few hours of his life might look like.
Cummings scored the opener and then two penalties in the second half – the first after Andrew Nabbout shoved substitute Jacob Farrell, the second stemming from a harsh handball call on Callum Talbot, who slid to try and cut off Farrell’s cross. Together, they killed off any hope of a City comeback.
Then Beni Nkololo’s 83rd-minute header, set up by a breathtaking Sam Silvera ball, killed it again. And just for good measure, Moresche’s goal in injury time killed it some more.
“You can’t buy class, at the end of the day,” said Mariners coach Nick Montgomery.
“You can have as much money as you want, but you can’t buy class, and these boys are class. That tonight, that performance, was utter class, against a very good Melbourne City team. We’ve got a lot of players in there with big hearts. [This] club is the smallest club with the biggest heart and I thought tonight you saw that.”
The opening 20 minutes were tight, tense, and gave little hint of the footballing massacre that was to come. It all began when Nkololo broke down the right and sent in a brilliant cross which fell right in Cummings’ lap. His first shot was blocked by Curtis Good, who tumbled to the ground as Cummings pounced on the loose ball.
City looked a little shell-shocked, but there was much, much more where that came from. Just after the half-hour mark, an incredible scything run down the opposite flank by Silvera opened City up again, and there was nothing his marker Nuno Reis could do about it. Silvera kept going, and going, and going, until he was suddenly inside the box and the ball in the back of the net.
City promptly struck back to make it 2-1 five minutes from the break after some smart interplay between Good and Marco Tilio unlocked Jamie Maclaren. His cutback was smashed home by Richard van der Venne. Yet were it not for the outstretched legs of Tom Glover, who denied Nkololo in added time, they would have conceded again.
The real City finally emerged on the other side of half-time, and the pressure they piled on the Mariners was relentless. But so, too, was Central Coast’s rearguard, led brilliantly by Nectar Triantis, who is reportedly bound for Sunderland, and Vanuatu international Brian Kaltak, whose prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau flew to Sydney specifically to watch him play.
They kept them at bay until Nabbout gave away the first penalty in the 66th minute, and from there, they unravelled. For City, who were regarded as heavy favourites, this was an unmitigated disaster, a total and utter psychological capitulation.
Melbourne City have been the best team all year – for a few years, actually – but their hopes of an A-League dynasty may have evaporated. They have finished top of the table for the last three seasons but have lost three of the last four grand finals. Like it or not, that is how champions are crowned in this country, and on the one night that mattered the most, they fell to pieces.
“I have no words,” said coach Rado Vidosic. “It looked like they wanted to win the game more than us. They outplayed us first half, they bullied us, they won every 50-50. I just can’t explain what happened, what went wrong. Probably it’s not the tactical components, it’s just attitude, mindset.”
City should have been hosting this grand final, were it not for that controversial Destination NSW deal that instead brought it to Parramatta, and, crucially, within driving distance of Gosford – and that might have made all the difference. The Mariners, unsurprisingly, had the vast majority of the support. Don’t blame them, though; it wasn’t their decision.
An off-season of upheaval now looms for City, who will lose retiring skipper Scott Jamieson, Belgium-bound Socceroo Jordan Bos and probably Tilio and Aiden O’Neill as well. It would shock nobody if they rebuild successfully and make it straight back to this stage, but the bottom line is this particular group of players should have won more trophies.
www.smh.com.au
Cummings gets last laugh as Mariners destroy City to win A-League title
Jason Cummings was persona non grata in Scotland barely a year ago – cut loose by his old club for allegedly being “unfit to train” the morning after strolling out on stage in front of 15,000 people at a public event in Glasgow dressed, head to toe, as The Joker.On Saturday night, he had the last laugh. Quite literally. The A-League grand final was his last match for the Central Coast Mariners, the club where the affable 27-year-old has turned his career around – and this was some way to go out, with a hat-trick and the Joe Marston Medal as best afield.
A big, fat, life-changing contract awaits for Cummings with Indian club Mohun Bagan, an open secret which he finally confirmed pre-match. He will go there as a champion of Australia, and with a special place in Mariners history, having spearheaded a stunning 6-1 rout of Melbourne City at CommBank Stadium to end the club’s 10-year silverware drought.
There is little doubt he will also spearhead the team’s celebrations, and probably win the best on ground award there, too.
“Have you ever seen the film Project X?” he said when asked, post-match, what the next few hours of his life might look like.
Cummings scored the opener and then two penalties in the second half – the first after Andrew Nabbout shoved substitute Jacob Farrell, the second stemming from a harsh handball call on Callum Talbot, who slid to try and cut off Farrell’s cross. Together, they killed off any hope of a City comeback.
Then Beni Nkololo’s 83rd-minute header, set up by a breathtaking Sam Silvera ball, killed it again. And just for good measure, Moresche’s goal in injury time killed it some more.
“You can’t buy class, at the end of the day,” said Mariners coach Nick Montgomery.
“You can have as much money as you want, but you can’t buy class, and these boys are class. That tonight, that performance, was utter class, against a very good Melbourne City team. We’ve got a lot of players in there with big hearts. [This] club is the smallest club with the biggest heart and I thought tonight you saw that.”
The opening 20 minutes were tight, tense, and gave little hint of the footballing massacre that was to come. It all began when Nkololo broke down the right and sent in a brilliant cross which fell right in Cummings’ lap. His first shot was blocked by Curtis Good, who tumbled to the ground as Cummings pounced on the loose ball.
City looked a little shell-shocked, but there was much, much more where that came from. Just after the half-hour mark, an incredible scything run down the opposite flank by Silvera opened City up again, and there was nothing his marker Nuno Reis could do about it. Silvera kept going, and going, and going, until he was suddenly inside the box and the ball in the back of the net.
City promptly struck back to make it 2-1 five minutes from the break after some smart interplay between Good and Marco Tilio unlocked Jamie Maclaren. His cutback was smashed home by Richard van der Venne. Yet were it not for the outstretched legs of Tom Glover, who denied Nkololo in added time, they would have conceded again.
The real City finally emerged on the other side of half-time, and the pressure they piled on the Mariners was relentless. But so, too, was Central Coast’s rearguard, led brilliantly by Nectar Triantis, who is reportedly bound for Sunderland, and Vanuatu international Brian Kaltak, whose prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau flew to Sydney specifically to watch him play.
They kept them at bay until Nabbout gave away the first penalty in the 66th minute, and from there, they unravelled. For City, who were regarded as heavy favourites, this was an unmitigated disaster, a total and utter psychological capitulation.
Melbourne City have been the best team all year – for a few years, actually – but their hopes of an A-League dynasty may have evaporated. They have finished top of the table for the last three seasons but have lost three of the last four grand finals. Like it or not, that is how champions are crowned in this country, and on the one night that mattered the most, they fell to pieces.
“I have no words,” said coach Rado Vidosic. “It looked like they wanted to win the game more than us. They outplayed us first half, they bullied us, they won every 50-50. I just can’t explain what happened, what went wrong. Probably it’s not the tactical components, it’s just attitude, mindset.”
City should have been hosting this grand final, were it not for that controversial Destination NSW deal that instead brought it to Parramatta, and, crucially, within driving distance of Gosford – and that might have made all the difference. The Mariners, unsurprisingly, had the vast majority of the support. Don’t blame them, though; it wasn’t their decision.
An off-season of upheaval now looms for City, who will lose retiring skipper Scott Jamieson, Belgium-bound Socceroo Jordan Bos and probably Tilio and Aiden O’Neill as well. It would shock nobody if they rebuild successfully and make it straight back to this stage, but the bottom line is this particular group of players should have won more trophies.
Cummings gets last laugh as Mariners destroy City to win A-League title
Socceroo Jason Cummings bagged a hat-trick and the Joe Marston Medal as the Central Coast Mariners claimed their first championship in a decade in stunning style on Saturday night.
Bont2Bruce
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Oh this is a fun game.
Let's compare Melbourne Victory's last four years and come up with suitable adjectives to describe their collective performance in that time!
If Melbourne City were really poor no matter which way you look at it, then Melbourne Victory in the same time frame were....
- Moderator
- #118
Which were already covered by existing teams and whose participation wasnt exactly demanded by the people in these "regions"
AussieHool
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Mariners: Team built around academy players
Melbourne City: Team built around mercenaries
Melbourne City: Team built around mercenaries
How many of the team last night came through the CCM academy?
- Thread starter
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- #122
yeah Victory have been shithouse the last four seasons nobody is denying that, I'm not comparing the two clubs here I'm assessing City and their poor Grand Final showings.
Victory are TRASH
acm21
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The total national audience was up 51% on the 2021-22 Grand Final and up 62% in 25 to 54s, 58% in under 50s and 39% in 16 to 39s. The match was also #2 in its timeslot on 10 in total people and key demographics.
t.co
Football Fans Had Finals Fever Delivering A-Leagues Season Success. - Paramount ANZ
Football Fans Flocked To The Broadcast Of The Isuzu UTE A-League Grand Final Seeing The Central Coast Mariners Take Out The Championship For The First Time In A Decade. Saturday’s Isuzu UTE A-League Grand Final was won by underdogs Central Coast Mariners...
t.co
