Goals! Goals! And more farken goals!

To celebrate a record-breaking 33-goal round of @aleaguemen's action, Robbie and Macca thought they'd swim against the tide and get a goalkeeper on to talk about conceding 5.5 goals per game... An extra long episode to keep youse busy for the international break until the best league in the world returns in two weeks!
Save farken!

#football #soccer #aleagues

Transcript

Ronaldingo (00:07.423)
Adelaide 4, MacArthur 5, Western Sydney Wanderers 4, Melbourne Victory 2, Perth 1, Brisbane 3, Auckland 2, Mariners 2, Newcastle 2, Western United 6, then Sydney FC 1, Wellington Phoenix 1. There was a lot of talk.

this weekend about 33 goals scored in the A league. It's the most in the history of an A league round. Everyone's got the trumpets out blowing. What an amazing entertaining league it is. Well, we thought we'd get a goalkeeper on to talk about is everyone really happy about a league that scores 33 goals in six fucking matches? I think the average was something like five point eight goals per game. I thought obviously

Daniel McBreen (00:53.659)
You

Jamie Young (00:55.864)
Ha ha.

Ronaldingo (01:06.651)
immediately of the great song lyrics from post-punk Melbourne band Crime and the City Solution back from the mid-80s. And in their song, The Dictator, the guy sings, I dreamed of an ice machine. In the dream, I dragged the machine from one hot spot to the next, spots populated by brown skinned babies who, while seemingly very young,

were in fact extremely old. And all these beautiful and innocent children with their knowing eyes and their wild neurotic dances did not want my ice machine. Well this, people, I think is where we're at in the A-League because here on A-League Off Air we like to swim against the fucking tide. You people can take your ice machine of goals, pumpin' out, 5.8 per game. I'm no Euro snob.

But Franco Berese would not have fucking stood for this. Okay? Alright, let's leave it there. Well done everyone on your 33 goals. Daniel McBrain, did you enjoy this? Or did you just think, what the fuck is going on?

Jamie Young (02:09.122)
Hahaha

Daniel McBreen (02:22.501)
Well, I'm gonna go with the positives today, Rob, because as we said before we came on air and off air, it's a cold day in Newcastle. I've got my hoodie and my old school trackies on. I've got my Uggs on and there's no better day than today to go, I'm going back to bed.

But I'm gonna come out with a positive attitude and I'm not going to look at the fucking horrendous defending across the weekend. I'm gonna talk about the 33 goals and how fantastic it is and entertaining it is. My lyrics aren't as good as yours. I just tweeted that I thought it was Motley Crue's goals, goals, goals. I thought that's what I've always thought it said. Never, you know, never one to get the lyrics.

Ronaldingo (03:03.935)
Motley Crue wasn't at the beach boys? Fucking hell.

Daniel McBreen (03:08.411)
Never one to get the lyrics wrong me ever so I've always thought that Mottler Crew said, girls, girls, goals. But yeah, look, heaps of them, plenty to talk about and fuck me, we've got two goalkeepers in a row in two weeks. I don't know what the world is coming to. I don't know why we're starting to be friendly to them but my goodness, two goalkeepers in a row. Now let's hear what he left to say about all these goals.

Ronaldingo (03:31.394)
Ha

Jamie Young (03:34.126)
You need a bit of wisdom. That's what that is. And someone to fight the...

Daniel McBreen (03:36.981)
Hahaha!

Ronaldingo (03:39.113)
Well, we were actually exactly. I was thinking about this the other day, who the goalkeepers, my partner was saying they're like the bass player in a band. And I was thinking, no, but footballers think that goalkeepers can't play football. So they've got to be the drummer. Surely they're the drummer in every band that, you know, it's just there by mistake, aren't they? Anyway, exactly.

Jamie Young (04:02.486)
So we're just at the back of the stage hidden by drum kits. They're replaceable. Dispensable.

Daniel McBreen (04:05.527)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ronaldingo (04:09.375)
Well, not anymore, Mr. Jamie Young. Our guest is, you may have recognized the voice, if you're watching on YouTube, you will recognize the jaw line that is what, the best A-League jaw, a mix of, what is it, Bruce Wayne and Don Draper from Mad Men.

Daniel McBreen (04:09.739)
I have to say... Whoa.

Jamie Young (04:22.478)
What?

Daniel McBreen (04:28.699)
with a little bit of Desperate Dan thrown in for those English comics, people know those comics from years ago in England. But he's also probably the smartest goalkeeper I've... No, no, Desperate Dan.

Ronaldingo (04:32.655)
that dusted dusted lead and wasn't

Jamie Young (04:32.759)
Pretend.

Ronaldingo (04:39.859)
This pretend or?

Daniel McBreen (04:40.379)
Not many goalkeepers I know are actually very intellectual, they're all dumb as fuck. Or lunatics. This guy's fucking intelligent, which is... I don't know what's going on here, Jamie. What's... You're gonna be a doctor and you know, you're a goalkeeper as well. Isn't that an oxymoron there?

Jamie Young (04:46.446)
Bit loopy.

Ronaldingo (04:46.719)
you

Jamie Young (04:59.522)
we've got to pave the way, we've got to make a change to the perception of goalkeepers. And I think I'm playing a part in that.

Ronaldingo (05:04.926)
You

Daniel McBreen (05:07.157)
It's gonna take a lot more than just you mate. The numbers are really fucking stacked against ya.

Ronaldingo (05:07.929)
Hahaha.

You

Jamie Young (05:12.462)
I'm having a look at the league at the minute. Who's got a brain between the ears there as well? There's a few big fellas in there.

Ronaldingo (05:22.227)
Well, but Jamie, on the pitch, mean, obviously you're a smart cookie off it, but on the pitch, you were just as psycho as every other goalkeeper, weren't you? Yeah. Did I read somewhere or hear something that you were into your heavy metal as well? You're a bit of a, you know, a crazy head banger or not?

Jamie Young (05:31.533)
yeah, yeah, standard. Yeah, you've got to be able to.

Jamie Young (05:42.67)
Yeah, yeah, liked heavy metal since forever. And when I played in the UK, my mate, he got friendly with Tool. I don't know if you've heard of a band called Tool, really famous band, and he became mates with a band. And they're still friends to this day. we used to see them when they came over and we used to go to a lot of festivals over there. was epic. was, you'd be on the side of the stage watching bands, know, top, top bands as well. So yeah.

Ronaldingo (05:46.655)
you

Ronaldingo (06:09.145)
is bleeding. Yeah, brilliant.

Daniel McBreen (06:10.459)
Yeah, and it's a, that all ties in nicely because Tool, Stinkfist, you guys wear gloves, know, all that kind of stuff all rolls in together, doesn't it? So, yeah. I know Tool, mate. Oh yeah, I know quite a bit of their stuff. I'm a bit of a fan as well. They're older stuff, yeah.

Jamie Young (06:11.244)
He's bleeding. Yeah.

Jamie Young (06:18.99)
See Danny knows, he knows their songs, he knows. There you go.

Jamie Young (06:30.56)
Yeah, they're tough, they're tough.

Ronaldingo (06:31.391)
Alright, well I don't know what the fuck you guys are talking about. I'm Australian, punk and exactly, a bit of alternative country music. Don't mind a bit of David Bowie. true. Lou Reed. That's going back though. That's, I've actually, I was thinking of a Leonard Cohen song for one, but I'm gonna have to rewrite the lyrics for one intro about, to Bird on the Wire. I think that'd be hilarious.

Daniel McBreen (06:33.657)
Yeah, because you only like really obscure shit that no one else knows.

Jamie Young (06:37.634)
David Bowie or something.

Jamie Young (06:44.718)
I thought you

Jamie Young (06:57.112)
go.

Daniel McBreen (06:57.807)
You say you've already picked the song. You've picked the song. You just gotta wait for the right time.

Ronaldingo (07:00.199)
Yeah, I've got the song. And so now I'm just exactly. I've got a few, cause this week with the 33 girls, I actually came up with three possible lyric quotes. Well, one's a book, Dr. Zeus book actually, where I was thinking this is highly appropriate, but we'll get to that. We'll get to that. All right. Without any further ado, I'm Robbie Thompson, Daniel McBreen.

Jamie Young (07:05.346)
Hahaha

Daniel McBreen (07:14.491)
Yeah, you're on my level now.

Jamie Young (07:21.217)
I'm

Ronaldingo (07:29.897)
who just said the word oxymoron. Normally it's just moron when it comes to him. Jamie Young, our intellectual goalkeeper, who is doing a doctorate at the moment, a PhD. I think it's in, how do I, what do I say? In performance, isn't it? Sports performance.

Jamie Young (07:46.732)
Sports coaching, sports coaching. Yes, sports coaching, yeah.

Ronaldingo (07:49.993)
Coaching, okay, and about how to get the best, how to break small children, how to break their will.

Jamie Young (07:56.59)
And just picking the part, you know, picking the part manager as well, just looking at them, just shaking your head the whole time.

Ronaldingo (08:00.671)
you

Daniel McBreen (08:03.195)
You've been doing that a lot. Here we go.

Ronaldingo (08:04.795)
that's what we're here for that. Excellent. All right. Well, let's start with the nine goal thriller because what better way to start with that? It could have been 5-5 when Jovanovich equalized in the 90 whatever minute only to see it ruled out for offside just. I would go through all the goal scorers, but there's barely any point. In fact, no, that's not fair because Chris O'Connor-Meadie scored his first goal for MacArthur.

Adamson provided a goal and assist. Yeah. Well, he scored in the cup final for Melbourne victor a few years ago. Then Ryan Kitto scored a fucking screamer into the top corner. That would be up there with your, thunder fucked into the top corner Macca. And that's a bit of a heavy metal type phrase as well for, for Ryan Kitto's goal. Stefan Mork chipped in and then.

Daniel McBreen (08:33.947)
what we're going to save for a decade.

Jamie Young (08:45.23)
Hmm.

Ronaldingo (09:00.103)
Miracles, wonders will never cease. Luke Bratton with a second half double. I mean, this is the ignominy for Adelaide. Not only losing at home to a MacArthur side who hadn't scored in nearly four hours, who have lost Jed Drew, Valéry Algermain, Ariat Piolle, have lost all their strikers. They conceded five, two of them from Luke Bratton, who also hadn't scored in years and years and years. I'll go to Macca first before we get to Jamie. Analyze this. Can you? Is it possible?

Daniel McBreen (09:29.881)
Well, I'll be honest, and I'm looking back now to just see Adelaide's record in their last, what is it, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight games, one win in eight. And I must admit, after the 15th minute I went, Adelaide aren't making the six, I'd made my mind up. They're done, they've fallen, the wheels have fallen off, they're not getting results, they're down two-nil against a Mc...

Ronaldingo (09:37.573)
Eight. One in eight.

Jamie Young (09:40.535)
Hmm.

Ronaldingo (09:51.145)
They could have gone second with a win.

Daniel McBreen (09:52.955)
Yeah, but hold the fucking phone. And then the fucking seesaw of emotions watching this game, I'm like, 15 minutes in, I'm like, well they're fucked, they're gone, they're not gonna make the six, they're the team that's missing out on the six. Then they come back and get the three, two, and I'm like, no, no, they've found their mojo, here they are, they're back, they're back, Adelaide's back, fucking kiddos scoring bombs, Morks scoring bombs, yeah, they're flying now.

Jamie Young (09:56.214)
Hahaha.

Daniel McBreen (10:16.237)
And then they go down again and like, yeah, I'm not sure they're going to make the six. I'm not sure what's happening with these guys now. And then they, you know, as Auckland, Adelaide always do in Adelaide, they don't die a death, a slow death, do they? They make it exciting. They come back, they hit the post, they have a disallowed goal. They shoot over in the last minute with Ivanovic. And it's just entertainment. It has to be written in the constitution that Adelaide play home games on a Friday night. I don't give a fuck.

Ronaldingo (10:37.908)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (10:45.4)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (10:46.141)
That's it, home games only on a Friday night because shit happens on Fridays in Adelaide. The crowd turns up, the mojo happens, whatever way it goes, there's always exciting football and we get to see something. Analyze it? How the fuck do you analyze it? You don't, because it was just a game of, well you have a crack, now you have a crack, now you have a crack, you have a crack. And it's just.

Look, I said I don't want to go on the, shit defensive side of things, so I won't. there was a couple of good bombs in there. Nah. Yeah. Couple of good bombs in there, but also,

Ronaldingo (11:15.664)
come on! Okay, we'll save that for Jamie. Jamie can talk to us about that.

Jamie Young (11:18.2)
Ha ha ha.

Daniel McBreen (11:22.521)
Keeley Adamson for MacArthur playing in a more advanced role. I thought he was unreal, exceptional, especially in the first half. He was everywhere, involved in everything, winning the ball, scoring goals, getting assists. I thought he was really, really good and didn't expect him to see him in that more advanced role because we haven't before. It was just a thoroughly entertaining game, wasn't it? I wouldn't want to be a supporter of either of those clubs watching them with any kind of...

confidence going forward in their team because fuck me they were both just so open.

Ronaldingo (11:58.111)
Well, would you want to be a goalkeeper in either of those two teams? Jamie Young, what did you make of this one?

Jamie Young (12:02.638)
Yeah, as Danny said, you know...

You always see something happen at Adelaide. It's a sending off, there's controversy. You see goals as well, you know. So in terms of the goalies, I think that's probably where Adelaide is struggling at the minute. They had the other young fella in for a bit and it kind of blew up. And then this game, De Leonov, know, a guy of his age needs to show more consistency and, you know, you can't expect to make a top six if you're not showing that at the back.

Ronaldingo (12:22.515)
Yeah, Ethan.

Jamie Young (12:38.441)
Yeah, to be a bit dire on that one. I think that's probably where they're letting themselves down a wee bit. But Carl Viet seems to do it every year. He loses players every year and he seems to churn out teams. He's just like, how are you doing this sort of thing? And so I think they'll be there.

Ronaldingo (12:41.096)
Ha ha ha.

Ronaldingo (12:55.775)
Well, is OK. On this point, then, because I was thinking Adelaide midway through the season, we're all going, you know, they've got 100 kids that are eligible for the young Socceroos that that go off and win the Asian Cup. They're they're selling players, they're bringing them through. Everyone's saying, you know, because last year they struggled Adelaide in that, you know, little transition year. They were back with the Vengeance playing the kids again. The latest one, Harry Crawford, that we saw everyone saying, Carl's doing a great job.

But they go through these moments of in-form and suddenly out-of-form. And we're seeing it across the league. We've had teams that were out-of-form that we wrote off that are Western Sydney in particular who will get to, who are now looking fucking world beaters. three months ago we were saying, can this get any worse? What the fuck's going on at the club? The fans are staying away, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So how do you analyze what Carl is doing and what his team? Because let's not forget as well,

Jamie Young (13:37.646)
Hmm.

Ronaldingo (13:55.143)
He's also lost a couple of members of staff as well. Millsy went off to join the Malaysian FA. I mean, how do you judge what he's doing considering he's almost been given a free pass just because of the kids that they're bringing through?

Jamie Young (14:12.202)
I think ever since he's been there, he's been in a situation where he's come through COVID and he's not got the wealth of depth of other clubs and he's somehow managed to bring players in that are young and they produce top standard. I think probably the thing that they struggle a little bit is with that depth and they do blow up. But he seems to have unearthed another young player there. So I think

Someone like Eugene there is good for the staff. It's hard to see Milsie go because that stability around the club is key. I think Carl's done every year that I think he does a great job for what he's been given. It's exceptional effort.

Daniel McBreen (14:57.433)
I think it's it depends on what his KPIs are. What does the club want? Does the club want to win? Well then they need to give him some more money to go and get some more experienced players because the old adage is old saying you don't win anything with kids because kids are...

Jamie Young (15:02.691)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (15:14.553)
by nature, so hot and cold because they're still learning their trade, they're still not the finished article, then they are gonna have periods where they are just off and they'll try their hardest, they'll make mistakes. Yeah, senior players will go through those and be more balanced throughout the year. So what's their KPIs? Do they want him to win the league?

Jamie Young (15:18.094)
Hmm.

Daniel McBreen (15:33.883)
If they want him to win the league, they're not really giving him the tools to do that, are they? I think he's done an exceptional job in the time he's been in charge. If their KPIs is to keep bringing kids through and then selling them off to keep the club going along and ticking along, well, he's ticked that box by a mile. If it's to win trophies, well, if I was in Carl's position, I'd be saying, well, you're not giving me the tools really to do that. I need a few more senior players or experienced players because when you look at, he's got, still got, you know, the couple of Spaniards there, but they're 37 and 38.

Jamie Young (15:49.827)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (16:03.957)
now aren't they? They're not playing all the time. You need to start refreshing that squad with experienced players in there and you can still bring the young ones through. Look at Crawford, his first game was after playing 90 minutes in MPL and then came off the bench to play and he's played pretty much ever since hasn't he? And he's done well, he scored a bomb last week. So there's another one coming through but...

Jamie Young (16:04.578)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (16:22.259)
Yep. Yep.

Daniel McBreen (16:27.469)
Is someone like that at that age going to help you win a league? Probably not. He's not going to be consistent enough across the time and in pressure moments. He's probably going to make wrong decisions and mistakes sometimes that it's going to cost you. So I think that's a big thing with what is the club asking of Carl to say, is he a success or not? And I think with what he's had at his disposal, yes. For him to make finals...

Jamie Young (16:31.788)
Nah. Nah.

Jamie Young (16:54.466)
Hmm.

Daniel McBreen (16:55.749)
was it four years in a row or whatever it was and then he missed one last year that was the dip and there they're right back in the mix again now. Yeah, he's doing a good job. And you know, I just, but yeah.

Ronaldingo (16:58.591)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (17:03.532)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (17:05.215)
Okay, so devil's advocate question. Devil's advocate question. What are MacArthur asking of Miele Sturzowski because they sold half their fucking team in January. So they're not asking him to win the league. So who is asking their coach to win the league in this 13th?

Daniel McBreen (17:16.463)
I think it's.

Daniel McBreen (17:23.951)
Sydney, Victory, Auckland, Western United, now maybe, but I don't think they would have thought that at the start. At the start of the season they would have said no, I would have, yeah. Sydney, I reckon the real ones at start of this year, Sydney you can tell, they've gone out to get quality players and they've gone, we're gonna win this league. Now we'll talk about them in a bit.

Jamie Young (17:26.786)
City.

Ronaldingo (17:30.077)
Yeah, you think? At the start of the season? Yeah. When you talk about KPIs, when you set out your season and say, here it is.

Ronaldingo (17:48.211)
Win the league or win the ACL2?

Daniel McBreen (17:50.619)
fucking win they set out with that squad to win everything they wanted to do the Mariners of last year win the league win the championship and win the ACL too that's what they were setting out to do with the squad they assembled victory I think they assembled a squad that they thought they could win the league and Auckland obviously as well I think we've all learnt very quickly that with the coach that they thought who's got experience to do it as well so they were probably the three that were the standouts at the start of the year the rest I think were

Ronaldingo (17:54.739)
Yeah, okay.

Jamie Young (18:08.334)
Hmm.

Ronaldingo (18:09.469)
with a coach they thought could win them the league as well.

Daniel McBreen (18:20.409)
Can we make finals? That kind of stuff. sorry, yeah, I apologise. Sorry, yes, City, I forgot about them. Sorry, Jamie. I know you love them dearly and they're close to your heart. City's the other one, I think. Yeah, they, and I forgot about them because they've had such a horror run with all their injuries. You sort of forgot that all those big name players were there because they've been out. But yeah, City were the other. I think they were the big four that went, we want to win it this year.

Jamie Young (18:22.37)
You don't think Citi were part of that group?

Ronaldingo (18:31.455)
you

Jamie Young (18:38.765)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (18:46.331)
The rest I think it was like, alright, you know, on a sliding scale to can we make finals or can we be top three or four, can we make finals, can we not be at the bottom of the fucking league.

Ronaldingo (18:58.943)
Okay, word on MacArthur then. Five, four winners in this. Jamie, for a team that won the cup at the start of the season, won their first game over Perth, 6-1, looked like, you know, were, that Mille Stojovski had turned around after that difficult season last year when he took over the reins. They are now what? I think it's four points, no, not even, out of the...

I'll grab the standings. Should have prepared that perhaps a little bit earlier. But they'd lost a lot of games in a row. And now they are five points outside the six, but two points behind Sydney. And they're one of the teams that have played 21 games, as opposed to most who have played 20, and Brisbane who have only played 19. Can MacArthur lift themselves enough to make finals, Jamie, do you think?

Daniel McBreen (19:29.381)
They gotta be cuz.

Jamie Young (19:30.638)
Ha ha ha!

Jamie Young (19:56.342)
That is a tough one, isn't it? Five games to go, five point deficit, not impossible, but again, they've lost a lot of their players in January. It would be tough, I think, for them to get there. But I think Millet has done, again, unbelievable to come into a club there with, you know,

Ronaldingo (19:58.259)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie Young (20:18.956)
I don't know what their strategy is. think they do pay decent wages down there, but in terms of an organisation, the branding, the marketing, their identity, it seems like I don't know what that is, to be honest. So I think he's done really well to sort of put a stamp on the footballing pitch. But yeah, I think they're happy to have sold these players. don't think they're... Are they looking to win? Wow, they won the Cup.

They do pay money out, but is there a real strategy behind it, like a city or a Sydney? I don't think it's probably there at the same level. So they're probably happiest.

Ronaldingo (20:56.031)
Well, they'll be in ACL2 next year as well. So they're going to have to, yep.

Daniel McBreen (20:59.023)
Yeah. Boop.

Jamie Young (20:59.521)
SL2.

Daniel McBreen (21:00.987)
If you have a look at them, you've got to give it to them. They brought Valerj a man. Mille's brought in a foreign coach that he knows from overseas who's experienced. They brought in Jarkališ back from overseas. They brought in Arslanicic. They're not afraid to go and get players. They've gone now and tried to replace them again with a centre-back and another attacking player. you can't say that they haven't gone out to try and get players. And I think you'd be doing them a disservice to they weren't trying to assemble a squad that was looking to be competitive.

Jamie Young (21:09.986)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (21:30.971)
the top end. Whether or not it's a strong enough squad to win, I don't know. I think they were probably not far off being that competitive top edge before they sold their players. But if you're going to turn around and get...

whatever they got, one point whatever it was for Pio after playing fucking five to eight games, whatever it was, they'd be crazy to turn that down. Now he's gone to the MLS and he's playing there. Valerj's a man, let's be honest, his contract was coming up, they were gonna get some money for him and he was gonna get a payday in Japan. For all parties there, again, they'd be crazy to not do that. Otherwise he walks away for free at the end of the year.

Jamie Young (21:51.394)
Mm-hmm, yep.

Jamie Young (22:00.822)
It's a win-win.

Daniel McBreen (22:08.207)
with P.O. gone, Jed Drew's gone, they made money off him, played him consistently and now he's gone. That's football and that's what happened and at the end of it, these owners are putting their money on the line and if they can see that in one transfer window we can make $2 million in transfer fees in the Australian market, fucking good on them.

You know, and it's like we said, they've gone and got two foreign players to come in, it's not like they're just going fuck it, play the kids, me like. So you can't say that they aren't trying to do that. Whether they've got the squad now to push on into the finals, I don't know, but look at their next three games, the Jets, Raw, and Central Coast.

Jamie Young (22:29.058)
Yeah, you have to.

Daniel McBreen (22:47.087)
there's potentially, potentially, there's nine points if they get it right. Robbie, I know you just laughed. Yeah, but they will look at that and go, well, there's three teams below us in the league that we think we should be able to beat. So there's nine points. And then their last two games of victory in Western Sydney, so it becomes a lot more difficult there. But if you're gonna make finals, you gotta beat these teams anyway. Don't write them off. It's going to be difficult, but they're still...

Jamie Young (22:47.426)
Yeah, I remember.

Ronaldingo (22:53.961)
Say seven, seven, seven points.

Jamie Young (23:11.522)
Hmm and they're competitive against any team, they?

Daniel McBreen (23:16.215)
Still there, I'm not writing them off yet.

Jamie Young (23:19.906)
Yeah, maybe two.

Ronaldingo (23:19.975)
Well, think they were just about, yeah, but I think they were just about written off honestly before this one. This has given them hope. I mean, they hadn't won since the one-nil win over City that, you know, two months ago before this. So, but where there's life, there's hope. That's far too long to spend on the opening match, gentlemen. So let's go.

Daniel McBreen (23:26.691)
It has.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. 100%.

Jamie Young (23:32.334)
Yeah, right,

Daniel McBreen (23:40.763)
That was fucking nine goals, what a game.

Ronaldingo (23:44.499)
We've got, it's not a five game weekend this one, it was a six game weekend. We're fucking going to be here till Tuesday morning. All right. Western Sydney versus Melbourne victory. well this, exactly. It's true. It's true. So Melbourne victory, two nil up inside 42 minutes looked like perhaps if they'd held on until half time, this would have been a different story.

Daniel McBreen (23:48.15)
shit, sorry, I'll shut up this one.

Daniel McBreen (23:55.163)
Oh, this is a good one, there's so much to talk about!

Jamie Young (23:58.764)
Yeah

Ronaldingo (24:11.549)
I'm not sure. Makar, we were on the call for this one. Krayev pulled one back just before halftime. And then Brandon Burello, Milanovic, Antonsen put the finishing touches all in the last 15 minutes. It was off the bench that Western Sydney really ran away with it. So that shows, well, that's a point to talk about with Stadger's side, that he's got a squad that are suddenly all pulling in the same direction. They're on a great run.

Daniel McBreen (24:34.149)
Yep. Yep.

Ronaldingo (24:41.865)
But, and this is a big but, Jamie, they had two cleared off the line. It could have been 4-1 quite reasonably with an hour played to Melbourne victory. What are victory doing that they just can't take their chances? mean, they brought in Mitch Langerac. That was meant to be the, you know, the missing piece to this puzzle, even though Jack Duncan had been outstanding in the first half of the season.

Jamie Young (24:55.704)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie Young (25:07.662)
did well.

Ronaldingo (25:09.747)
But this was meant to be the calming influence, the confidence, the thing that brought the whole thing together. And the inconsistency is still there. And this was another desperate example of that.

Jamie Young (25:22.616)
Yeah, it's tough. It's tough, isn't it? They know how to assemble a squad. They can't quite, you know, goals change games and put them away. You know, think Piquet was a bit of a loss to them, be honest, that intensity, what he does, that...

what that does to a player, you're in that comfort zone. I don't know Arthur, but I think he's a good coach, but is he a strong motivator? And that coach element that brings players out of their comfort zone on daily basis, that can be the difference between, yeah, I'm going to definitely make sure this ball goes into the back of the net or it gets cleared off the line. I don't know, it's hard to call from afar, but yeah, if you don't take your chances, then a team like Western Sydney will

have opportunities because they do have good quality attacking players and they do have depth to bring off the bench as well. So victory, I think PK is a bit of a loss to them personally.

Daniel McBreen (26:20.869)
well we know PK is the driver of it but a couple of weeks ago I sent through some stats when I was doing the tactician to the people I was doing it with there. At that point, which Melbourne Victory I think had created the most...

big chances in the league throughout the season and they'd missed the most big chances. at the top end of creating them and at the top end of missing them as well. So there's a huge problem. I think this game, what did I say to you at half time Robbie? Be honest, what did I say?

Ronaldingo (26:51.517)
Western Sydney are going to win this one.

Daniel McBreen (26:53.403)
Yeah, I said three, two or four, two, didn't I? I said I just fucking, you could just feel it. And this to me was a tale of two coaches getting their substitutions right and wrong. Stadge got it right. He held back Milanovic from last week, even though he was their top goalscorer. He kept him on the bench because he was on the bench last week from being suspended. Yeah, so he was suspended. So was on the bench, came back, didn't come straight back into the team.

Ronaldingo (27:17.417)
for that,

Daniel McBreen (27:22.991)
But everyone was talking about Nishan Vallupalay and Daniel Arzani, the hell, they get called up for the Socceroos, they've got no outcome. Well, credit to Nishan Velupillay, he got himself a goal.

Jamie Young (27:35.832)
Hmm.

Daniel McBreen (27:36.121)
But Daniel Arzani, I thought was fucking exceptional. For me, he was the best player on the park in the first half. He was dangerous. He looked like he was causing problems all the time. He wasn't just doing what a lot of people say, and I've been very, very critical of him in this as well, doing his little tricks for no reason. Everything was with a purpose. The goal that he set up, was it for Piscopo? Yep, where he, yeah, we can talk about the defensive side of things where Jack Clisby dropped off, but he realized I'm squaring up Kraev for you. Kraev's body's all fucked, and he just dipped his shoulder,

Ronaldingo (27:55.546)
For Piscopo,

Daniel McBreen (28:06.085)
behind him and he played it straight away and he put it across the box. He was doing stuff like that all the time and to take him off at the 60th minute I guarantee you Western Sydney went thank fuck because he was causing them all kinds of problems. was got it he had them on the back foot he was combining with players he was coming on his left he was going out on his right and he actually in that game answered all the critics okay 45 minutes or 60 minutes doesn't answer the critics you need to do it consistently but in that game Daniel Arzani stepped up

Jamie Young (28:17.774)
Hmm.

Daniel McBreen (28:35.965)
and gave the output that he needed and got them on the front foot. And I think that was a poor decision from Arthur Dillis to take him off. I still think he had stuff in the tank to keep them going. Flip the other side for Alex Gersbach to come on was fantastic when he came on. Got forward, put balls in the box, created, and it got an assist I think or created a goal.

Antonson was fantastic when he came on, Milanovic was unreal getting at the ball and running people.

Jamie Young (29:01.645)
Hmm.

Daniel McBreen (29:06.107)
The substitutions and the time they were done completely flipped the game and changed the game. And you're right, victory probably could have been 3-1 or 4-1 up in the early moments of the second half, but they weren't. And it's the story of their season where they don't kill teams off and they don't finish well. And you just knew that Western Sydney were going to come running over the top.

Jamie Young (29:11.566)
Hmm.

Daniel McBreen (29:30.971)
The atmosphere was fantastic but you've got to give it to both sets of fans as well. They created a great atmosphere that as the game went on it was unreal. And Western Sydney looked good and from all of a sudden like you say a little while back we're all like, oh they look like they're all over the place. He's not out to playing, he's not out to not playing. No one's talking about that now. They're just going, oh they're doing all right aren't they? They've got some good results under their belt and they're performing well.

Jamie Young (29:42.979)
Hmm.

Daniel McBreen (29:56.015)
They still look a bit shady at the back at times, but you know they're gonna score goals going forward.

Jamie Young (30:02.734)
Yeah, who's at the back? They've got the young fella from the MPL and who's the other guy? Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (30:06.799)
By the way, Panizopoulos, he was fucking immense. I'm glad you said that, Jamie. Fuck me dead, he was unreal. He bullied.

Ronaldingo (30:10.375)
Yes, so he's the kid from Melbourne. He was at Oakley. Yeah, that's true.

Jamie Young (30:13.869)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (30:18.147)
and not many people do this he was I was watching him in back play and he'd be walking along with Bruno and he'd just pull his as Bruno would go to walk off he'd pull his shirt and pull him back then Bruno would sort of stop then he'd put his shoulder in his back and sort of just bump him you know those things that just annoy the shit out of a striker you know when the referee and the assistants were watching the ball as it was just about to be played he was pulling their shirt then so Bruno would be pulled back on the floor and he'd be looking at the refs going oi and no one had noticed it because they were all watching the other thing or

Jamie Young (30:28.631)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (30:46.231)
you

Daniel McBreen (30:48.221)
He'd go right bang him in the back just as he was about to take off and he'd be off balance and then he'd step in front of him He did all the dirty fucking grubby shit that center backs have been doing for years He put it all into that game and he dominated not only that these distribution those diagonal balls to the other side and occasionally once he just ran through and he fucking dinked that ball into Antitzen or whoever it was and you were like what the fuck he's got everything in his game this young fella. He was unreal

Jamie Young (30:54.402)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (31:04.813)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (31:09.595)
Yeah

Jamie Young (31:14.818)
Yeah. His goal kicks are unbelievable as well. Like a centre half taking a goal kick can actually smack it from 10 yards from the 18 yard box. you're like, holy shit, you know, you can't be too tight because he'll go and do that. And yeah, not a bad find from the NPL. They've done well there. But if Lawrence can sort of...

Daniel McBreen (31:29.497)
Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (31:34.266)
Yeah, very good.

Jamie Young (31:37.826)
you know, dominate a little bit more, I think they're coming good at the right time. You always get that one team, don't you, that comes good at the right time. They could be that one.

Daniel McBreen (31:46.107)
Lawrence has signed a new two and a half year deal as well.

Ronaldingo (31:46.429)
Yeah, that... And he made an amazing save, didn't he, in the first half? Yeah, yeah. Was it second half, was it? Yeah. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie Young (31:49.191)
I see.

Daniel McBreen (31:51.141)
down to his left. Now was it one in the second half, wasn't it? Of Mashash? When Mashash... Yep. Yep.

Jamie Young (31:58.19)
I'm surprised he didn't get called up to the Sockaroos. That was a bit of a surprise to me. I don't know if he's getting to that age or what's happened there, but he's... Is he?

Daniel McBreen (32:04.347)
think he's on standby. I think so, yeah. Yeah, he was up in one of the last camps, wasn't he? Yeah. Yeah.

Ronaldingo (32:06.367)
Well, he was called up recently, wasn't he?

Ronaldingo (32:11.303)
Yeah, I think so. So they've brought in Izzo and Glover. Glover back. Paul Izzo, who was with Popper, obviously at victory. Patrick Beach has been brought in as a train on player as well. Yeah, yeah. So that's what they did with Joe Gauchy, wasn't it? A couple of years ago, think with when Arnie was still they brought in

Jamie Young (32:24.236)
Yeah, they must want to have a look at them. Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (32:33.211)
I think it's good to bring a young one in to have a look at how it is. If he's keeping senior goalkeepers out of their spot, he must be good.

Jamie Young (32:44.674)
I think it really kept me out. I think they just put him in. That was it.

Ronaldingo (32:50.667)
Was there no competition for places? that what we're saying? No. Well, we've got to have, okay. Okay, no, the cat's out of the bag. We've got to have it. That's enough for Western Sydney, Melbourne victory. So there was, yeah, absolutely. City didn't play, so this is the only opportunity we're going to get to chat about City and what's happened this season. And since you're here, Jamie, so you retired officially from professional football. You're still playing.

Daniel McBreen (32:51.459)
you

Jamie Young (32:54.538)
unless he fell off a cliff.

Daniel McBreen (32:55.909)
Ha ha.

Jamie Young (32:58.734)
We can get controversial.

Ronaldingo (33:18.513)
semi pro with Dandenong Thunder down in the Victorian MPL. I guess after, you know, remarkable season when Western United won the league, I mean, that was, I remember calling some of those saves and not to piss in your pocket because we don't fucking do that here on A-League Off Air. that was, there was some fucking unbelievable saves that season. A big part in why Western United won the league. You head over to City, you have a good

Jamie Young (33:34.606)
You

Ronaldingo (33:47.003)
season with them in what was a difficult year with Aurelio up and down and some moments that were more testing than others perhaps over the season. And then this year they've just made the blanket decision. We're going with Patrick Beach. It was a rocky start for him as it was for new goalkeepers that were jumping in, Paraj, Cullen, Pavlisic at the Mariners. We saw Vidakovic at Western Sydney struggle.

Patrick Beach as well, saw Oluwoyemi at Wellington Phoenix. It hasn't been a great year for goalkeepers, 33 goals conceded in the last round. But how did you, how did you, I guess after, you know, coming through a period where you were at the peak of your powers to suddenly sitting on the bench, how did you live with all this?

Jamie Young (34:24.078)
you

Jamie Young (34:35.694)
Oh, yeah, the the fortunate thing for me was, you know, being 39, it's not like you're 30 and you're trying to build a career still, or you still very much, you know, have space in your career to play. was 39, I went, you know, just do another year, and I'll complete my PhD. But you know, cities, you know, they're constrained, just like every other club, and the market is so good, as Danny said, to sell young players, they, you know, they're

It's probably harder being at City in some respects because you're expected to win the league, but you're wanting to players. you're putting young players in that wouldn't have got to look in at training five years ago. They wouldn't have even been training with the first team. And that's not just happening for one or two players. You're seeing at every club five, six players.

you wouldn't even see you at training, let alone a game. And now all of sudden we're celebrating the virtues of 18 year olds at scale. As one of my old teammates said to me, it's madness. That's where the league is. Because they've got to balance their books. Because I think, what is it, 2.6 or 3.2 down to 500. Especially in a market that's hot for young players.

Ronaldingo (35:49.336)
You

Jamie Young (36:00.152)
they've got to do that so you

Ronaldingo (36:01.499)
Well no one can sign anyone can they really? mean it's no one can really we see Sydney bring in big players we've had that discussion we won't have it again but it is very hard to bring in experienced players at the moment so clubs have to play their kids and probably it's going to be like this next season as well.

Jamie Young (36:21.241)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think where this really affects people, I mean, for me, like I made that decision to retire, but you're going to, think between 28 to 33 year old players who are not going to get paid the money that they deserve that the market used to to give them. So, you know,

For me to call it quits wasn't the worst thing in the world. Probably not the way I would have liked in some respect. But for a lot of other players it's going to be worse I think.

Yeah, you're going to see a lot more young players getting opportunities that you probably wouldn't have seen in Danny's era when Danny played at Central Coast. Imagine the young players getting in there. You wouldn't have seen many young players at all. When I was at the Raw, I think we had McLaren and Borello at very best. Apart from that, you were getting a lot of experience. When we won with Western, the average age was about 28. It's just the way the league has evolved.

I think it's good to have some young players, when your central strategy is to go through young players, then you dilute the quality of the league. That's me being honest. You you want to see it.

Daniel McBreen (37:32.121)
I'll be honest with you mate, that's what I've heard. When you talk to senior players across the league, and I'm talking 28 plus who have been probably in that era where they had to really fight for their spot to get in, that's a common theme that you hear is that in the old squads you might have two or three youngsters in there and they've really deserved it. They were the cream of the crop and now you're seeing as you say, five, six, seven, eight just because of the finances. And you're right.

there are going to be deficiencies in areas. Like if we could sit around and talk, I could sit here and talk forever and Robbie won't let me about the defensive frailties that I see.

you know, the league, really. But errors that young guys make, but that's what you expect with young ones. And you're right. I think we build up a bit more of a tolerance with it now because we accept where it is, okay? We know that this is the way the league is and you're gonna have to have those young players in there.

Do we really think that all of them really should be in those squads? Probably not. But I will also say that a lot of the young players are stepping up and we're seeing a lot of young talent come through. it's a fine, it's a double-edged sword. They've got to get their opportunities, but they really have to earn those opportunities.

Ronaldingo (38:51.711)
But this is the whole point, and I think this is what we were chatting with Jamie about his PhD before as well, is that what you demand of these young kids in this current environment and the way we look to nurture young talent and bring them through is not only very different to how it was 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago, but also the economic environment of the league at the moment is you just have to accept it.

Don't we just have to say at the moment, look, young goalkeepers in their first season are going to make mistakes. We're asking a lot of these players to play out from the back. There are going to be mistakes. Hayne Eames the other day, no one's obviously going to rip Hayne Eames and you on either because he's a 16 year old or 17 now who's been playing in the middle of the park for a Mariners side that don't have options. So what's your option apart from saying

You can't be demanding, Jamie, and I know that's one of your things, is that you have to reach a certain level. If you don't reach non-negotiables, then you fall by the wayside. And that's how elite, elite football works all around the world. But here, do we have to accept that the league is not at that point at the moment?

Jamie Young (40:10.326)
Yeah, possibly, possibly. I think, well, I think, you know, clubs will behave in a way that is in reaction to the environment they're in. So, you know, what's the consequence to failing in this league? Where is the consequence for Perth and Brisbane right now? know, whereas if you're Southampton, my old teammate Russell Marden,

Ronaldingo (40:11.327)
Well, can you accept that or not? You shouldn't accept that. Still.

Jamie Young (40:35.5)
couldn't get results for Southampton, you got the sack and they're going to get relegated and that's going to cost them money and that's going to cost people jobs. In the A league, if you suffer and you don't get results, no one's going to have protests at the ground like Man United or Media Hunts or Roy Keans or Gary Neville's. It's not even been talked about. So there's no recourse.

Daniel McBreen (41:01.669)
Well that's, yeah, you're talking about the environment and yeah, that's the environment we're in here, where we have a closed shop and we could go off on massive tangents here, but that's where we are. We have a very small media that is interested, that, but let's.

Jamie Young (41:12.984)
So that.

So that's why we can see a lot of young goalies playing because they're allowed to play in environment that that's right. Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (41:20.217)
and they can grow and learn in that environment where they're not going to be, you're out, you make a mistake, you're gone, which is what you would have come through, You cost the game, fuck, see you later.

Jamie Young (41:28.886)
Yeah, even at the Raw, even at the Raw with, you know, me, myself and Michael Theo were competing. I think, you know, I kept five clean sheets in a row for the Raw in the Champions League and I couldn't.

get into the A-League team because we were playing alternating between Champions League and the A-League. It was only through injury I think he sustained against Western Sydney that I got in. But it was that difficult and that was probably after three years of competing with him at the time. But now you can feel as you get the opportunity. The next five, 10 years will be interesting to see how.

Daniel McBreen (41:56.506)
Yep.

Ronaldingo (42:04.627)
I mean there are pros and

Daniel McBreen (42:06.959)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (42:07.136)
Yeah, I mean, the next five, 10 years, we'll see how that impacts the national team. And you see the other 20s now, you know.

That was a pretty good effort to win that tournament, but all their players were playing. They're playing senior football. And if you're not playing games, then maybe you don't get, you Janovic's and scoring, you know, the other Adelaide players scored that great, this and a half, who scored that great goal as well. it just depends how you look at things. I think there doesn't need to be a balance, but yeah, that's just where it is.

Ronaldingo (42:33.693)
Yeah, kick you on us.

Jamie Young (42:45.04)
output.

Ronaldingo (42:46.087)
needs to be a little bit of balance on the terraces as well. Jamie, you know that I have a great affection for French football. Well, this morning, Montpellier versus Saint-Étienne, was 18th versus 17th, both sides in the relegation zone. And the match abandoned when the Montpellier home fans set fire to the stadium in protest. Having already thrown flares and...

Daniel McBreen (43:08.304)
Excellent. There's a bit of balance there isn't there? yeah. Tell me the positives that came out of that one Robbie.

Jamie Young (43:08.718)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (43:15.837)
Yeah, exactly. I'm just saying that this is that pressure cooker environment. Obviously, that's just negative for the club, for Montpellier.

Jamie Young (43:20.802)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (43:21.327)
Hey, hey, speaking of speaking of crowds and we we know for a long year, lot of years we've had active support in the A-league and we've seen what's happened to those guys for over policing and crackdowns and we've now got one of our rival codes who are now spruiking this new idea of active support come and join our active support let's see how the cops fucking manage them guys

Jamie Young (43:48.59)
It's just...

Ronaldingo (43:49.929)
What's that gonna be? Like the AFL fans with the pom poms and all that fucking get them out of the retirement home and get them to wave shit?

Daniel McBreen (43:53.197)
Now it's in the NRL, I'm pretty sure it's Parramatta I think. They're spruiking this new idea at Combank Stadium to come and have active support and getting there and have this active support area. I want them to be treated the same way that the A-League supporters of active support have been treated and let's see how they fucking like it. Come on, let's move to the next game because I'll go off on another tangent.

Jamie Young (44:03.374)
Yeah, I that.

Jamie Young (44:20.876)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (44:22.161)
All right. Fair call. Fair call as well. Mind you. And I'll just I think I may have mentioned it before, but AFL and NRL have been copying football in the way they do things for decades now. Once the thing all took off, sort of when the Premier League took off in the in 90s, AFL were when I was at PSG, we had every two years, the AFL sent people over to spend time to see how the marketing was going at PSG, what their shirt design partnerships with Jordan.

this and this, what's your pregame entertainment like? What's all this sort of stuff around? How do you deal with fans, sponsors, all this sort of thing? They've been following it, whereas we, perhaps in football in this country, think we know everything, don't necessarily have a centralized way of working forward. Perhaps that's not the case. Let's not go there. Let's talk about the football and what happened on the pitch. Yep.

Daniel McBreen (45:14.873)
Hang on, before we leave Western Sydney, last thing, great Tifo, well done guys. Right, let's go.

Ronaldingo (45:20.221)
Yes, that was that was good, wasn't it? Life or death? Are we allowed to say that, Macca? You didn't like the Montpellier fans setting fire to the stadium. Exactly. OK, next up was Perth won Brisbane three, so Brisbane getting a bit of revenge for their loss earlier this season against Perth. Brisbane in the Battle of the Spoon are off the bottom.

Daniel McBreen (45:21.807)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, they won so they didn't have to set fire to the stadium.

Jamie Young (45:30.286)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (45:46.847)
There was a great goal, a first goal in the A-League for Luke Amos in the seventh minute. A real fucking thunder fucked into the top corner as well. Another one of those. It was Ryan Kito-esque from Luke Amos. Bet he never thought he'd hear those words. And then Asuma Abubakar got his first goal for Brisbane and then Sam Klein got his first goals as well.

Jamie Young (45:57.313)
You

Ronaldingo (46:16.391)
So fair play for the double. And Brisbane, look, we've been harsh on Brisbane, as I think rightly so. Jamie, I'd be curious as your take on Brisbane as a former raw player as well. And feel free to have a go at Perth because I forgot Perth were even fucking here. They've scored 14 goals this season in 21 games. And I was looking.

Jamie Young (46:40.984)
Seriously, wow.

Daniel McBreen (46:42.309)
We've been lazy on them, haven't we?

Ronaldingo (46:42.929)
Seriously, these are some seriously damning stats. And the last time they won, this is just to set the scene, they beat Auckland, remember? Auckland travelled the first time they travelled to Perth. They won 1-0 against the run of play, massive upset. Since then, and this is the most perhaps damning thing about Perth, eight without a win, Tas Mordekutis, Yuta Mizou, Takuya Akimoto, Luke Amos, Lockie Wales, and Patrick Wood have all joined.

Jamie Young (46:44.302)
Jesus.

Ronaldingo (47:12.627)
That's fucking six new players, half their first team have come in and they haven't won now in eight and they've just lost maybe one, the wooden spoon, with another home defeat to Brisbane. It's very fucking average from Perth this season.

Jamie Young (47:27.822)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's interesting. I thought when driller was was appointed as their manager, I thought this would be good with the high press and his what he's gone away into Europe around the world and his that sort of coaching philosophy will be able to implement their but it's obviously not work there. And yes, you know, again, it sounds

I'm look at the back of the pitch, know, some of the goals they've conceded have been, you know, well, as a goalkeeper, you'd be disappointed. And Oli Sal, when he went there, obviously was one of the best in the league coming from Wellington. I thought he was a great grab for them, but he's not shown his qualities since he's been there for whatever reason. that's one thing I've noticed is in the A league as a player, you can, you can get bogged down.

day in day out and you know again if there's no consequence but also if you know you're going to play every week and you're not performing to a level then and you're on a decent wage. I don't know why you know I know Oli is an exceptional player but he's not shown it in consistency. He should be one of their best players every week for whatever reason. We don't know. Yeah but he should be showing more.

Ronaldingo (48:40.305)
He hasn't shown it since he went there. He hasn't shown it for whatever reason, exactly. But at the start of the year, Jamie, I heard at the start of the year they wanted to try and move him on and that there were no offers that suited him because as you know, he's on Goodcoin out West. And then they dropped him at the start of sort of after about six or eight games or whatever it was this season. He'd made a couple of blunders. I think that was to try and say

look, you're not going to play, better for you if you head somewhere else. And I don't know how, whether he looked into it. No one came in. No one could offer him what he, what he wanted. And so once it was acknowledged by everyone that, okay, he's staying. Well then who was it? Cam Cook. Cam Cook was back out and in comes, in comes Ollie back in because they're going to, you know, they're paying him. He's there.

Jamie Young (49:17.42)
no one came.

Jamie Young (49:30.51)
and whack them back in.

Ronaldingo (49:40.179)
He's the better keeper even if they wanted him to move on. So now he's back in the side and there's clearly no competition.

Jamie Young (49:47.278)
Yeah, and yeah, especially in that goalkeeping position, do, you do need to be on the edge, you do need to have competition because you know, as a player, if you're not producing, that person can take a spot. So maybe he knows, that's it, I'm going to play irrespective of I do well, if I don't, that could be it. But yeah, it's a funny one, Perth, they all expect, you know, up there, they...

They all expect themselves to be up in the table and this year's been well and truly far and away. I can't remember Perth doing well since Popper to be honest.

Ronaldingo (50:20.915)
Well, it's a wooden spoon last year, wasn't it? They had Ruben, then Stadge, I mean, and now, now it's Driller. So it's, don't think it's only the coaches. Ruben hasn't kicked on, but Stadge has come good. Driller is struggling. So, you know, it's becoming a graveyard for coaches and goalkeepers alike.

Jamie Young (50:26.594)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (50:36.097)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (50:40.155)
But you said it though Robbie. Go back I reckon about six weeks ago when we've rightly been smashing Brisbane and we said we can't see any progress. What's changing in there? They're doing the same thing. They look alright in midfield. They sort of move the ball around. They don't create any chances really up front or take them and they can see shit goals.

Then we said, yeah, but we can sort of see a progression in Perth, you know, we can see they were fucking so awful at the start. Now we can start to see them playing a game of football. And to be fair, this game was a game that I was driving home with. So I had it on sort of listening to it. And when I got home, I tried to go back and watch bits through again. So.

I'm finding it difficult to sit here and critique the strategy but they seem to be doing well at the start. They scored an absolute bomb obviously from Amos. But when you, like you said, you look through that team, Oli Sale, he can be either a 9 out of 10 or a 3 out of 10. There is no fucking middle. He'll pull saves out of his arse top corner and then he'll let one through his legs like Ames scored against him. Then you've got, at the back now you've got two Japanese players. Tommy Mertula, Murtukudis who's

Jamie Young (51:32.268)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (51:50.621)
who's been, I think, been doing okay since he came in. Pennington, I like him, he's been well. You've got Pearman who's coming through on Amos who's got a great job. Wales, Taggart, and Millie, isn't it? So there's experience there, okay?

Jamie Young (52:01.942)
Hmm.

Ronaldingo (52:02.109)
Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (52:03.899)
What are they, how are they performing so poorly? You're right, they should now be, they should be starting to see, we should be seeing them now picking up points here, a win here, a draw here, a couple of losses maybe, another draw, a win, but they're not getting any wins at all. How are they not now starting to put something together and look like a adhesive unit? And I think we have been, because they started so poorly and we smashed them for the first couple of weeks, we sort of eased off of them and went, oh yeah, okay, we know they're shit, and we forgot

Jamie Young (52:08.142)
Is there winners?

Ronaldingo (52:32.529)
Yeah, exactly.

Daniel McBreen (52:33.853)
You're right, they've gone out and made the effort to go and get the players, they've got them, and they're still not performing. They're still not getting any results. When you look on the other side of it, Brisbane.

Ronaldingo (52:40.404)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (52:49.275)
Ababa Kha, I think he's been a good signing. Came without match fitness and already you can see he's got that sharpness. I even saw someone on the weekend tweet, great to see how he's adjusted his game. He's not diving anymore, he's trying to ride tackles. But that's, we mentioned to talk about this off air don't we, quite often Robbie, about players come here from overseas leagues, they get a nudge, they fall down, they look at the ref and go, why wasn't that a foul? And it's like, well, welcome to Australia mate, you're not going to get easy fouls like that.

Jamie Young (52:53.196)
Yes.

Daniel McBreen (53:19.269)
but he's adjusted his game in that respect Sam Klein, he's been exceptional this past month I think he's been really really good in midfield for them J.O. gets all the plaudits because he gets on the ball and moves it around and gets heaps of touches and he's always high on the paramount plus because he's always on the ball Sam Klein has been a really really good find and he's doing really really well and it was good to see him get a couple of goals because his performances have been really exceptional in my eyes and you gotta say

with them now, you're looking at them, they're not gonna come last Brisbane now, they've got a couple of games in hand. I can see them winning a couple of games.

Ronaldingo (53:55.859)
Did they put Perth to the sword? That's the question. Okay, okay, okay. They put Sydney to the sword.

Daniel McBreen (53:58.107)
No, no, they only did that to Sydney, all right? So if you put Sydney to the sword, you get about three transfer windows to sort out the rest of your team so you can put the other teams to the sword.

Jamie Young (53:59.0)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (54:08.445)
you

Ronaldingo (54:12.639)
That's a little in-joke, Jamie, about Ruben Zadkovich's press conferences where he's been... Yeah, exactly. He's been deflecting pretty badly so far this season.

Jamie Young (54:14.931)
okay.

Daniel McBreen (54:17.04)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (54:17.442)
What was he talking about? I need a few windows. Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (54:19.631)
well yeah, Rubens always needs a few windows and they're alright because they put Sydney to the sword about six weeks ago, so that's not...

Jamie Young (54:25.608)
It's...

Ronaldingo (54:27.869)
He's actually said so many times that he needs three transfer windows that he shouldn't start winning because he's only had two. Or one and a half, I say.

Daniel McBreen (54:33.883)
Yeah, he needs 27 windows the many times he's said it. I think I even said to him personally, said stop fucking saying transfer windows. You've fucking signed 17 players in the last two windows yourself. That's nearly the entire squad. So that doesn't fly. But look, in the end I think they deserve their win. And they're not gonna come last.

Jamie Young (54:39.188)
I I used to play for them.

Ronaldingo (54:43.666)
you

Jamie Young (54:52.354)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (54:56.297)
That's enough, Marker. Jamie, what were you going to say about Brisbane?

Jamie Young (54:56.364)
Yeah. I mean, I I just play for them. I'm from Brisbane Lad as well. And you know how, how good that club can be. It could be a top three club in the country or one team state if they were run properly, if they had good relationships with their community, if they had an identity, you know, strategy with their academy, you know, good people working, the owners are shit, to be honest. And

Daniel McBreen (55:22.267)
We know that.

Ronaldingo (55:22.771)
yeah do they have an academy

Jamie Young (55:24.398)
It's just, I thought Dodgley was their youth team. I remember when I first came to that club, know, that they weren't a great club in terms of the organization, but the people that were there were pretty good. know, Johnny Alwisi did a lot of good things for that club. just slowly, I think soon as COVID hit, you know, they just fell off a cliff, got rid of Robbie.

Daniel McBreen (55:27.321)
No, they've got a youth team. Yeah, they've got a youth team, but no academy.

Jamie Young (55:53.774)
has just sort of bounced from one alley to the next and it's just been painful to watch to be honest. It does not look like the Brisbane that I remember playing for at all and you can just see the standards and you're just like, I kind of forget I played for them. In a way. I was like, do I play for them? It's crazy.

Daniel McBreen (56:09.915)
Yeah, you're not the first ex-Brisbane player to tell us that. That it's not the club that they... They don't really feel a kinship with the club anymore because it's so changed since they left.

Ronaldingo (56:10.879)
you

Jamie Young (56:24.15)
car is it's mad it's another one's the madness in the

Ronaldingo (56:24.797)
Okay, well, exactly. But given how Western United are playing, Jamie, you probably don't recognize you played for them either with all your one nills that you got back in the day. Now they're fucking banging six past Newcastle. Anyway, before we get there, it's time to shatter stat courtesy of Andy Howe, our official A-League statistician.

Jamie Young (56:35.342)
I

Ronaldingo (56:48.423)
Now, obviously we've heard all about the 33 goals. The beauty of Andy Howe's stats is that he starts there with the low hanging fruit and then instead of just handing it out, he keeps climbing the tree till he gets to the elusive golden apple right at the top. So Andy Howe with the Shutter stat for this week. 33 goals is the most goals scored in an A-League men's round, smashing the previous record of 30 in round 26 last season. Individual highlights and lowlights.

over the weekend. The Raw's Sam Klein scoring his first two A-League goals on the day of his 21st birthday. Noah James conceding six in his seventh appearance after letting in just three in his first six for Newcastle. At 5.5 goals per game, the average number of goals over the weekend was also the highest ever for an A-League men's round. In the NSL era,

The most goals scored in a round was 45. That was round seven in 1985. However, this was a North South Conference and there were 12 games, 24 teams back in the halcyon days of North South Conference football, soccer from Australia. And then the hype.

Daniel McBreen (58:05.637)
from Down Under.

Ronaldingo (58:10.003)
The highest scoring NSL round in terms of average goals was 5.9. That was 41 goals in seven games in the last round of the 2000-2001 season. On that weekend, eventual grand finalists Wollongong and South Melbourne each scored six, as did the Melbourne Knights. The Knights opponent that day was Newcastle United. Here we go, Macca. Are you getting nervous?

Daniel McBreen (58:33.679)
Five, two or something, I think I played. Yeah, we got pumped. We got battered. Six, two or five, two or something. Six, three. Yeah.

Ronaldingo (58:39.583)
So you were pumped. Exactly. 6-2. And on that day, who were the goal scorers for Newcastle on that day? Daniel McBreen, a very young Daniel McBreen, and a veteran by the name of Andy Harper.

Daniel McBreen (58:48.591)
Did I get one? Did I get one?

Jamie Young (58:53.39)
Hahaha

Daniel McBreen (58:57.591)
Andy Harper, yes! Me and Harps up front.

Jamie Young (58:59.016)
And he have a long range bomb was it?

Ronaldingo (59:00.479)
who got his, it was a long range bomb. It was a 101st and final NSL goal for Andy Harper that day. So it was a historic, historic moment. Incidentally, the final scorer over this season's record breaking weekend was Costa Barbarousas, who matched Andy Harper's record of 101 National League goals.

He becomes the 22nd player to score over 100 goals in Australia's top tier. So there you go. Thank you, Andy Howe. Well done with the Shatterstat, which has been effectively shut out. Now we head to the next game. Auckland versus the Mariners. Maka, we'll start with you on this one because we know that you're Mariners through and through. My only note from this game.

Daniel McBreen (59:34.149)
Nice, what a little bookend.

Ronaldingo (59:57.747)
because I was on the move all day yesterday running around. did keep watching on my phone. All I can recognise out of this game is that the A-League's biggest calf muscles scored their first goal. Vitor Feijão was on the score sheet. And now I can't just say that that's been his only contribution to the A-League, the size of those calves, because now he's on the score sheet and taken a point away from Auckland. Is this, and I...

Daniel McBreen (01:00:11.983)
Yes.

Jamie Young (01:00:18.722)
Hahaha

Daniel McBreen (01:00:19.193)
He's schooled Yeah.

.

Ronaldingo (01:00:26.365)
I'll bring it back to the point I've been making in recent weeks. Is this excellent mariners, a bit of life, or poor Auckland? That's the big question.

Daniel McBreen (01:00:34.811)
Well this is obviously the game that I was on before I was calling the Newcastle game so I was watching while working. So again my analysis is I can't really say I can go in depth at all. What I will say is that was it two weeks ago that everyone was already starting to say that Auckland have got the premiership, yeah they've got the premiers plate, may as just give it to them now. Well three draws in a row.

and now Western United four points behind as a spitter squeaky bum time maybe over in New Zealand where they're dropping points and thinking, fuck, actually, we're getting close to that end and making history of the first team to come in and win the Premier's plate and all that stuff. I don't know. Yeah, it's...

Ronaldingo (01:01:19.763)
The Nervous Nineties.

Daniel McBreen (01:01:24.197)
that just they still look good like they're be on game and why looks great there's but they wouldn't have dropped those points earlier in the season they're conceding goals like they didn't concede goals they had nine clean sheets in about their first six games they fucking were that good that they're now conceding goals is that what's that six goals two against the mariners four against

Was it Adelaide? Who did they concede against? Four against? Yeah. You know, a draw against the Jets as well. I don't know. I'm just... credit to the Mariners for sticking in and coming back, but...

Ronaldingo (01:01:53.725)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the 4-4 with Adelaide at home as well.

Daniel McBreen (01:02:09.451)
I'm looking through the draw, the last game of the season, Western United at home against Auckland. And I'm looking at that game and thinking, fuck me, that could be huge. That could be the premier's plate decider. I know we've got a few games between here and now, but the way Western United are playing and the confidence they have going forward in their players and the way Auckland are now stuttering a little bit, that could end up being the biggest game of the season right there and then out it.

I'm Mark Fields.

Jamie Young (01:02:43.148)
Yeah, it's interesting Auckland. think they've probably got a lot of results, haven't they? Because they're a new team, they're riding the wave and playing at their ground as well. I think they're going to get a lot of results there, but they probably have stuttered a little bit. And then I've got to be honest with Western. I actually had them bottom three, just purely because I didn't think they had the cattle.

you know, I think what John has done is I think he's probably been the best coach of the league, what he's actually produced. I don't think anybody had them in the situation that they are now. And they're playing some really good football as well. The one advantage he probably has had over other teams is he's been playing these youngsters a year longer than other teams. He's had to play this young team since last season. So they're all playing together. And again, they're going to get results out of that field as well, because it's

It's a bit windy. It's a bit unique out there and other teams won't be used to that. So what he's done has been Quite incredible and they are playing more more attacking football since Foxy has left for the soccer rules. So I think if anyone knows who knows Foxy knows that he's the most detailed defensive coach you'll ever have He's got a PhD in defense. But of course when you're focusing a lot on defense, then you don't always emphasize your attack. So

Daniel McBreen (01:03:52.603)
You

Ronaldingo (01:03:52.639)
You

Daniel McBreen (01:04:02.188)
you

Jamie Young (01:04:08.413)
You know, I think I think they're there to stay. I don't think they're gonna fall away quite like Adelaide have And it'll be interesting to see where they finish up

Ronaldingo (01:04:18.864)
Okay so obviously neither of you two watch fucking Auckland versus the Mariners.

Jamie Young (01:04:23.992)
I watch the highlights. watch the highlights. Having been there, I know it's tough place to go. There's a bit of wind and, you know, what Mariners have done in the last few years have been just extraordinary. It's like the budget they have, they've obviously recruited so well and...

Daniel McBreen (01:04:26.703)
I was too busy working.

Ronaldingo (01:04:37.375)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (01:04:41.55)
It's hard to replace not just five or six players, but six of the best players in the league every year. How do you keep doing that? And they've obviously got a very good coach in Mark Jackson, they probably like Vuka. Vuka could have played another year and he was the best keeper in the league last year for me. He was unbelievable for them. Then you lose one of your best and a halves to Auckland. It's just impossible to keep replacing that. And he was...

Ronaldingo (01:05:02.557)
Yeah. Dan Hall was back, by the way, this weekend.

Daniel McBreen (01:05:04.879)
Yeah, Dan Hall was back because Pineapple was out suspended as well so I wonder if he came back maybe a little bit early, maybe he didn't. He broke something, yeah, yeah. So he was back which is good for them coming into the finals, coming towards the end the finals. What was I going to say? The only thing I will say because I'll be honest, as I said I was working and I did go back and watch the goals.

Ronaldingo (01:05:08.563)
Yeah, exactly. A bit too early. He had a broken bone in his foot, didn't he? Or in his ankle? Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:05:31.673)
defending crosses, fucking hell, didn't they go to sleep, to freeze at that back pose for Feijiao's header. He could have, I don't know, he could have done anything except for what he did. He just went to step away and flick it away with him and Feijiao couldn't believe his eyes and went, thank you, I'll just dip in there. And again, he puts in a good cross.

Ronaldingo (01:05:38.119)
Yes. Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:05:43.998)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:05:49.681)
It wasn't as bad, it still wasn't as bad as Hamzowie for Perth at the start of the season. It wasn't, I guess, what was that, Tim Paine? Yeah, but it wasn't far off, but it wasn't far off from Mr. DeVries. It was.

Daniel McBreen (01:05:53.923)
No, no, no, he was running off to get a fucking beer in the shed. Someone fucking heard someone say my shout and he fucking ran off. yeah, I'm on that one. Fuck, not missing out on my shout. He was almost as tight as me that one. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty shit defending from set pieces from both teams, but yeah, look, I had to because I hadn't seen enough of the game.

Ronaldingo (01:06:15.837)
I thought you weren't going to say that today, Macca. I'm glad to see you've seen reason. All right, let's move on. Let's move on. Let's move on. Newcastle versus Western United. So this one we can we can now talk and Jamie, we have been singing the praises of Western United the last few weeks because they I can't even begin to think the the transition from this side that we all thought was going to struggle.

Daniel McBreen (01:06:22.863)
So let's move on.

Ronaldingo (01:06:45.993)
that was lacking consistency at the start of the season as well to how they've become this side that are basically like last season's Mariners. I reckon they've got young players, they're scoring freely, they're riding a wave. I mean, that's the analogy that springs to mind, because especially when you see, you know, and I think the point you just made is exactly right insofar as they've had an extra year with these young players. And now...

They are playing young players, but their young players have at least a little bit of A-League experience in their shorts. And that's making the difference at the moment.

Jamie Young (01:07:23.182)
100 % I think one thing you get with John is he's a very structured coach He's very clear with how he wants his teams to play and you can see that Since I was there and that's sort of stayed the same in in terms of their team structure So, know, you know how they're play I'm gonna say it. I think they've got the goalkeeper situation right is being one of the best players

For me, he's been the best goalkeeper by probably Poulsen this year in Matt Sutton. I think he's been phenomenal for them and he hasn't really got any plaudits for what he's done. like any good team, you need that solid base at your back and you can see from there that they've always going to have a good back four and you've got a running midfield as well and an older head up front that can get other people into the game. So when you look at it,

It's actually the way they are coached, the way they are off the field. And then you've got Roussi as well, who gives you something different. He's a fucking pain in the ass, but he gives you something a bit different. He's a bit of a prick on the field. And I really like Roussi, but there's not many teams that has a battering ram to come on. And he is that for them. So he's rapid, yeah, rapid. Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:08:25.149)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:08:37.765)
Quit battering around too by the way. Fuck me dad, he's fast. I didn't realise he was so quick.

Ronaldingo (01:08:42.909)
Yeah, that was clean pair of heels time, wasn't it?

Jamie Young (01:08:45.646)
Yeah, he's got that little bit of NPL, bit of, you know, he's not afraid. Yeah, he's always telling me to shut the fuck up. we played, he's always saying, fuck it, up, Youngy, hurry up, Youngy. I've been telling him to shut up. But, know, I think, yeah, they've been a bit more attacking this year and you go, fucking hell, Jesus. They're getting better and better at the right time in the season. So, know, fair play.

Ronaldingo (01:08:50.121)
mongrel.

Daniel McBreen (01:08:54.07)
Hahaha!

Ronaldingo (01:08:54.835)
You

Daniel McBreen (01:09:13.999)
they they bossed this didn't they let's be honest from the start they won the midfield battle

and their defensive line looked fucking overrun. Every time the ball went into midfield, Reese Bozinoski and Angus Thurgate, they won the first ball. And they knew, and we spoke to Johnny after, he said, they know when they get the ball that they can play forward because Riku Danzaki, fuck me, he started like a house on fire and he just made runs in behind Kankar for fun. Kankar was like lost. He didn't know what was going on because his head was spinning. Every time they won that ball, they just played it in behind straight away and he got in behind.

Jamie Young (01:09:41.954)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:09:50.665)
then they just put balls into the box obviously you've got Boddich running in, Ibusuki in there as well and they just did not let the Jets get a breath from the first kickoff they won the ball played in behind Bang Chance, won the ball played forward in behind goal it was quality and it was 28 minutes or 26 minutes I think it was and then or might have been 36 that

Rob Stanton had to take Clayton Taylor off and go, fuck I need to put Mombo on here to try and secure the midfield because it's easy to sit there and say, Kanka you're having a stinko. He wasn't having a great game, put it that way, you know, he was having a poor game. But he wasn't helped by being fucking isolated on his own with a midfielder facing forward and Rico Denzaki and the likes running in behind him. He was caught every single time.

Ronaldingo (01:10:18.94)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:10:41.923)
It was over before it even fucking started. I think it was 4-0 wasn't it after 38 minutes or 28 minutes? was... Done. Yeah, and it was game over then and it was more about... Pride for the Jets then. Can we try and get something out of this? Can we... The second half, can we just make it... Can we get something out of the second half? Make sure it's... Pretend it's 0-0 and go from there. And it ended up 6-2. And I'm gonna be honest, it could have been more. But the funny thing is you look at the stats...

Jamie Young (01:10:45.314)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:10:47.711)
Yeah, 35. 4-0 after 35.

Jamie Young (01:11:09.324)
Yeah, right.

Daniel McBreen (01:11:12.123)
And I'm not a big thing, I don't read everything in the stats, but the Jets had 65%, 25 shots, seven on target, they had more corners, twice as many corners, twice as many final third entries, all the things, twice as many passes, but it doesn't mean nothing when your ex-G is 4.5 for Westy Knight and they score six and they have 1.69 and score two. It was over early.

Ronaldingo (01:11:36.531)
Yeah. It was the quality of those chances. Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:11:40.547)
yeah exactly right and you know it's like you go up 4-0 Jamie and it becomes yeah okay let's take our time let's get it make sure we're right and you take the foot off the pedal a little bit and to be fair Rob Stanton made more such changes at half time to try and stem the flow which they were better in the second half but I also think it was a case of yeah alright we've got this in the bag now there's no need to push the boat too far

Jamie Young (01:11:41.774)
So what?

Jamie Young (01:12:06.669)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:12:07.007)
Jamie, I want to ask you about JA as a coach then, because I know this is something that interests you a lot. Just before I get there, so that's now 46 goals scored by this Western United side. That is the second highest in the league behind Western Sydney. And quick shout out to Boz, who messaged us on social media yesterday to say that this is the most goals scored. 47 goals.

Jamie Young (01:12:24.579)
Yeah, right.

Ronaldingo (01:12:36.895)
Previous record was 45 in 2021 and for Western Sydney, by the way. So Western Sydney are, he feels, long time Western Sydney fan, showing 2012-13 vibes at the moment. I forgot to mention that when we talking about that game. So to jump back forward to Western United and JA, JA was under a lot of pressure, at least from observers.

Jamie Young (01:12:43.672)
Yeah, right.

Ronaldingo (01:13:04.261)
over the last couple of seasons since that championship winning side, people saying, well, it's not coming together. What's he doing? How long is he going to stay? Are Western going to change, you know, change coach? This season, he's come back. You say he's very structured. You get, mean, we who deal with him as well, because he works with us in the media as well. And it's his character. He's a fucking great guy. Like he is really just a fucking legend. I remember.

Jamie Young (01:13:28.514)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:13:32.895)
In the 2006 World Cup, when I was, I'd been working as a journo over in Europe and I was messaging a few of the players, just not, not invasively, but just saying fucking, you know, good luck against Croatia or whatever. J.A. would always reply, you know, just a thanks mate to a fucking mad journo fan who was following them around fucking Germany, you know, for the, the welcome. I just thought you fucking gun, you know? And he's a player that has

Jamie Young (01:13:46.702)
Yeah, everyone.

Jamie Young (01:13:53.486)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:14:01.115)
Such experience, played in Italy, played in England, played in Spain. I mean, he would have had all those coaches that were fucking ball breakers, hardcore, you know? And then here he is, this awesome great guy with this bunch of kids and some experienced players and you worked under him. What is he? What is he like to work with?

Jamie Young (01:14:21.442)
Yeah. He's actually, he's actually, in some respects, such a nice guy, like, like, I've always felt bad if I let him down. That was always a thing for me personally, because he is such a nice guy. But the one

that obviously since I've left them and you know, I had a Brisbane but it came to City, you see obviously experienced different coaches. And the one thing you can always tell about a John Alwisi team is that they've got real fire and a bit of CUNT about them. And that's how John played as a player.

Ronaldingo (01:14:53.799)
You can say it here.

Jamie Young (01:14:55.918)
Yeah, you can see they got bit of cunt about them. And when I played for them at Western, we had that. We weren't as good as City in terms of with the ball, but in terms of defensive structure, our press.

Ronaldingo (01:14:58.77)
Exactly.

Jamie Young (01:15:10.104)
we would kick the shit out of people as well. had winners, had like Topper, Kielke, Kielkenny, we had people who could score. And you can see, you can see when you come and you're at the game against the Western United, you know, they are happy to piss you off, to kick you, to punch you, to be a bunch of cunts to you. And that is the embodiment of how Johnny is as a personality on the field. He's got that fire and passion and I watched him against Adelaide and you

He gave a look to the fourth official that it was like, gonna take your soul because you are fucking having one. He's just looked at this 40 and I went, you know, I've missed that. I missed that sort of that bit about John. I was like, I love that. I love that side of the game that he has.

Daniel McBreen (01:15:53.893)
You

Ronaldingo (01:15:55.423)
You

Jamie Young (01:16:01.066)
And I've said to people in that grand final when we played against City, his team talk before the game was just perfect for me. And how he delivered it, you knew he wasn't trying to, it's like he just knew. It was just absolutely spot on how he spoke. We belong here, we know what we're about, that's it. It was almost like we went onto the field. I looked across to the City lads.

and that I could just smell the fear in that team that day.

Ronaldingo (01:16:35.465)
What did he, how did he deliver it? Because you guys were the real, not underdogs, you were the unfancied. You were like the team that no one thought should even fucking be in that grand final. Remember? From, from the outside.

Jamie Young (01:16:46.37)
Thank

He was like, know, no one really believes in us. It was very calm, very relaxed. But for me, you only have to look left and right to see the amount of winners in that change room, like Toppest Denley, Neil Kilkenny, had Dier in there, you had Prio Dier didn't play, you know, Lusty was there, Riz was unbelievable that game against Lex. Although I Lex had the flu that game, which was lucky for us. Garuccio had a great season.

So, you kind of like, you know, it doesn't really matter what people think, because only what matters is what's happening here right now. There's something going on. And the way that John spoke, and then you had Foxy, Theo was there, John Anastasiades. It was just this huge blend of experience and people in the right groove. I knew before the game personally, I was like, these guys are fucked. We're taking them all day long. And they never had to sniff that game really.

So I could see what Johnny has as a coach now. He's actually really good with young young people because of his family He's you know got young kids himself and he's really good with young people and he knows when to you know He's one to pull off and then smash the young players so much But you also you don't want there's always that level of fear with him you don't want to cross him because he will he will come for you hard and So you can see he's had that playing career. He's had a long coaching career

Ronaldingo (01:18:11.199)
you

Daniel McBreen (01:18:17.157)
Well, I think that's important part there, Jamie, the long coaching career, because from an outsider's perspective, obviously his first coaching gig was at heart and it was an absolute disaster. Yeah. And I can remember watching him and he'd turn around and people were obviously getting into him, the fans, and he'd turn around and he'd bite. And he was like having a go at the fans and everything. He's a new coach first year in and he's getting involved in all that kind of stuff. Then he went, you know, I stepped back a little bit to youth stuff. Then he went up to Brisbane and he took over a team there and it's

Jamie Young (01:18:17.198)
And I had them at bottom through.

Daniel McBreen (01:18:47.111)
sort of then made his own team and things happen there and sometimes you'd see him get involved in things as well and now you see him and you can see the progression of him as a coach that he doesn't get caught up in that stuff anymore. He's so much calmer on the sideline and you can see the way that he tries to deliver things like you've pointed out perfectly. It's calm, it's assuring, he knows how to talk to players to go, all right, I need to give you the confidence to go out and do what you've got to do.

and I instilled that confidence and you can see that progression and it's funny I had a chat to him after the game on the weekend and we were talking about the media coverage in Australia how there's not much of it and I said to him I said like these days you guys as head coaches in Australia you get away with the the the post-match media conferences because there's hardly anyone in there and you get out you don't get asked any hard questions anymore do you and he said no guys actually it's pretty pretty sad he said because if we go in there and we get asked there's a couple of young guys in there

who are probably little bit intimidated or there's only Joey Lynch who can only ask so many questions or Anne Harrington, you know, they're there, they ask a couple of questions and it's like, well, how often can I keep beating the same drum at people? And he said, it's disappointing because as coaches, we want to be pressed and made to think and be asked questions of and asked put in difficult spots. And he said, and he pointed that out, said, back when I first started, said, fucking hell, he said, did I cop some questions? He said, there'd be a room full of people who knew football.

Ronaldingo (01:20:15.423)
you

Daniel McBreen (01:20:17.24)
who were in there and one had asked a question and the next one had come at you and the next one he's like, fucking hell, you know, I've got to be on my toes here and he said it's got to the point where they can sort of come in and just go, oh yeah, that was a good game, that was a good game, yeah, he's playing well, oh yeah, he's a bit injured and it's not, and he says we need that media scrutiny to push us to be harder and that's what I like about him as well is that he's saying, I want that, push, put me in a hard position, ask me hard questions so I have to think about my answers and I have to grow and develop and go, oh shit, yeah, maybe we, you know, that might prod me to think a little

Ronaldingo (01:20:18.921)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:20:38.729)
No.

Daniel McBreen (01:20:46.781)
more about that and that's what I like that you can see his progression from his early days to here now and he still wants that to keep going for not just for him but for the game for everyone to be pushed and and and grow and I think on top of that him being just the nicest fucking bloke in the world would make me go I don't want to ask you the hard questions Johnny I want to just go yeah yeah you're a good bloke

Jamie Young (01:21:04.108)
Yeah, off the field.

Ronaldingo (01:21:08.071)
you

Jamie Young (01:21:08.27)
Yeah, no fair play to them and I think yeah, they're here to stay and you know looking at City obviously the game against Newcastle Yeah, that was that was a big miss for them. They would have loved to win there to stay in it amongst it We still know there's games to go, but that would have really put them

Daniel McBreen (01:21:27.579)
Yeah, but they're done. The Jets are done. Rob's apparently already told the players he won't be there next year. I don't know what's happened in the past few months because apparently there was a contract on the table for a long time. Discusses were going back forward. Rumour was it was then signed and then all the shit's hit the fan and I don't know what's happened but Rob's not going to be there. His assistants already said he's leaving before Rob did.

Jamie Young (01:21:34.21)
Really?

Ronaldingo (01:21:40.414)
Hmm.

Daniel McBreen (01:21:51.963)
There's obviously two sides to every story, they're contrasting stories that are coming out. Haven't really heard one from the club officially yet, but from something that was looking so promising and they just got a couple of players in and they were starting to get a run of things together, it's just all of sudden it looks like it's fallen in a heap.

Jamie Young (01:22:12.898)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:22:13.029)
you know, and I asked Rob after the game, know, does that have a mental effect on the players and he goes, well they don't give a shit about me as a coach, no one in Newcastle does, but I think that's wrong, I think the fans actually quite like Rob.

Ronaldingo (01:22:21.767)
Yeah, I think that's wrong.

Daniel McBreen (01:22:22.927)
Yeah, I think the fans quite like Rob. I know I'm from Newcastle, I live in Newcastle and you know around town people go, you guys alright this Rob? They quite like him and I think they'd be really sad to see him go because in Newcastle they've seen it time and time again where someone comes in, fucking burns the place down, fucks off and then they've got to try and pick up the pieces and it's happened time and time again. They could start to see some shoots coming through and I honestly believe that they're probably three players away from being a competitive team for the finals.

Jamie Young (01:22:31.822)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:22:52.861)
and last time I was talking to the club they were saying that they want to go and get them in the off season and give Rob the squad that he needs. I don't know what's happened it's all it's a fucking bin fire again now so yeah it's disappointing.

Jamie Young (01:23:05.87)
He's obviously got good pedigree, doesn't he Rob? He's come from Sydney, he's got standards, he knows what success looks like in the A-League. He's probably fighting the battle with one arm behind his back and he's probably had enough of that.

Daniel McBreen (01:23:16.827)
100 % but also I think you also got to look at that as well and yeah yeah but yeah exactly but I also think when you take on that role you know

Ronaldingo (01:23:19.775)
I think most coaches are, aren't they? Most coaches in the A-league at the moment are feeling that way.

Jamie Young (01:23:22.434)
Yeah.

Yep, apart from about four or five, yeah. What you getting into?

Daniel McBreen (01:23:28.057)
what club you're going to and as your job as a coach is always to push against the top to get more. I want more, I want an extra analyst, I need this, I need an player. Your job is always to do that. But you've also got to know where the ceiling is and I don't know if that maybe that's the argument they've got to that this is where I want to be, this is where we are, this is where you knew you came in at. Well, you know we can't go there, we don't have the resources. That might be it, I don't know. Look, as I say, I'm not privy to those conversations but I think both sides have to realise where the middle marker is.

Jamie Young (01:23:57.88)
middle ground.

Daniel McBreen (01:23:57.981)
and they have to try and get to that as close they can because it ends up like this. All of a sudden there seems to be lot of bitterness around within the last 10 days it just seems to have exploded. I will say I do think Rob's wrong. think the Jets faithful do like him. think the players will miss him and I think the club is heading in the right direction. Whether this has a destabilizing effect on it I don't know.

Jamie Young (01:24:07.767)
Really?

Ronaldingo (01:24:26.163)
think my experience from the outside and looking at it and covering football clubs is that when a coach announces before the end of season that they're leaving, it just always falls into a stinking pile of shit. It just does. Because the players, you know, why are you playing for the coach anymore? He's leaving you. He's abandoning you. people, you know, all this sort of, might think this is a bit romantic or symbolic and things like that, but it does have that effect on a playing squad. You know, it does. affects.

Jamie Young (01:24:39.798)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (01:24:53.367)
It does.

Daniel McBreen (01:24:53.807)
does, 100 % it You don't know who's going to come in next.

Ronaldingo (01:24:55.911)
And people, know, players, yeah, go.

Daniel McBreen (01:25:00.365)
So if I'm playing all year right and I might have, even if I've got another year on my contract, I might be playing under Rob, or you know, we're just saying Rob because it's new cast. I'm playing under Rob, I know him well, I've formed a relationship over two years, he knows me, he knows me off field, he knows what my motivations are, whether I've got a family and all this stuff, he knows all that stuff. And then the new guy might come in and just go, I've watched the games, don't rate you there, bang. But you might be able to sit there and go, well let's sit down and talk about that because I can,

Jamie Young (01:25:01.08)
That's fair.

Ronaldingo (01:25:01.085)
Yeah, exactly.

Daniel McBreen (01:25:30.319)
playing that way because Rob wanted me to play that way, I can play this way instead. So all this now comes into a player's head is like, fuck, alright.

Am I going to be in the frame? If my contract's up at the end of the year, it's even worse, it's magnified. Yeah, fucking oath it is, especially if you're a younger player who's just trying to make your way in as well. That relationship, that's gone. You have to start from scratch all over again. And it does have an effect. I don't care what anyone says. New manager comes in and it's like, fuck, what is this going to be like? Because we've been around Jamie long enough, both being the age we are, that we've had managers where we go, holy fuck, he is an asshole.

Jamie Young (01:25:38.178)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (01:25:42.836)
Worse? Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie Young (01:25:56.361)
And if you don't have

Ronaldingo (01:25:57.417)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:26:07.741)
you know someone comes in and you go fuck I'm done you know or I can't play for this boat you know we've all had it yeah

Jamie Young (01:26:08.611)
Yeah.

Jamie Young (01:26:15.182)
100 % Changes in a blink of an eye and if you don't have a recruitment policy like a city does or Sydney Then there's no it's just chaos. It's chaos. Anyway, anything could happen. They could sign this that you know what when when Robbie left they start bringing an MPL players

Ronaldingo (01:26:23.367)
Yeah, well this is the thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie Young (01:26:32.75)
at Brisbane, I was just like, nah, I'm not here for this. Because, know, Brisbane at the time, were so, we were, honestly, we could have gone and won it, I reckon, with Robbie. He was, we were coming into a really good bit of form and then COVID hit. And then, and then they started, you know, looking at NPL players. And I was like, I'm not, I'm...

Daniel McBreen (01:26:49.475)
isn't going to take us to a trophy. Yeah.

Jamie Young (01:26:50.358)
here to win the league, mate. Yeah. And then all of sudden, you're looking at replacing this player with that player. And you're like, you see that as a player, what happens at executive level or administration level. And you know, you look at your coach, he's getting judged by the players. Literally every word that coach says, the players are hanging on to every single word. And they don't forget it. They've got memories like bloody elephants, when a coach speaks. And you can if you're seeing your coaches going,

Ronaldingo (01:26:50.835)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:27:07.487)
Yep, yep.

Jamie Young (01:27:20.272)
and you're coming off contract, you're like, I'm in the wild west now, I don't know where I'm gonna be, this could impact me two, three years down the line. So that is a bit of a chaotic place to be at the minute.

Ronaldingo (01:27:30.013)
Looking at that and just interesting hearing what you're saying, Maka, and not knowing any more about it, I was looking into the Newcastle squad, and it's not new this season, but Rob Stanton, and maybe this is completely unrelated, has the same agent as about three quarters of that playing squad. So if he's pissed and leaving, is there something, you know, are the club moving in a certain direction or?

Jamie Young (01:27:52.834)
Haha!

Daniel McBreen (01:27:59.419)
Maybe that agent's had a lot of players in that club and he's had the coach beforehand as well and maybe the club new owners have come in and said well it's not going to be a club dominated by your players. could well be. Robbie you may have done some investigative journalism there that breaks it wide open. That could be one of the breaking points. That's your, that's what you found. That's what you found there.

Ronaldingo (01:27:59.741)
because that

Jamie Young (01:28:01.198)
Maybe that's cool as friction.

Ronaldingo (01:28:08.223)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:28:23.711)
Interesting. That was just a comp- I was just- I was just shoot- was just- shooting blind. But

Jamie Young (01:28:25.9)
That's your recruitment policy, isn't it?

Daniel McBreen (01:28:28.697)
Yeah, mate, you you've done some very good investigative journalism in your time. Maybe that's another piece of it.

Jamie Young (01:28:36.792)
Yeah, rather than going to the guy who's going to give me players, let's try and get an actual policy and look at the kinds of players we want versus going through one guy. And it's, you know, a self-interest thing. Maybe in Saudi, in Turkey.

Ronaldingo (01:28:37.245)
Let's see.

Daniel McBreen (01:28:47.609)
No way, would that work? Jamie, that wouldn't work, it?

Ronaldingo (01:28:51.827)
Well, this is, and look, we're not gonna have this chat now, but when a club has to be able to operate, irrespective of certain elements, doesn't it? The central core of the club has to be strong enough. If you're Melbourne Victory, to have a PK who just says on the eve of the fucking derby, I'm leaving. If players leave, if you don't win the league, when things happen, you lose your major sponsor.

Daniel McBreen (01:29:18.777)
It's a philosophy, Robbie. It's a philosophy. It's an identity and a philosophy. if... 100%. So if Rob leaves, another coach should come in who fits that philosophy that Rob already fit when he came in. I'm gonna tell you, for the whole time that I was involved with the Jets, the club didn't have a philosophy. And that was a big bugging point that quite a few of us in the club wanted to try and get right.

Ronaldingo (01:29:21.349)
Exactly. The culture, the philosophy, exactly. That all has to be more solid than the people that come and go.

Daniel McBreen (01:29:45.499)
And then we tried to get that started when the CEO came in to take over at the time. And we had one meeting about it and then it was never done again.

and the club, don't know, since the new ownership of coming, whether they've sat down and said, this is our identity, this is our club philosophy, this is the way we're gonna play, this is how we're going to bring players to the club, I don't know, or bring players into the first team from below. I don't know if that's been put into place or started, because I'm not involved with the club anymore, but gee, it would be a start, wouldn't it?

Jamie Young (01:30:20.28)
just takes time and effort for that and people probably think it's easy to churn and burn. Let's just go from one year to the next. We're going to be in the A-League next year. You've got to sit down and have hours and hours of conversation to nut out what the club is, what direction, scouting, recruitment, phone calls. That's a lot, a lot of effort.

Daniel McBreen (01:30:36.889)
And when most people at the club are on three different jobs at most clubs, you know, people come and sign on to do one job and they invariably do three. Sorry. Yeah.

Jamie Young (01:30:41.43)
Yeah, understaffed.

Ronaldingo (01:30:42.141)
Yeah, as well. But that's where you reap the benefits, down the line.

Jamie Young (01:30:46.848)
understaffed, under-resourced, and Newcastle, yeah, doing three jobs. Brisbane's the same. You could probably fit the whole staff in one room now. It's... Is it really?

Ronaldingo (01:30:53.939)
Yeah. Yeah, Perth is the same. It's no surprise that they're all down there. Mariners is the same. When you look at the league table, you know.

Daniel McBreen (01:31:00.911)
Yep, Newcastle all sit in a room, know, 10 by 10, all the staff are in one room.

Jamie Young (01:31:06.806)
Yeah, that's reality. Where does it sit?

Ronaldingo (01:31:06.845)
Yeah. It's like a fucking episode of A-League Off Air.

Daniel McBreen (01:31:10.937)
Yeah, well we're nearly a full club here aren't we? Well I'm doing three jobs, I don't know what Robbie's doing mate, he just turns up and fucking speaks shit and quotes some obscure band from the 1980s and then fucks off again for a week.

Jamie Young (01:31:16.426)
experience in this room though, huh? Look.

Ronaldingo (01:31:18.943)
you

Ronaldingo (01:31:24.615)
you

Ronaldingo (01:31:28.287)
We have one game left and fortunately, fortunately, there's not a whole lot to say about it. Sydney won, Wellington Phoenix won. Wellington Phoenix does what Wellington Phoenix do, one shot in a game, one shot per game. This game, they managed to score with that shot. It was initially ruled out for offside, but Costa got his Andy Harper equalizing. It was 101st goal. Adrian Segecic.

Daniel McBreen (01:31:29.477)
Fuck, we still going.

Jamie Young (01:31:31.512)
What's up man?

Daniel McBreen (01:31:34.042)
Cough

Daniel McBreen (01:31:49.017)
Who was it? was Costa, was it? Fuck. What a shock.

Ronaldingo (01:31:56.765)
had got a start and a goal. I was at the game. went to go and have a watch and have a few beers with my the lads from my over 45 team, which I did. So I can barely remember anything that happened, let alone tell you anything about it. But I will say that it was not the most spectacular game that we saw over the weekend. Perhaps Sydney FC eyes on the prize.

I don't know, you shouldn't really say that. They've had a big week. They've qualified for the next round of the ACL2, which is massive. And they'll play the Singaporean side, sailors, lions, up next with Bailey Wright in that side. That is big, but they should have won this. They're outside the six, Sydney. They are in danger of missing out. think they're three points, three points outside the six still.

Jamie Young (01:32:27.532)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:32:47.323)
Well that's a big talking point. That's the big talking point now with Sydney. We talked earlier about who most people picked to win the league this year and when they made their signings and what they've got on paper. How they're not even in the six at the moment is incredible. They just cannot find any cohesion. Did Segecic come off at half time because he was injured or was it just a change?

Ronaldingo (01:32:55.815)
Exactly.

Daniel McBreen (01:33:17.487)
He just seems to get sti- what we haven't spoke about is all the celebrations this week. Everyone, where's me fucking phone call? Here's my shirt. Everyone, all these young guys going to pop up. Where's me phone call? Fuck wit.

Ronaldingo (01:33:27.023)
Yes.

you

Jamie Young (01:33:30.67)
And poppers go on, wait till I see you're grab you by the fucking throat, you little cocky bastard. You know, popper.

Daniel McBreen (01:33:34.241)
I know and all I could think of the next window you aren't definitely getting the fucking call up because don't piss off the national team manager but I'm in comms and I'm going and he says there where's my phone call and I'm thinking don't fucking do that because Popper will be like scratch his fucking name off that black book. brewing. Look yeah this game look.

Ronaldingo (01:33:35.081)
Yeah, exactly.

Ronaldingo (01:33:41.375)
Laughter

Jamie Young (01:33:48.022)
Especially a popper. Yeah, wait till I get him in a headlock. I'll be getting him on the salads. We'll just get your skin falls right lad.

Ronaldingo (01:33:53.343)
Exactly.

Daniel McBreen (01:34:01.337)
Heaps of shots from Sydney, none from Wellington. Sydney are in trouble. Honestly. They're three points adrift and they should be in the top fucking two with their squad. Without a doubt. Yeah. And...

Ronaldingo (01:34:13.001)
Because someone is going to miss out of this. Someone is going to fall by the wayside in this race.

Daniel McBreen (01:34:18.427)
So let's have a look at their games. This is Sydney games coming up. Melbourne City, Adelaide, Auckland, Jets, Western United and City again. So they play one, four games of their last six against people, or five games of their last six against people in the top three or four.

Jamie Young (01:34:19.393)
is

Jamie Young (01:34:38.158)
Is it the old teams that are in the Champions League that affects their league? Has that happened here? I've not paid attention too much, but I do know you do know playing in the Champions League. That does pay. Yeah, that's a good point.

Ronaldingo (01:34:47.389)
Yeah, there's been travel, obviously. Yeah, but the Mariners did it last year. Mariners did it, you know, in that, and these, Champions League is not as demanding as the Champions League one, the elite, where you lose four nil every week just because the clubs are fucking juggernauts. These, John Book was a great result for Sydney, and that's a great result against a very solid side, but Sydney,

Daniel McBreen (01:34:49.167)
Yeah, there has been travel.

Daniel McBreen (01:35:06.138)
Yeah,

Jamie Young (01:35:07.043)
Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:35:11.567)
Yeah it works.

Ronaldingo (01:35:15.209)
were every bit the match for this John Book side and got a result that they should have got. Now they should beat Lions. They should be into the final and then we'll see who they get out of probably at what is it a Saudi side and that are in the on the other side of the draw. And the final should be at home. If Sydney make it.

Daniel McBreen (01:35:32.791)
Yeah, this, yeah, I was, yeah, it is at home.

Jamie Young (01:35:35.446)
Well, I'm going to throw it out. Sorry. I'm going to throw it out. I'm going to throw it out again. Sydney, they've obviously made a call on their goalkeeper there.

Ronaldingo (01:35:39.935)
You all right? Say what?

Jamie Young (01:35:47.022)
And although the young, what is he, 27, 28? So he's not necessarily that young. He's solid. He's come through the MPL, but I've only seen a limited amount of games. But does he have that next level where you are making absolute worldly saves, match winning saves on a regular basis in a club like that to be up there? You do need that. they probably, again, I haven't looked at it too closely, but their defense doesn't have that Wilkinson. Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:35:50.451)
Yeah, 28.

Ronaldingo (01:36:13.417)
Well, the defense has changed. They've lost Hayden Matthews. They've got Rhino playing in the center of defense. They've got Joel King and Courtney Perkins in the fullback roles. Also in front of them, you know, they've been mixing. Leo Senna, you talk about a buba car acclimatizing quickly to the league and not diving anymore. Leo Senna is still diving.

Daniel McBreen (01:36:14.457)
Yeah, Alex Grant's coming.

Jamie Young (01:36:23.576)
Fight.

Daniel McBreen (01:36:32.955)
Stick to your guns. Leo's sticking to his guns. I'm gonna fucking dive every game. And then I'm gonna look incredulously at the referee to go, what the fuck? What, I'm gonna sit there on the floor while everybody else runs back and does my defensive duties and then go, I'll get up now, shall I? Fuck, it's frustrating because he's a good player. But that fucking annoys me.

Jamie Young (01:36:33.998)
Still at it, is he?

Ronaldingo (01:36:38.291)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Jamie Young (01:36:41.932)
Hahaha

Ronaldingo (01:36:43.199)
you

Ronaldingo (01:36:48.125)
Ha ha!

Ronaldingo (01:36:52.559)
Exactly. unreal. He is a good player. He should be the best player in the league, just about. Yeah, absolutely.

Daniel McBreen (01:36:59.631)
Like hasn't he learnt now? What is it? Round 20 fucking 3 and he's still doing it and looking just as shocked that he doesn't get the foul. Righto, surely we've spoken enough today.

Jamie Young (01:36:59.822)
20 rounds and stick it at it.

Ronaldingo (01:37:06.335)
All right. Yeah, that's absolutely enough. Quick look at the standings and even though we've kept pretty much abreast of that the whole way through. So Auckland have drawn their last three. They are only four points ahead of Western United, who importantly, they have played one more than perhaps a Melbourne city, a Western Sydney and an Adelaide. But they are four points clear of the Wanderers.

Jamie Young (01:37:09.518)
Ronaldingo (01:37:35.269)
in second place, let's not forget, we remind you every time, second place qualifies for the Champions League next season. Are we going to see Champions League elite Hiroshima, know, Yokohama, F. Marinos playing at Tarnit? Is Tarnit gonna get the rubber stamp from the AFC to host Champions League football?

Jamie Young (01:37:42.86)
Okay.

Jamie Young (01:37:51.438)
Ha!

Daniel McBreen (01:37:57.401)
No fucking chance, it'll be at Amy.

Ronaldingo (01:37:59.359)
No fucking chance. We're not playing at Coober Pedy, says the AFC.

Jamie Young (01:38:00.686)
What?

Daniel McBreen (01:38:04.345)
Well, after Gus Pouillet's fucking rant about they don't want to travel three hours in fucking... They're not gonna want to go to fucking Tarn-Ede, are they?

Ronaldingo (01:38:07.455)
Exactly. Okay, Wanderers. Exactly. They're buses on those dirt roads out to Tarnate. Western Sydney Wanderers are third with Melbourne City on 34 points. Then Melbourne Victory 33. They've played one more. 21 games played.

Jamie Young (01:38:15.6)
Getting lost in the road somewhere.

Jamie Young (01:38:24.419)
Yeah.

Ronaldingo (01:38:35.355)
Adelaide, 20 games played, they're also on 33 points. That is your six at the moment. Gentlemen, very quickly, Sydney are three points behind. MacArthur are five points out of the six. Then come the bottom four. Jets, Mariners, Phoenix, Raw, and Perth, are now in bottom five rather. Can Sydney or MacArthur turn this around, or are MacArthur gone? I asked at the start, Jamie Macca, what do you reckon?

Daniel McBreen (01:38:59.789)
I would say MacArthur's a huge stretch and I would say they're likely no.

Jamie Young (01:39:04.206)
Yeah, yeah, I'm the same.

Ronaldingo (01:39:06.015)
And so who's going to miss out? Let's go. Okay. What I want from you two before we say goodbye.

Your Macca, know, saying that Tarnit is going to be the center of the universe on that last matchday round to see who finishes first in the league between when Western United host Auckland in round 27. By the way, you were right, only 26 games this year. How the fuck have we added an extra team and reduced the number of games we're playing? You said that last week. Insane. Must be a mistake.

Daniel McBreen (01:39:21.903)
Mm-hmm.

Jamie Young (01:39:33.132)
You

Must have been the CBA.

Ronaldingo (01:39:43.005)
So if we say the Premier's plate is still up for grabs, who is going to miss out on finals football?

Jamie Young (01:39:50.296)
Jesus Christ, that's a tough one, isn't it? Fuck.

Daniel McBreen (01:39:51.589)
So, I'm looking at Adelaide's... Yeah, I'm looking at Adelaide's...

Jamie Young (01:39:55.022)
I can't see a world where Sydney don't get in.

Ronaldingo (01:39:58.121)
They're behind the eight ball at the moment.

Jamie Young (01:40:00.47)
Yeah, they got a tough run don't they? Jeez.

Daniel McBreen (01:40:02.811)
Adelaide beat Sydney and they beat Victory next week. I'm going to say Sydney are going to miss out. Adelaide have got Victory and Sydney next. They're the next two games. If they win those two, if they get six points there, I'm going to say Sydney out.

Jamie Young (01:40:17.89)
Yeah?

Ronaldingo (01:40:18.493)
All right, we're gonna have to stop. We're at fucking an hour and 40. This is the longest pod ever. Don't forget, no A-League next weekend. Exactly. The Socceroos are taking on Indonesia and China. Let's go six points to get us into the World Cup again. Six World Cups in a row wouldn't be bad. All right, is that it? Are we covered? We've sold football, at least for this week. Don't subscribe, don't tell your mates, we don't give a fuck.

Daniel McBreen (01:40:21.753)
Woo, big one.

Jamie Young (01:40:25.902)
I feel like we've sold football.

Daniel McBreen (01:40:27.567)
Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:40:40.815)
That's it. Don't subscribe. Don't go on Twitter because Robbie doesn't fucking go anymore and I have to do it all. We're on Insta, we're on Twitter, we're on Blue Sky apparently and we're on YouTube.

Jamie Young (01:40:43.053)
done it.

Ronaldingo (01:40:48.133)
Exactly. Just listen to the podcast people. shit, I forgot about that. Yeah.

Daniel McBreen (01:40:56.731)
See you in a fortnight.

Ronaldingo (01:41:00.255)
All right, see you in a fortnight, people. Thank you very much, Jamie Young, for coming on. Well played.