NewConvert

Two incidents in my life does not give me great optimism: me selling car radios (as a hi-fi enthusiast) and hearing "I don't care what it sounds like, as long as it looks good" & second being at a professional wine tasting (as a budding alcoholic) and me getting a bollocking from another drunk after tipping a disgusting wine down the sink which was also the most expensive wine on the night only to find out a few minutes later that the wine was so poor that the marketing guy recommended to get a designer label and charge like a wounded bull so that most people thought that the price meant it was good. I feel the same way about people who watch European football, they get told that it is the best and how expensive it really is so they assume that it must be good. But have an in-depth talk about football tactics, team cohesion, what each player brings to the team and sports psychology and watch them run away.

I feel that it will definitively tell us where the team is at.

I always have. Sometimes I watch European games and wonder why we consider our product to be so inferior. Sure the top four are several notches above the rest, but the rest are not that impressive.

Wow. Just checked Wikipedia and he has Thyroid cancer for which he had an operation and is unable to work. Having a long family history with cancer, I think it will be quite a while, if ever, he makes it back to work.

How have they lied?

When Brisbane lost their coach Ben Cahn, at least they put out a statement that he was on indefinite medical leave but I don't think that CFG released any statement. I presume that he is at the Germano medical centre somewhere.

I think that one more season should be offered. I don't like the idea of losing almost the entire defence all at once. The days of having a third+ of player turn over were never good.

Every club anywhere in the world will hire players that don't work out for one reason or another. Ageing players are also an issue everywhere. The problem gets highlighted in the A-League because of the squad cap size which is a feature rather than a bug. Hence any club should only have two players that don't quite fit in. We have too many.

What bothers me, is the allegations in court of cocaine use in the defence department. If it was the Arts ministry, it comes with the territory; if it was Treasury or Finance, its the only plausible explanation; but I draw the line at defence.

Well every person at a club has a use by date and maybe Petrillo has reached his use by date.

given what we know about the APL, I am not so sure

Well Rik De Mil was sacked on March 19 and had a new job by March 22! In that case Zdrilic or Pappas for me. As for Leckie, that will depend on the length of the contract and the money.

Nah. Rather develop Caputo as a single striker - with two upfront maybe.

No to Piscopo, unsure about Iredale and Leckie. Leckie because of his injury issues and if a contract extension is offered/accepted then there is no need to rush him back and best just begin to manage his recovery properly. If Iredale is offered/accepted contract what will become of Caputo? No to Vidmar. Pappas I have always respected him so this could be a good move, but why did he leave Buriram United? And to throw another name is Rik De Mil from the Belgian league who has just been sacked by KVC Westerlo (Jordie's club) for apparently throwing the last game against Gent - both Westerlo and Gent needed a point only and as the scores were tied, Westerlo just passed the ball amongst themselves (Bos had already been subbed out). Since De Mil won't face those issues in the A-League, we would have a decent European manager.

The good news is that according to the Current Squad page only Ben Mazzeo remains in contract. Strangely, Caputo is down as a mid-fielder. So If Jakolis is not terminated, we only have to wait a few more weeks before it becomes true anyway. As for the game, I could see that Arslan is getting frustrated with the rest of the team - notable exceptions being Caputo, Leckie and Tilio.