Time for Sydney to sign Culina

The song is Culina Culina sung to the tune of ‘you’re the future of Australian football coaching, we hope.’

John Kosmina is gone from Adelaide and Terry Butcher is gone from Sydney. Of course the later earlier machinations allowed a final without Sydney and therefore spread the A-League dream.

Next year Branko Culina, father of Socceroo star Jason, should have his shot at the best run-on squad in the A-League. I’ve said this before and copped flak from Sydney fans. Because my idea was Alex Brosque, who we at the Roar persisted with (over 350 shots for 8 goals) and Saso Petrovski had about a million goals in them. But Tel-boy started them for most of the season on the bench. They certainly are not the team with the most depth or the fittest. But their defence can be the fiercest and the David Carney/ Steve Corica combination can pull out some of the most incredible goals. As we saw last night against Shanghai Shenhua. And while Saso was first off the Japan and now Central Coast, the key talent of their team remains.

And Culina stands like mechanic with 30 years experience looking after this model of E-type Jaguar.

It is an interesting feature that the two teams that let go their coaches at the end of the A-League version two are in this year’s Asian Champions League. Both teams were decidedly off guard. And yet Sydney won 1-2 in front of a huge and unbelieving Shanghai crowd, playing with style and scoring goals that could be out of the English Premier League (Carney's layoff for a Corica volley and Talay’s 25 metre slammer - that one makes us Roar fans wish Seo could once again pull off this type of outrage).

Adelaide, on the other hand, were on the back foot. And probably lucky not to loose two nil at home to a half full stadium - a fair goal was disallowed for off-side in the opening minutes. As it was they had the indignity of a horrible own goal from Valkanis.

Of course, since Adelaide has finished top two for two seasons, they get another shot after next season at the Champions League no matter how they go in version 3. For football starved Brisbane football fans this seems harsh. A month ago the Young Socceroos beat Chinese Taipei 11-0 in front of under 2,000 at Hindmarsh. And now in the biggest game so far for an A-League Club, Hindmarsh attracts - 7,654. Come on Roar it is your duty to get these games to Lang Park - where we can get 30,000 to a season game against Sydney.

In Roar news - long standing training squad members Chris Grossman and Robbie Kruse (see photo) have been signed. Both were signed by Miron as injury covers. Chris was a crowd favourite in his three games, while Robbie sat on the bench. Meanwhile, Dario Vidosic is trying out for Nurnberg in the Bundesliga. If successful he may leave after version 3 (we hope).

A-League returns to the sand pit for one of the seasons best

Newcastle 1 - Central Coast 0

Newcastle returned to their sand pit just 4 days after the shambles against Sydney. This time water was liberally sprayed onto the pitch before the game and at half time. It did the trick. A great attacking game of football was produced and enjoyed by the crowd of nearly 15,000 Jet-sters and Marinaters.

On display were two of the three top coaches in the A-League. Gary Van Egmond and Lawrie McKinna were able to turn on a high quality fast moving match on a suspect pitch - without resort to a long ball game. This was a foil to Terry Butcher's winning performance there just days earlier.

Also on display were the A-League's two top goal keepers, Ante Covic (Jets) and Danny Vukovic (Mariners). In contrast to earlier games, Vukovic had little to do. This was particularly the case in the second half. Meanwhile, Covic demonstrated why he is in the Socceroos squad. Covic saved Newcastle. The first half was fast and close and highlighted by Milton Rodriguez's winning goal for Newcastle. The second half was dominated by Central Coast attacking runs - and unfortunately for them - Covic's acrobatics.

And after the turmoil of Newcastle's early season, opening the squad with only one goal keeper, 19 year old Ben Kennedy, and then Kennedy's season ending injury, Covic's return from Europe makes Newcastle a title contender.

While Newcastle made the finals last season, by year they looked spent. This year they started poorly but have built both squad and confidence. And while the dismissal of Nic Theodorakopoulos was the results turning point, a winning attacking team that could challenge Melbourne and Sydney's dominance was in place. Perhaps Nic represented too many issues in the club, who would really know that detail. Perhaps the real credit should go to chair Con Constantine - for holding face when crowds dipped under 5,000 and for stumping up for Milton and Ante Covic.

Last night both teams played attacking football. More the remarkable was that this was quite a different Central Coast team. Injury has hit them hard. And the coaching team of former National Soccer League stars, Lawrie McKinna, Ian Ferguson and Alex Tobin, have proved their worth in developing young local talent - able to step up and be competitive in one of the toughest games of the season.

However, Central Coast miss Damian Mori. His 6 goals in 8 games put Central Coast in contention. He wanted to stay and they wanted to keep him. Alias, under the 4 week striker for striker (defender for defender) injury rule he could not. And unfortunately Nik Mrdja only lasted 256 minutes before succumbing to injury again (if Roar hadn't pounced Mori could have been back). And despite Frank Farina's implications, it has nothing to do with long balls. Central Coast created up to 15 real chances last night, crosses, heads into space into space in the 6 yard box... What was missing was a player locked into the 6th sense of the team to be in the right place at the right time to bang it in. Only Mori has shown this for Central Coast. And as much as he looked like that person, bolted on at the front for Central Coast, he has not looked like it for the Roar. It is little wonder that he is now talking about retirement - perhaps central Coast will pick him up next year?