ozzieeagle

Definitely and the Aus Club teams which equates to the local players are well behind the standard in the J league. That's something that doesn't sit well with Australian sports people. The J league teams standard would probably be pushing for promotion out of the Championship... Whereas the A league would probably be top leauge 1 standard at best. So having the J league and the Korean teams come in and regularly beat the A league teams is causing the standard to aim higher. Last years Brisbane Roar team was probably the best club football ever played in this country... they would have won a hell of a lot of games at Championship level in the UK. The A league has only been running for 8 years now... and there has been steady improvement.

Just to let readers on this thread know... we had real issues with ethnic divisions... IE: Croatian v Italian v Greek for example and it was really holding the game back in this Country. The A league has banned clubs from having any ethnic references on board. The consequence of this is the Brits and local Aussies are finally backing the game in a big way here... and the game is really growing.... It's not seen as something so foreign now.

BTW it may interest people on here to know, how desperate Football Australia is to get the game happening over here. We have the longest distance for a domestic home and away game in the world.... Perth v Wellington in NZ....over 3,000 Kilometers or a 6,000K+ round trip.

Bob

What's the money like in the Aus or Asian leagues?

Don't tend to hear as many players heading to Japan for the money these days, but to China and the UAE and even Russia for the big pay outs.

ozzieeagle

Australian local football has no hope of competing on a financial basis yet. Not sure where the Jleague stands. I understand Drogba is off to Shanghai if the rumours are to be believed, so we may see him in a Asian cup club comp here in Aus. We've had players like Robbie Fowler and Dwight York play here... Currently Harry Kewell plays for Melbourne Victory. He managed to get a contract worth 1 Million Aud per year out of MV. Which possibly makes him the highest paid footballer of any code in Australia. Haven't seen good value out of him in his first season dammit !

kimilseung

The Open Cup used to have a tender process for who got the home advantage. You offer more, you get to host. All a bit odd for us Brits to get our heads around; but they changed the rules for this year to a straight draw; first out the hat gets to host. Except there are rules and sub-clauses, and it seems that you can still buy the home advantage from the first out the hat team.

So presumably now, it is often cheaper to buy the home advantage as it is no longer a hidden tender. It just seems a crazy messed up way to organize a tournament.

Would this be possible in the British Cups? I think the first team out gets to select the venue, but could another team offer money?

kimilseung

Montreal has had a couple of 60,000 crowds this season, but the other three home games were more like 20,000. Anyone know why the disparity in numbers?

Bob

http://www.seacoastunited.org/Oxford...ts/630071.html

So they've put ticketing info up, so cheap enough and you'll be able to get tickets at the venue this year so you can wing it.

The club also has youth coaching stuff going on in Maine, so if that's what you're interested in, chances are someone there you can have a word with.

Southy_SWFC

As it stands I've nothing on next Tuesday so should be giving it a go. New Wednesday shirt arrived yesterday so maybe I'll wear that to go in.

Bob

We're going to the Friday match, the missus sorted out a couple days off after the weekend too.

Last year, there were a bunch of Brits with a whole variety of footie shirts, so wouldn't worry about it...only a few OU shirts...though they sold a bunch, quite tempted this year.

The scarfs that they had though, that just made me ill thinking about it in the heat

Southy_SWFC

Good stuff. Hopefully we'll all get talking about the international love of the game. Unless theres Sheff U fans there and I'll have to shout abuse at them.

The only place scarves belong at this time of year is the back of the cupboard. Don't want to think about them for another 6months

Sheepdip

Shame Forest cancelled their US tour. I was looking forward to seeing some English play again this year in Charleston.

Southy_SWFC

Cheers for the heads up about this Bob, really enjoyed the game tonight. I ended up meeting up with a fellow Wednesday fan from home which meant we outnumbered the Oxford fans but that didn't matter. Hope they come back again next year

Bob

That's cool!

I followed it on twitter and it sounded like a pretty decent game.

Shame that Michael Duberry is injured and Chapman couldn't get a visa to travel...but sounded like the trialists and new signings did well, so here's hoping for a decent season.

And apparently 624 attendance, which is a hell of a lot better than last year

Really looking forward to the Friday now to catch the match on our way up to Maine

ozzieeagle

Down around your waste... circa 70's style. Like we have to here in Melbourne during our season.

FYI... Went to a Melbourne Victory v Oakleigh (A Suburban Greek team) pre season practice game, circa 20ks out fromt he center of town on a Tuesday nite... nearly 3K in attendance.

It would be very handy, if they could arrange a MLS v A league knock out comp in Hawaii or similar in the future.... MV could probably bring along a sizeable contingent to something Fifa sanctioned.

sir_eccles

Went to see Sporting Kansas City at Livestrong park last night. Awesome atmosphere. The north stand aka the cauldron from their wizard days were up on their feet chanting and beating on drums the whole game.

"I'm blind I'm deaf I want to be a ref " bad ref I really think he was blind

"Bring out your dead " opposing player faking injury

Bob

Things like that are generally missing from sports here

Anyway, Fridays game was a good one...even if the final result was a draw, some 3 off the line saves in 10 seconds by the home team was quite fun.

Amusingly enough, technically, both sides are supposed to be at the same level, 4th tier league teams, but the standard of play was night and day in difference.

Still, good fun and a cheap night out...plus Portsmouth NH is a really fun, if small city to putter around.

Hope tomorrow's match gets a slightly better result though