End of season standings:
1: Melbourne Victory
2: Macarthur Bulls
3: Sydney FC
4: Melbourne City
5: Auckland Black Knights
6: Perth Glory
7: Central Coast Mariners
8: Adelaide United
9: Wellington Phoenix
10: Brisbane Roar
11: Western Sydney Wanderers
12: Western Melbourne
13: Newcastle Jets
I’ve gone head over heart for this one. I don’t want to pick us to win the league as I feel it inevitably jinxes us (hey if it happens win-win) and whilst I think we’ll be unstoppable in front of goal, defensively we’re a liability. If we can extend Popovic’s loan to season end it might be OK, but if he continues to be strong we’re going to have a hard time keeping Matthews to seasons end, and one or two injuries in our backline could see us crumble. I still think we’ll leak goals like a sieve, but depending on our our exploits across Asia’s secondary continental competition goes, we might struggle with a consistent backline over the next 6 months or so. I hope it doesn’t happen.
Macarthur might surprise a few teams this season, and with them now being the second most successful domestic A-League Club in the league, they’ll be looking to upgrade their stature from pub league, to Sunday league team.
Australia’s Shame, they’re a mixed bag at the moment. Patty K might get them fired up like a disgruntled supporter hurling a flare bucket at a goalkeepers head, or they could flounder like a New Zealand navy vessel off a Samoan reef.
City likewise will probably be strong, I don’t see them accepting mediocrity, and they’re certainly not as strong as they were a few seasons back, but they’ll fight hard for top 4.
Stevie C & The Black Knights (might copyright that as a band name…) will have a solid first season. I think their main expectation is to not be as fundamentally shit as the NZ Knights were back in the opening days of this glorious league. Bimbi’s put together a promising squad full of unknown quality. Their derby will Wellington will go off like a bunga in a chilly bin. I expect them to be competitive, and as a bonus reach the finals.
We’ll see a resurgence of sorts from Perth Glory. Zdrillic will work a bit of magic with the young’uns that have signed and I predict they’ll be strong at home, cheered on by endless renditions of “Youre shit, ahhhh” from the drunken lager louts in the Shed. As the norm, they’ll be shambolic on the road, struggling to scrape points once their Qantas flight enters the Nullarbor Plain.
The Mariners have lost a lot of quality, and whilst writing them off is done at ones ultimate peril, I think Mark Jackson may just struggle with consistency this season. He’s no longer jetting all over Asia to the backwaters of places with unpronouncable names, and I think they may just struggle to find their rhythm this season, they’ll do enough to scrape into the finals.
Adelaide likewise, have pretty much done sweet fuck all in the transfer market, but they’ll be plucky enough to scrape into the 8 coughing and spluttering.
Wellington did excellently last season, but again they’ve lost a lot of quality and the spotlight is all on the new guys in Auckland. They’ll have a enthusiastic run mid-season, but ultimately the wind will die out of their sails and they’ll miss the finals.
Brisbane have signed some interesting players this season, and whilst that Indonesian bloke will be frothed over harder than a XXXX Gold, he’ll struggle and his gazillion Indonesian instagram followers won’t save him. They’ll be plucky, but Zadkovic won’t be able to get them finals bound.
Stajic has his work cut out for him at Blacktown Sports Park. Juan Mata will have a good opening 3 games, causing commentators to cream their pants at just the mere sight of him on the field, and then come down with a serious injury which will inevitably cause the squad to lose motivation. They’ll struggle for overall consistency, there’ll be the usual dramas with the RBB, and whilst looking like they’ll stay in the 6, they’ll fade away in the final run and impress everybkdy with a string of seemingly unloseable games.
The Team from Tarneit and Western Suburbs of Melbourne look boring as fuck, and despite have an all Japanese foreign quota, will be as boring, and flat as a Melbournian beach.
Newcastle, whilst having new owners, seemingly have invested as much into the squad as the interest in my bank balance - fuck all. Their sole foreigner looks to be plucked right from the early days of the A-League in terms of quality, and despite have Scarcella on loan, Lachie Rose will have about as much impact for them as a Carlton Zero does to ones tastebuds. There’ll be promise, but don’t see Robbie Stanton doing anything at all.
Grand final winner: Sydney FC
Grand final runner-up: Melbourne Victory
It’ll be yet another Big Blue Blockbuster, at AAMI Park. We’ll actually fucking show up this time, and Douglas Costa will score the winner courtesy a bicyle kick from an outswinging corner in the 90+4th minute, to give us a 2-1 win as Alireza Faghani will be putting the whistle to his mouth to blow it full time.
Australia Cup winner (2025):
Perth Glory. Sealing a 3-0 win against Western Sydney
Player of the season:
Whilst Douglas Costa is going to do some filthy things to opposition players, Anas Ourhim will take the cake, days before we sell him to a Bundesliga club for a record transfer fee.
Player of the grand final:
Whilst Patryk K scores the equaliser for us, and Anas Ourhim is written into the notepad by the judges, it’s crossed out and replaced by Diego Costa, courtesy of the aforementioned bicycle kick.
Golden boot: Patryk K. He’ll come good, score 15 goals for us.
Best new signing: Anas Ourhim.
Best young player (U23): Hayden Matthews
Biggest flop signing: Wellisol (Newcastle)
Again, whilst I’m hesitant to completely write him off based on my history of writing players off that the Mariners have signed in recent years gone by, he just looks fucking atrocious on paper.
SFC player of the season: 3-way tie between Costa, Anas, & Patryk K.
SFC golden boot: Patryk K.
First coach sacked: John Aloisi (Western United)
Player with highest number of Cards (Yellow and Red): Brandon Borello
Random predictions for this season:
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Steve Corica will pick up a chipper Kiwi accent, and his post match interviews will consist of mainly saying “Choice, bro” and inviting the media down to the dairy for a milkshake and a meat pie.
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The Bakries will finally pull out of Briabane Roar leaving them ownerless, forcing the APL to cut the salary cap and overall dividends they give clubs by a further 50% for the next few seasons, until they’re bought by a bored Saudi Prince with questionable human rights who has a interest in all things Lion Related.
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Melbourne City’s new Israeli Striker will leave midway through the season, having been called up to the Israeli Army because Israel decides to open a further front and launch an invasion of Syria. The appearances he does make will be met with a chorus of boos and Palestinian flags from opposition supporters.
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Western Uniteds owners will announce their intention to pull out of their ownership as well weeks after the Bakeries do so, causing the APL to panic and accept an ownership bid from Red Bull who will rebrand the club Red Bull Melbourne and announce their intention to play out of Lakeside, causing South Melbourne to write several facebook posts announcing their disgust. The facebook posts will develop into “We demand an investigation…” style memes.
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Tim Cahill will try and shoehorn his kid into another A-League club, this time Newcastle Jets were he will be as useless as he was at Brisbane.
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Sydney FC will be forced to move most of its home games back to Kogarah, with a smattering of games at Leichhardt Oval & Brookvale after a bands display of fireworks and other pyrotechnics damages the stadium, leading to the discovery that courtesy of mass corruption, major corners were cut in the building process, and the stadium is actually at risk of collapsing, in addition to actually being a major fucking fire risk. The State Government is forced to knock the stadium down where the site will remain as untouched for decades, similar to that of the Balmain Leagues Club. Eventually it’s decided that a stadium won’t be built on the site, and apartments will. Scott Barlow announces that in partnership with the Sydney Roosters, and Waratahs they will purchase ES Marks Athletic Field up the road, and turn it into a boutique 25,000 seater.
All future concerts are moved to the barren, desolate shithole that is Homebush.
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The Socceroos will fail to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, with Popovic losing every single game in the remaining qualifiers.
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Canberra United will be announced as team 14, with them adopting the moniker ‘Capital Punishment’ Football club. Their colours will be Green & Gold.
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Robbie Stanton will leave his post by mutual consent mkdway through the season, and be replaced by a ‘managerial panel’, consisting of John Kosmina, Frank Farina, and Graham Arnold.
