“It hasn’t been a great start to the season,” Adelaide United coach Guillermo Amor said on December 6, and no-one was falling over themselves to contradict him. Adelaide were winless from the season’s first eight rounds and if buzzards weren’t exactly circling they were undergoing final safety checks before take of.
Amor, however, seemed calmer than he had any right to be. Reading aloud from the ‘Bumper Book of Coaching Cliches’ he recited the bit about his team being positive, about them playing well despite the results, about their confidence not being down despite everything, blah, blah, blah. Like a Johnny Depp-Amber Heard bio-security address, no-one was buying it, surely?
Well, no-one apart from his players, it seems. After Amor’s comments his team went on the kind of come-from-behind run racehorses tell their grandfoals about. And after losing just one of their final 19 regular-season games Adelaide – whose early exit from the Asian Champions League was a blessing in disguise – dipped their heads and crossed the post in first place, pipping the Wanderers and Brisbane to the Premiers Plate. Then they promptly ate their cake off it. Now they’re on the verge of a most remarkable A-League double. Judging by the way they put Melbourne City to the sword last Friday night they are not yet sated. There’s a cherry to eat.
Standing in their way, of course, are the Wanderers who, but for a single point – dropped along the way like that five cent piece you don’t need until you’re at the cash register and five cents short – could have won the Premiers Plate themselves. In all but reaching the top they haven’t experienced Adelaide’s season of extremes but let’s not forget where they ended up at the close of last season: in ninth place, just one point above wooden spooners Newcastle.
It had been the kind of season that provokes a mass clean-out and ten farewell cards were passed around the office for signing at season’s end. The Wanderers had had a brilliant run so early in their history but now Tony Popovic faced rebuilding his team and it was going to take time to get them back to the top. In theory. Somehow Popovic got them to gel before they had any right to even remember each other’s names. And having overseen the form revival of Mark Bridge and Mitch Nichols, and seamlessly integrated newcomers like Spaniards Andreu, Dimas and Albert, Popovic has escorted his team into the grand final. Again. If not for Amor, Popovic would have been a shoe-in for A-League coach of the year.
Sunday’s game at the Adelaide Oval will complete what has been a highly competitive and highlight-filled A-League season. With luck it’ll cap it off, too – in the sense that the two teams’ desire to win their maiden championship will outweigh their fear of losing and becoming, for both, three times runners up. It certainly did last week when the Reds and Wanderers, in their respective semifinals, played positive, open football – albeit a little too open when it came to the Wanderers, who surely won’t get away with conceding four goals on Sunday. But grand finals can often be cagey affairs, and it’s also worth noting that Adelaide and the Wanderers have drawn three times this season, the last two (following an early season 1-1 result) being dour scoreless draws.
Both teams have displayed a more clinical edge since and after their respective semi-final wins both enter the decider with every right to feel confident about their chances on Sunday.
Aside from enjoying the rather significant home-ground advantage and an extra two days of rest, Adelaide are in top form. They certainly couldn’t have looked better against City. Reassured by the security of their league-best defence they pushed forward off the ball and strangled City for the second-straight time. And with City gasping for breath they struck with clinical efficiency. Much has been said of their Spanish flavour but Adelaide are more than that, and they are a different and more dangerous team now that Bruce Djite has hit the form of his life. Six goals in his past four games has proven transformative and it gives his team an extra dimension.
The Wanderers have also benefitted from a goal-scorer’s vein of form. The team has scored 11 in its past three games and Brendan Santalab has five of them. Indeed he has scored so many timely ones that you can no longer think it a coincidence. And then who pops up last week – with bells on – but Romeo Castelen? After a season in which his goal threat was as hard to find as the Prince of Denmark’s backbone (‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?’) he gets three in his team’s biggest game of the season. He must feel like Rambo now.
It was, indeed, an epic semi-final at Parramatta and it remains to be seen how much it has taken out of Popovic’s team; not just physically – having played 120 minutes on Sunday – but emotionally. It was the Kramer vs. Kramer of football games. For that reason you can forgive Mitch Nichols’ childishness after the final whistle, as well as the excess of the Wanderers’ social media intern, who said Western Sydney’s semi-final win was “the biggest comeback in Australian football” since the formation of the NSL in 1977. Presumably they meant in finals but they’re wrong in any case, and as any member of the Wollongong Wolves 2000 NSL grand final-winning team shouldn’t have to remind you.
Nevertheless when that final whistle went last Sunday it must have felt like a grand final win. But, like cloud cover, their misty eyes quickly cleared and it became apparent that the Wanderers weren’t yet on the summit. The final push is on, but what do they have left in the tank?
Five of the last seven Premiers Plate winners – including, most recently, Melbourne Victory and Brisbane – have gone on to win the grand final which. This, if nothing else, renders moot any argument over which team –the one that wins the Premier’s Plate or the one that lifts the Championship trophy – is truly the A-League’s best. For that reason Adelaide are in pole position. But the Wanderers have an appetite for drama and the stomach for a fight. The pieces are in place for a memorable season finale.
Guardian Australia will be live-blogging Sunday’s A-League final
