A-League 2020: Why the fate of the competition relies so heavily on the success Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers

The A-League cannot afford to have the two biggest clubs contesting a meaningless match on the eve of finals. There’s so much at stake for the competition if these heavyweight flops continue to fail, writes Robbie Slater.

Melbourne Victory fans in full voice against who? Western Sydney Wanderers, of course, at Marvel Stadium last year. Picture: Micheal Klein

Melbourne Victory versus Western Sydney Wanderers should be a preview to the finals. But they meet on Wednesday night to contest a dead rubber between ninth and 10th.

That is a shocking, sobering truth not just for fans of the two clubs, but for the league as a whole.

If the two teams with the biggest fan bases in the A-League continue to fail — and fail so badly — they risk dragging the whole competition down with them.

That simply cannot be allowed to happen.

This is a problem which has been building for years because, let’s be brutally honest, since Tony Popovic left in 2017 the Wanderers have been terrible.

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Simon Cox and his Wanderers teammates have had a season they would prefer to forget.

They won the league in 2013, and the Asian Champions League the following year. They made three grand finals and built up the most passionate supporter base in the game.

But since Popovic left, every appointment they’ve made, every decision they’ve made, it’s been disastrous. Just failure after failure.

And it’s affected the whole competition.

And we, as a competition, can’t afford to have the Wanderers being a failure. Because we know what they can be. You only have to go back through the archives to the Popovic years and the magnificent scenes at their stadiums to know what we are now missing.

And there have been issues, with their stadium getting knocked down and the heavy-handed FFA sanctions against the Red and Black Bloc, but you can’t just keep making excuses.

Melbourne Victory has been in the doldrums since Kevin Muscat moved on.

Sooner or later that potentially massive club, that it was when it started, has to enjoy some success.

And I put Melbourne Victory in the same boat really. Since Kevin Muscat left, it’s been a shambles. And that’s not something we’re used to with Melbourne Victory.

They’re a massive club, they’ve got more memberships than anyone else in the country — and they can’t afford another mistake.

The league can’t go into its last season of a broadcast deal with the two of the best-supported clubs failing.

As I’ve written before, next season is the most pivotal in A-League history — with an expiring broadcast deal, the league desperately needs to sell itself to the masses.

And to do so with two of the most marketable clubs, alongside Sydney FC, being abject failures is like fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.

Both clubs have enormous decisions to make in the coming months, both in recruitment and at a managerial level.

Mitch Duke’s loss will be felt at the Wanderers.

Victory need to be very, very wary of who is pulling the strings.

From what I’m hearing, there’s people pulling the strings that in my opinion shouldn’t be making the big decisions.

The biggest decisions for both clubs are going to be in recruitment. They cannot pull the wrong rein in the coming weeks and months.

For the Wanderers, Mitch Duke will be a massive loss — he’s scored 14 goals in a failed campaign. That’s difficult to replace.

But the clubs are going to have to invest, even in spite of the broadcast deal being cut. If the clubs and the FFA want the game to succeed and go on, then money needs to be part of the answer.

When the Western Sydney Wanderers are firing so is the competition.

You only need to look at Alessandro Diamanti at Western United and what he did the other night with his ridiculous chip kick goal.

When you recruit quality like that, that kind of performance — which he’s been doing all season — is what you get, and that excites people.

Western United should be applauded for bringing him in because that kind of player is what the Wanderers and Victory need to invest in.

Last year, Victory recruited Ola Toivonen, which was a great addition but unfortunately it just didn’t match up with the other mistakes they were making at the club.

But these are the types of players the clubs need to invest in to excite fans in this country.

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Originally published as A-League 2020: Why the fate of the competition relies so heavily on the success Melbourne Victory and Western Sydney Wanderers