A-League Tackle: Wanderers show no mercy, rare praise for a referee, Corica’s award claims
Robbie Slater and Marco Monteverde take a look at the Wanderers’ revival, why Steve Corica has genuine coach of the year claims and referees in the spotlight. It’s all in The Tackle.
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The Wanderers’ revival is a genuine talking point in the A-League and Steve Corica has shown why he has coach of the year claims. It’s all in The Tackle.
WELCOME WANDERERS REVIVAL
Have Western Sydney Wanderers finally turned the corner to become a genuine title contender?
While the Mariners were poor in losing 4-0 to Western Sydney in Gosford on Saturday, the Wanderers showed a clinical side we hadn’t seen from them previously this season.
The Mariners were made to pay for their mistakes, with the Wanderers showing no mercy.
For only the second time this season, Western Sydney secured back-to-back wins.
And the Alen Stajcic-coached team has a seemingly perfect chance to make it three wins on the trot when they host the struggling Perth Glory at CommBank Stadium next Sunday.
With momentum building, the Wanderers won’t want to waste their recent good work by playing poorly against the Glory.
Hopefully, the Wanderers fans will also play their part by turning out in good numbers in recognition of the progress their team seem to finally be making.
Apart from the 27,000-plus that attended the round one Sydney derby hosted by the Wanderers, attendances haven’t been good enough at CommBank Stadium this season.
SUPER STEVE
It’s going to be hard to ignore Steve Corica’s claims to winning the A-League coach of the season award.
While there’s still a fair chunk of the 2024-25 campaign remaining, Corica has already done a remarkable job with Auckland FC in its maiden A-League campaign.
The Black Knights’ 6-1 thrashing of Wellington in Saturday’s New Zealand derby was the latest in a list of remarkable achievements by Auckland this season.
The comprehensive win completed a clean sweep of this season’s Kiwi derbies by the Black Knights, who are showing no signs of giving up their advantage at the top of the ladder.
While he has the financial backing of Auckland’s billionaire owner Bill Foley, Corica was under pressure when appointed as the Black Knights’ inaugural coach.
Despite having won silverware while in charge of Sydney FC, Corica’s demise at the Sky Blues early last season had some people unfairly questioning his coaching credentials.
He has certainly proved them wrong this season, and now has the chance to finish off the job in what would be a remarkable title-winning achievement from a club in its debut campaign.
REFEREES IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Referee Jonathan Barreiro was put in charge of the Melbourne derby at the weekend, one of the A-League’s marquee fixtures.
And in defence of Barreiro, he didn’t have a bad game, despite what Victory’s Arthur Diles and City coach Aurelio Vidmar thought.
Diles raised the point that the “best referees” should be in control of the A-League’s biggest matches.
But Barreiro’s decisions to award two penalties, one after reviewing video footage of City defender German Ferreyra’s tackle on Victory striker Nikos Vergos, were both correct.
He also showed common sense in not sending off Victory defender Roderick Miranda following his clash with City midfielder Andreas Kuen.
However, if all referees were available then there is a question as to whether Barreiro gets appointed for this game.
Alex King, Alireza Faghani or Shaun Evans are the A-League’s top three referees.
King wasn’t an option as he’s on duty at the AFC Under-20 Asian Cup.
The Tackle initially reported that Evans was instead chosen to referee Sunday’s game between Western United and Adelaide United and Faghani wasn’t given a match at all in this round.
However, league officials have since clarified that Faghani was unavailable due to injury and Evans flew back into Australia on the weekend from an AFC appointment.
There is a push to shake up things in the refereeing ranks ahead of appointing a 12-strong elite panel next season and provide opportunities for others to step up.
Barreiro was up to the challenge on the weekend but the A-League’s top referees should always get the premier games when available.
MARINERS A MESS
The fall of the Central Coast Mariners could have been avoided.
Nine months ago the Mariners were on top of the world, having completed a remarkable treble despite the club operating on a small budget.
Then chairman Richard Peil sacrificed millions of dollars to help fund the club, and it paid off – in terms of silverware, at least.
Peil’s devotion was supposed to have been rewarded with 50 per cent ownership of the club at the end of this season had he been able to achieve certain “milestones” that he and owner Mike Charlesworth had agreed on more than three years ago.
However, the drastic reduction in the APL’s distribution fees to clubs in the off-season meant those milestones were no longer feasible.
Peil had hoped Charlesworth would realise this and agree to a renegotiated ownership deal between the pair.
Here’s where Charlesworth made his mistake. Thinking that he had someone else to buy the club, he rejected Peil’s new offer.
But then, the deal Charlesworth thought he had fell through.
The wash-up was that Peil parted ways with the Mariners in October last year, and the Mariners have never recovered – on and off the field.
Instead of accepting a fair offer from Peil, Charlesworth opted for the other deal and now it appears in Peil’s absence, the Mariners are suffering.
They have gone from being the A-League’s best team to a side that is just making up the numbers.
Their AFC Champions League Elite campaign was a complete flop, with the Mariners securing just one point from a possible 24.
It’s hard not to feel sorry for Mariners coach Mark Jackson, who did wonders last season despite the constraints he was forced to work under.
However, it’s understood those constraints have reached new depths this season.
It would be a shame if the Mariners lost Jackson at the end of the season, but you could hardly blame him if he accepted an offer from elsewhere because there would surely be interest in his services.
TEAM OF THE WEEK
(4-1-4-1): Oliver Sail (Perth Glory); Tate Russell (Western United), Tomislav Mrcela (Perth Glory), Anthony Pantazopoulos (Western Sydney Wanderers), Jack Clisby (Western Sydney Wanderers); Kai Trewin (Melbourne City); Logan Rogerson (Auckland FC), Clayton Taylor (Newcastle Jets), Rhys Bozinovski (Western United), Neyder Moreno (Auckland FC); Hiroshi Ibusuki (Western United). Coach: Steve Corica (Auckland FC)
Player of the week: Neyder Moreno (Auckland FC)
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Originally published as A-League Tackle: Wanderers show no mercy, rare praise for a referee, Corica’s award claims
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