Australia – A-League Men 2021/22: the pace is picking up

The Australian championship is going to ramp up. The month of February will be intense for each team whose calendar promises us, unless postponed for health reasons, an almost match week until March.

The Australian Football League (AFL) announced a superb February. To tell the truth, all the players seem to have gone through the isolation box and have almost created collective immunity for themselves. Rare those who still missed the Omicron wave. However, for the league, the challenge is immense, the PLA office must place more than thirty matches in the calendar while juggling with the upcoming Champions League, during March, to Melbourne City, Sydney FC and the Melbourne Victory. The national Cup final has just been held and leaves room on weekdays.

Frustrated by the Bulls of MacArthur (2-2 after leading 2-0), the Western United continued his favorite game since the beginning of the season: winning 1-0 (for the fifth time out of six wins). Mark Rudan, just in office, has not sufficiently outwitted these green and black with his new franchise of Wanderers of Sydney still without a solution offensively when they had taken three points against Perth (1-0). It must be said that despite a rather mid-table attack, the south-east Melbourne club relies on an extraordinary central defense. Léo Lacroix partnered Nikolai Topor-Stanley in the starting line-up while being well assisted by the experienced Neil Kilkenny in a number six role.

In second place, Melbourne City has surpassed the Newcastle Jet (2-4) with a goal and an assist for Florin Bérenguer. Arthur Papas’ men could not make fruition the victory (2-1) on the Brisbane Roar, managed to twice find the way to the nets. An important game for the outgoing champions, if their attack is impressive (the best in the country with nineteen goals), the defense poses concern (fifteen goals conceded, second worst) explained in particular by the absence of Nuno Reis. The Sydney FC, third tied on points with City, follows the same pattern, a good offense (the third best), a feverish defense (the fourth most wretched). Against Adelaide United (2-1) the victory was due only to a parry of Thomas Heward-Belle thwarting Hiroshi Ibusuki’s penalty in the 88^e minute.

The bad surgery of the week is for Macarthur. Conqueror in the face of Western United, they Bulls lacked juice against Wellington. This physical impotence was felt especially at the end of the game where the relocated from New Zealand scored twice via Jaushua Sotirio (71^e, 78^e). Ufuk Talay’s men are breathing as they string together six points from two games. A good series in order to get out of the quagmire at the bottom of the leaderboard before trying to make a move against the Melbourne Victory. Macarthur FC wins in the standings (6^e), however two games behind, but it will be necessary to break this bad against the Central Coast Mariners.