Saturday, January 10, 2009

Flow My Tears, The Football Fan Said Jan 5 2009

IT'S OVER kids, the music comes up, the credits are rolling, the Fat lady is singing, the bells are ringing and the horn is horning.

Relax, it’s not the rapture, it's worse. Sydney FC’s 2-0 loss away to Adelaide has consigned Sydney’s season to the dustbin of history and with it our hopes of glory have been kicked to the kerb on the boulevard of broken dreams.

Before the Adelaide vs Sydney FC game The Klaxons It’s Not Over Yet was the theme song. If Sydney won the four remaining games and if the teams above lost points, FC had a chance to make the finals.

As my mate Jeof says “never bet on the fairytale.’ Robbie Middleby does not believe in fairytales either. On the cusp of entering the half time break at a safe 0-0 score line, the man they call chook attempted to shepherd the ball out play after he dispossessed Travis Dodd.

Instead of shepherding the ball to safety he decided to run into Adelaide players - he was then dispossessed and Adelaide scored: 1-0.

There are many songs that are called It’s over. Mariah Carey and Jesse McCartney are just a few. But I think Roy Robinson said it best when he sang “It's over It's over It's over It's over”

Into the second half now and the eternal football optimist inside me still thinks we can do it. Even in the face of a season-ending defeat, a football fan will still find hope, even if he said it’s over earlier. You are not a true football fan if you don’t spend time constantly lying to yourself.

Midway through the second half and Adelaide United where cruising and Sydney FC couldn’t get out of second gear; strange substitutions again by Kossie, taking off Shannon Cole who I thought was playing ok and rewarding Robbie Middleby for his earlier indiscretion by moving him to a midfield position. At least he gave Koffi Danning a run.

The game got a bit dull towards the end, the cricket pitch in the middle didn’t help as players were avoiding the centre pitch like the plague.

For the last 10 minutes Iain (with two I’s) Fyfe decided to play up front leaving a 17 year old two-gamer (Ryan Grant) and a 20 year old few gamer (Matt Jurman) and Beau Busch at the back.

Sydney eventually conceded another goal. It was ironic and apt that Aurelio Vidmar, John Kosmina’s apprentice at Adelaide for a couple seasons, was showing the master how it should be done.

Better tactics, better player recruitment and an all-round nicer guy, Aurelio Vidmar is now the teacher and Kossie needs to go back to school.

There are three rounds left to play. I suppose the smart thing to do would be to use this time to blood more youngsters.

The recriminations will begin in the terraces, the new guys were crap, the old guys where crap, the coach was crap, stuff like that.

So seven months till next season, Flow My Tears, a piece by the 16th century composer John Dowland says it all:

Flow, my tears, fall from your springs,
Exiled for ever, let me mourn
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.

There are song lyrics and poems in a football blog. Apologies for breaking the rules...

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