The A-League Lemon

If it’s not the cute little piggie flu, the global credit crunch or an over aggressive tennis father; the queue to the antagonist line in this world is very long.

The main antagonist during last season of the A-League was the injured player, better known as the A-League Lemon.

All A-League clubs have suffered from this problem in the past. The players may look shiny and new from the outside, but inside they are poorly built and likely to break down at any moment.

Step up, Hayden Foxe (actually most of the Perth Squad in the last four seasons) Charlie Miller and Jardel.

Sydney FC have had three big lemons in recent times; Juninho who was as fragile as a new born baby, John Aloisi at times looked like a cartoon character who whose legs where moving quickly but the body remained stationary.

The other Lemon at Sydney FC was Simon Colosimo


This new upcoming season A-league season for Sydney FC is all about atonement.

The senior players especially need to take some responsibility for last season debacle.

If Simon Colisimo plays more than five games this season then he has already bettered last season’s personal best.

The noises coming out of Sydney FC players since they started training with their new Czech coach in the last week have been positive.

Regarding the methods of the new coach Aloisi had this to say during an interview with 442’s John Ritson:

“In some ways it's very similar to the way Guus Hiddink trained us before the World Cup in 2006, intense, a lot of sessions and tactical sessions.”

In football code this means:
“The old coach couldn’t train a monkey to eat bananas”.

The national spokesperson for dandruff also had this to say:
“Nobody starts eating before every member of the squad is in place. We're always as a unit, always together and that brings the team closer. We're already strong and I think it will get stronger.”

One of the problems I found at Sydney FC over the years has been the atrocious table manners displayed by the players; elbows on the table, players constantly playing and talking to their food.

Well it’s good to see that the new coach Latislav Lavicka is instilling some culinary discipline.

Are you watching Melbourne Victory?

Now that the players are waiting for the each other so they can eat together, the sky is the limit for Sydney FC this season.

With rumours that Kevin Muscat likes to eat his lunchtime kebabs in the corner with the light switched off, perhaps this new love of group bonding could be Sydney FC’s competitive advantage this year.

In another interview this time with the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) journalist Sebastian Hassett, the chatty Sydney FC striker John Aloisi wanted to quash rumors that he was one of the senior players who got rid of John Kosmina.
“Stop blaming us” the article said.

"There's been a lot of talk that the older players are the ones who had a falling out with Kossie or got rid of Kossie, but I can't understand why people are saying that," Aloisi said.”

The people that are saying “that’ is none other than Michael Cockerill; Sebastian Hassett’s colleague at the SMH.

Here is what Michael Cockerill wrote about the issue in the SMH on April 27, 2009:
“Some of the players who agitated to get rid of John Kosmina were the same players who campaigned to get rid of Branko Culina. Come to think of it, they had a bit to do with the departure of Terry Butcher as well. Player power has been the bane of Sydney FC's short existence.”

I find this quite hilarious really.

The reason why Kossie got sacked is because Sydney FC did not make the finals last season. And the reason that happened is because the senior players and the coach underperformed. So in effect the players where the ones responsible for Kossies departure more because of their poor form rather than their agitation to get a new coach.

So if you underperform does it naturally give you the authority to then call the shots? I would see the players’ power base at that moment would be quite low and nonexistent.

Hopefully Viteslav Lavicka’s ignorance of the clubs politics will help build a united group at Sydney FC one that is not controlled by Lemons.