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Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

We needed 20 quality players to pull off what we are doing, we have 10 with 3-4 on top of them that are just ok.

The 2 cancelled ofc games hurt us, but we dropped some horrible points early in the ofc, 3-3 to south island (goalkeeping joke), 1-1 to bula (janko mistake) and a couple others meant we had to take the full squad to Fiji, not only costing us the Oakleigh game, but putting extra travel and legs into the players that would have been avoided if we wrapped up leaders group qualification early.
 
southmelb said:
We needed 20 quality players to pull off what we are doing, we have 10 with 3-4 on top of them that are just ok.

The 2 cancelled ofc games hurt us, but we dropped some horrible points early in the ofc, 3-3 to south island (goalkeeping joke), 1-1 to bula (janko mistake) and a couple others meant we had to take the full squad to Fiji, not only costing us the Oakleigh game, but putting extra travel and legs into the players that would have been avoided if we wrapped up leaders group qualification early.
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The problem is, and will always be, that to keep 10 decent second string player interested you have to give them enough match time to not make them feel like playing for another club is more attractive.
 
southmelb said:
We needed 20 quality players to pull off what we are doing, we have 10 with 3-4 on top of them that are just ok.
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Monoethnic Social Club said:
The problem is, and will always be, that to keep 10 decent second string player interested you have to give them enough match time to not make them feel like playing for another club is more attractive.
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Both good points

I think the happy medium is to have 4 quality first team players on top of what we have. You need an additional very good Centre Back (help rotate and share workload with Jankovic/Eliopoulos), a decent Central Midfielder (help share workload with Pasquali/Giannakopoulos), another attacking player on the wing (additional attacking option), and another decent forward (a vast improvement on Singh).

You can only do the above if you have 15-16 quality first team players, and then have the likes of Leech, Cocks, Menelaou, O'Sullivan and Dovison assisting.
 
southmelb said:
The 2 cancelled ofc games hurt us, but we dropped some horrible points early in the ofc, 3-3 to south island (goalkeeping joke), 1-1 to bula (janko mistake) and a couple others meant we had to take the full squad to Fiji, not only costing us the Oakleigh game, but putting extra travel and legs into the players that would have been avoided if we wrapped up leaders group qualification early.
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Spot on. Those rain affected cancelled matches impacted our NPL season. We got away with the first one against Solomon Kings but that second catch up fixture against Tahiti United meant that we had to sacrifice the Oakleigh match. We could have retained some players in Melbourne and fielded a much stronger team to at least hold out for a draw rather than field a U23s team.
 
The good thing is no surprises moving forward, we will know on Wednesday exactly which players and how many we took over to Auckland. I expect it will be a mix of players used against Bulleen and Oakleigh for Friday night and the rest of May.

If we escape the next 3 weeks with an aggregate of just a -10 goal difference we've probably done well. Been rumours that the team will be given a break after the ofc, that cant happen if we want to play finals.
 
southmelb said:
The good thing is no surprises moving forward, we will know on Wednesday exactly which players and how many we took over to Auckland. I expect it will be a mix of players used against Bulleen and Oakleigh for Friday night and the rest of May.

If we escape the next 3 weeks with an aggregate of just a -10 goal difference we've probably done well. Been rumours that the team will be given a break after the ofc, that cant happen if we want to play finals.
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So my membership means more matches with Under 20 players? Fuck that .....

That would be the last straw for me (in the short term at least). No membership next year. What's the point?!!!!
 
Son of Sam said:
So my membership means more matches with Under 20 players? Fuck that .....

That would be the last straw for me (in the short term at least). No membership next year. What's the point?!!!!
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I agree if we take part in it again next year i will not purchase a membership.

Its going to be under 20s against george cross and avondale. That means by the end of May we would have played 5 matches at Lakeside with 4 of them completely compromised. Absolutely no value in it.

I know its unavoidable but i tend to get pretty pissed off in these situations which is why i probably wont go to anymore games until the ofc ends. South should never be a punching bag for other npl teams. Doubt i will even watch the streams, im more nervous about the potential scoreline on Friday compared to Wednesday against Auckland. Under 23s or not if we ship 8 goals or something we will be a laughing stock.

Without Lopez we could have copped 4-5 last week.
 
southmelb said:
I agree if we take part in it again next year i will not purchase a membership.

Its going to be under 20s against george cross and avondale. That means by the end of May we would have played 5 matches at Lakeside with 4 of them completely compromised. Absolutely no value in it.

I know its unavoidable but i tend to get pretty pissed off in these situations which is why i probably wont go to anymore games until the ofc ends. South should never be a punching bag for other npl teams. Doubt i will even watch the streams, im more nervous about the potential scoreline on Friday compared to Wednesday against Auckland. Under 23s or not if we ship 8 goals or something we will be a laughing stock.

Without Lopez we could have copped 4-5 last week.
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If they are going to play those funny buggers, then offer me an NSD membership instead.
 
Son of Sam said:
Look ..... the difference between 1st an 6th with this awful finals system is just ONE knock out match.

But will we even make it?!!
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We wont have much margin for error when the team returns.

Im genuinely afraid of cricket scorelines whilst our team is away.

For me 6th sucks anyway. I want home finals and big games at lakeside. The GF has finally returned to lakeside for a few years and we likely wont be there.

I wonder if we reached out to George Cross to try get a fixture reversal?
 
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southmelb said:
We wont have much margin for error when the team returns.

Im genuinely afraid of cricket scorelines whilst our team is away.

For me 6th sucks anyway. I want home finals and big games at lakeside. The GF has finally returned to lakeside for a few years and we likely wont be there.

I wonder if we reached out to George Cross to try get a fixture reversal?
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It is frustrating that we finally have a watchable team that plays excellent football, and our whole season is compromised because of the OFC. Then again, would our squad be this good, if we were not in the OFC Pro League?
 
Son of Sam said:
It is frustrating that we finally have a watchable team that plays excellent football, and our whole season is compromised because of the OFC. Then again, would our squad be this good, if we were not in the OFC Pro League?
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Its largely the team from the Aus championship so the quality players would still be there. We just wouldnt have the Lackey types.
 
Son of Sam said:
I met the parents on the night (my friend's friend). Do we want me to ask? He is a Macedonian Slav
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Slav-Macedonian thank you... lol
Monoethnic Social Club said:
The problem is, and will always be, that to keep 10 decent second string player interested you have to give them enough match time to not make them feel like playing for another club is more attractive.
Click to expand...
BUt you dont need 10 to have effevtively done both comps.. just the right extra 4 to have been added to the talent wouldve easily gotten us through... as we are we are still light for any comp especially at 9.
 
southmelb said:
The good thing is no surprises moving forward, we will know on Wednesday exactly which players and how many we took over to Auckland. I expect it will be a mix of players used against Bulleen and Oakleigh for Friday night and the rest of May.

If we escape the next 3 weeks with an aggregate of just a -10 goal difference we've probably done well. Been rumours that the team will be given a break after the ofc, that cant happen if we want to play finals.
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We know that the first team is in Auckland. That means that the only 'senior' players we will have during that period are O'Sullivan, Dovison, Skapoulas, Angelatos brothers, Papadimitriou and Durso.
 
Son of Sam said:
Look ..... the difference between 1st an 6th with this awful finals system is just ONE knock out match.

But will we even make it?!!
Click to expand...
The team is too good, and will go on a run from June onwards. We will likely make mid season transfers to improve the squad. Top spot is likely out of reach. If we can aim for second/third position, then I think that would be achievable and allow us to make a serious tilt at the NPL Victoria competition in the finals series. We will lose against Heidelberg and Avondale. It is the George Cross match that could make a difference if we can pitch a win, even if it would be difficult to do so.
 
Wtf .........

late fixture reversal along with change of date confirmed.

originally Melbourne City home game now a Bentleigh Greens home game (initially Sunday May 10th 3.00pm at Casey Fields, now Friday May 8th 7.30pm at Kingston Heath Soccer Complex).

You telling me that these teams with no commitment can get date changes and we play ofc but cant tweak the dates to suit?
 
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