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Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

Kitwally said:
Don’t want to sound like NoMates, but with all of these OFC commitments it’s quite possible South end up mid to low table in the NPL, so it will be lucky South paid in to be Foundation Club and will still be able to play in the Championship (again). Not really a good look is it?
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Shabby attempt, maybe a 3/10 for effort... SMFC finished 9th last season in the league and still won the whole fuckin thing...

Why dont you worry about your shitty plastic 10 team competition if you are concerned about things not having a "good look".
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
Shabby attempt, maybe a 3/10 for effort... SMFC finished 9th last season in the league and still won the whole fuckin thing...

Why dont you worry about your shitty plastic 10 team competition if you are concerned about things not having a "good look".
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I would tell him to F off back to the #RacistRoar, but alas ….
 
Next 2 OFC Pro League matches are massive for South. We play the 2 teams directly below us. If we can defeat South Island United and Solomon Kings over the next few days, then we are well placed for a top 3 table finish. A win against South Island would create a buffer of 6 points from fourth spot.

That would be ideal to allow the team to focus on NPL matches.
 
To be honest i reckon we are screwed either way. Even if we win we would still have to send our best team to the next hub. Hub 5 is the one where we need to keep the guys here as we play the likes of Preston and Oakleigh.

If we didnt fuck up with the draws overseas and didnt have games called off we could have been ok.

Unfortunately these teams seem to be getting better as well, Vanuatu have improved massively since the early rounds.

We've overextended ourselves. We botched last week. Hume should have been full strength and Auckland rotated..we killed ourselves just to get 1 point.
 
southmelb said:
To be honest i reckon we are screwed either way. Even if we win we would still have to send our best team to the next hub. Hub 5 is the one where we need to keep the guys here as we play the likes of Preston and Oakleigh.

If we didnt fuck up with the draws overseas and didnt have games called off we could have been ok.

We've overextended ourselves. We botched last week. Hume should have been full strength and Auckland rotated..we killed ourselves just to get 1 point.
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You are right that we are in a tough spot at the moment. The 2 postponed matches further complicated things, but that draw against Bula was just plain stupid. If we had beaten Bula at the very latest, we would be sitting on 15 points, 2 points off top spot with a match in hand and 5 points away from 4th spot. By now we should have been close to locking in finals. Given the 3 draws we've had, that means we have to unfortunately go hard now in the fourth hub in Honiara and hope you've done enough by the Suva hub in Fiji, where you'll hold back 5-6 of your first team starters given the tough NPL fixtures.

The club got it wrong with so many changes against Hume City. I think the coach now wont make so many drastic changes. I can see mixed starting XIs for South Island and Altona Magic, then full strength against Solomon Kings mid week. The players should be able to back it up the following Saturday afternoon against Bentleigh Greens. We need to defeat Altona Magic - that is not negotiable.

I still retain the belief that the club is short on 2-3 quality players to balance both competitions. Totally understandable that there are budgets to adhere to, but we have too many young kids and require some more experienced quality players.

I'm not sure what the situation is but we may need to fly some players home earlier or in some cases later in the next 2 hubs to better balance the NPL fixtures.

We dont need to finish first on the OFC Pro League ladder. There is literally no benefit. All finals matches will be played in Auckland. All we need to do is finish 3rd and avoid the 4th/5th play off match.

southmelb said:
Unfortunately these teams seem to be getting better as well, Vanuatu have improved massively since the early rounds.
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Vanuatu has played really well over the last 2 matches. They are a genuine chance to finish 4th.
 
Thats the thing, all finals are played in Auckland, so why did we have our best team on the field for 88 mins to try beat them? Losing to Auckland would not have been catastrophic as them finishing top doesnt hurt us. We chucked points in the bin against Hume for nothing. Had we beaten Hume we could wear a loss against Altona. Now we are in no mans land.

If we do that half baked disjointed crap where some play 45 minutes tomorrow then 45 the next day we probably end up losing both.
 
southmelb said:
If we do that half baked disjointed crap where some play 45 minutes tomorrow then 45 the next day we probably end up losing both.
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That's correct. No point in having players try to play in both matches. Pick a starting XI that is decent in both matches. It just means that we cannot make too many substitutions in both matches.

My 2 cents for the starting XIs for both Friday and Saturday. This is probably as close as you can have both sides being as strong as possible:

vs South Island United
Charlston
Painter-Andrews
Inglese
Eliopoulos
Lampard
Menelaou
Giannakopoulos
Mesorouni
Cocks
Lackay
Singh


vs Altona Magic
Lopez
O'Sullivan
Jankovic
Coveny
Skapoulas
Leech
Mikkola
Pasquali
Uchida
Bonada
Swibel
 
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SMFC1959 said:
That's correct. No point in having players try to play in both matches. Pick a starting XI that is decent in both matches. It just means that we cannot make too many substitutions in both matches.

My 2 cents for the starting XIs for both Friday and Saturday. This is probably as close as you can have both sides being as strong as possible:

vs South Island United
Charlston
Painter-Andrews
Inglese
Eliopoulos
Lampard
Menelaou
Giannakopoulos
Mesorouni
Cocks
Lackay
Singh


vs Altona Magic
Lopez
O'Sullivan
Jankovic
Coveny
Skapoulas
Leech
Pope
Pasquali
Uchida
Bonada
Swibel
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That hurt my brain but I see what you are trying to do... The Alton MAgic game is going to be leaky as sieve defensively though.
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
That hurt my brain but I see what you are trying to do... The Alton MAgic game is going to be leaky as sieve defensively though.
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Thanks - that proposed defence against Altona is not great. Jankovic and O'Sullivan should be OK. Its just Coveny and Skapoulas at the back that is a worry. Skapoulas is not a left back but a winger. But we do not have any decent coverage for the left back position unless there is someone in the U23 squad that could step up. The Altona starting XI still has 6 first team starters. Leech and O'Sullivan are good enough to hold their own against Altona. We are going to need Lopez to have a big game on Saturday.
 
SMFC1959 said:
Thanks - that proposed defence against Altona is not great. Jankovic and O'Sullivan should be OK. Its just Coveny and Skapoulas at the back that is a worry. Skapoulas is not a left back but a winger. But we do not have any decent coverage for the left back position unless there is someone in the U23 squad that could step up. The Altona starting XI still has 6 first team starters. Leech and O'Sullivan are good enough to hold their own against Altona. We are going to need Lopez to have a big game on Saturday.
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Lets see what Sisi does now... I couldnt quite tell because the boys didnt get out of their trackies on Tuesday but I dont think Eliopoulos was lined up to start with the intention of resting him on Friday for Altona match... ?
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
Shabby attempt, maybe a 3/10 for effort... SMFC finished 9th last season in the league and still won the whole fuckin thing...

Why dont you worry about your shitty plastic 10 team competition if you are concerned about things not having a "good look".
Click to expand...
You’re right. It’s too easy to get a defensive reaction from you guys. There are so many good things about South. More confidence please fellas!
 
southmelb said:
Lopez should play in both matches. If your backline is shit he could be the difference between a result or not.
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The goalkeeper position is probably the only one you could play in 2 straight days

If any South player is expected to back it up 24 hours later, then I can’t see them playing anymore than 15 minutes towards the end of the match. Don’t forget we have our first of two catchup matches against Solomon Islands next Wednesday.

This is why I’m convinced that we are 2-3 quality players short to balance both competitions.
 
SMFC1959 said:
Thanks - that proposed defence against Altona is not great. Jankovic and O'Sullivan should be OK. Its just Coveny and Skapoulas at the back that is a worry. Skapoulas is not a left back but a winger. But we do not have any decent coverage for the left back position unless there is someone in the U23 squad that could step up. The Altona starting XI still has 6 first team starters. Leech and O'Sullivan are good enough to hold their own against Altona. We are going to need Lopez to have a big game on Saturday.
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Birchmore could play left back ahead of skapoulas
 
Kitwally said:
You’re right. It’s too easy to get a defensive reaction from you guys. There are so many good things about South. More confidence please fellas!
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You are quite unlikable, but I guess thats your online persona... Keep snipping from the sidelines if you must but at least put in a bit of an effort if you are going to criticise.
 
Anyone know wtf this is about?

We also remind all supporters to represent South with pride. Be loud and passionate, but respect the venue, officials, opposition and those around you. We want the focus to be on our football and our support in the right way and continue to lead the way in this space.

I didnt see anyone kick off too much, in fact I got an email from OFC yesterday, a personal one not AI, apologising for the delay offering a full refund or free entry for tonight, when I said I was coming anyway he emailed me a ticket ." very classy.

 
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