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Official South Melbourne Hellas thread 🔵⚪

Middle Park said:
Heidelberg have recently played twice at a packed out Lakeside. It really shouldn't worry them...they're the best team outside of the A League some people tell me. Otherwise play it at Bundoora where we beat them a few months ago in the Docherty Cup final.
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We have NWS to beat before we deal with them!

Expecting that the supposed 'best team outside the AL' will cry and whinge to high heavens when the game is allocated to the only actual boutique venue in the state.

Can you imagine they decide to charge us $32 or more to stand at matildas in rain or sun? That venue is an attendence killer and that would raise serious questions if FA went that path about how seriously they take this comp..

Hopefully when we dispose of them, it will give them another excuse to blame us for everything under the Vergina Sun for the next 50 years also!
 
So we basically beat Spirit the way i expected us to, suffocated them all over the field, particularly when they tried to play along the deck someone just stepped in and took the ball off them, then after that it was the aerial assault which you suspected they'd crumble from. Combination of extreme pressure ans direct bombardment rendered them useless, just 2 shots for them highlighted our dominance.

That said it wasnt a good game to watch, our performance was professional in the way we set up to suffocate them.

Question is now how do we set up against Heidelberg? I think its going to have to be more of the same from us, if we try play them in a pure open football match we will get massacred i think.
 
South coach set up the team and tactics well as you said. Still think Spirit was one or two levels below South. We had to work hard to neutralise them, but we should have killed the game off much sooner.

Not sure why we wasted one of our 2 challenges on trying to get a Spirit player sent off in the first half.

Really enjoyed Powerstryde entertainment. Must say the club has done a great job on really focusing on building a great atmosphere.
 
southmelb said:
Question is now how do we set up against Heidelberg? I think its going to have to be more of the same from us, if we try play them in a pure open football match we will get massacred i think.
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Good question. Bergers are such a strong team - but don’t forget we defeated them in the Dockerty Cup, so we’ve done it before!

We got to find a way to frustrate them and press them to create turnovers. But above all, we need to be more efficient in front of goal.

Pasquali and Giannakopoulos will need to play out of their skins to control the middle of the park.
 
SMFC1959 said:
Apparently we are hosting Heidelberg at Lakeside next Saturday.
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Semi-finals and grand final for the Australian Championship are going to be at a neutral venue so I'd be surprised if we played Heidelberg at Lakeside, likely we're going to be playing at Home of the Matildas or possibly interstate.
 
SMFC1959 said:
Good question. Bergers are such a strong team - but don’t forget we defeated them in the Dockerty Cup, so we’ve done it before!

We got to find a way to frustrate them and press them to create turnovers. But above all, we need to be more efficient in front of goal.

Pasquali and Giannakopoulos will need to play out of their skins to control the middle of the park.
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Its up to the greatest club in Australia to prove it next weekend... We've got nothing to lose, massive underdog to Johnny A's galacticos. We probably shouldn't even bother to turn up as the game is in the bag for the Burgers anyway...
 
southmelb said:
So we basically beat Spirit the way i expected us to, suffocated them all over the field, particularly when they tried to play along the deck someone just stepped in and took the ball off them, then after that it was the aerial assault which you suspected they'd crumble from. Combination of extreme pressure ans direct bombardment rendered them useless, just 2 shots for them highlighted our dominance.

That said it wasnt a good game to watch, our performance was professional in the way we set up to suffocate them.

Question is now how do we set up against Heidelberg? I think its going to have to be more of the same from us, if we try play them in a pure open football match we will get massacred i think.
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Did we REALLY get rid of Esteban or is he still haunting the corridors of Lakeside?

Loved Max's goal though....
 
SMFC1959 said:
South coach set up the team and tactics well as you said. Still think Spirit was one or two levels below South. We had to work hard to neutralise them, but we should have killed the game off much sooner.

Not sure why we wasted one of our 2 challenges on trying to get a Spirit player sent off in the first half.

Really enjoyed Powerstryde entertainment. Must say the club has done a great job on really focusing on building a great atmosphere.
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pretty much agree SMFC on Spirit, they put up a good resistance but lacked anything up front.
Mind you yours were packing the box well.
Yer the NVS calls or whatever called thought was really clutching at straws.
Looked like yours didn't like the aggressive tackling but dam they milked the academy award nominations lol.....
If it weren't for the individual brilliance of Mikkola the controlled game was in the balance for the unexpected.
Your in for a big one against the Bergs thats for sure will be good viewing from up here.
 
Son of Sam said:
Sinisa was at today’s game

Am I right or did Sinisa reduce the long throw style in his early days, only to revert to Esteball, especially in this tournament?
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I think plan A is to play attractive football. We did in our previous home games, i think now that the stakes are very high we are going to see more direct Esteball. I knew we were gonna dish that up yesterday, we were never going to allow Spirit to come to lakeside and play an open field game, i suspect next week we will try make the game look ugly, stop start, and try win field territory that allows to hit the bergers box with long throws.

That said yesterdays Esteball is very different to the traditional Esteball, yesterday we mostly cut Spirit off with a heavy press at the halfway line and didnt allow them too much in our half, in traditional Esteball we sit deep on the edge of our box and would depend on long clearances to Sawyer.

In the dockerty cup final the tighter confides of the HOTM suited us, at Lakeside we have more space to cover to shut heidelberg down which will be a lot harder.
 
southmelb said:
That said yesterdays Esteball is very different to the traditional Esteball, yesterday we mostly cut Spirit off with a heavy press at the halfway line and didnt allow them too much in our half, in traditional Esteball we sit deep on the edge of our box and would depend on long clearances to Sawyer.
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That is a direct result of Giannakopoulos and Pasquali bossing the midfield and allowing Uchida to run rampant infront of them....

It allows us to play plan A and plan B with the same 11 players ... not a bad way to go about things.....
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
That is a direct result of Giannakopoulos and Pasquali bossing the midfield and allowing Uchida to run rampant infront of them....

It allows us to play plan A and plan B with the same 11 players ... not a bad way to go about things.....
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Yesterday was the first time I noticed what a difference those 2 make to our team. I assume that Pasquali has the ability to score goals as well. That’s the final piece of that jigsaw
 
Son of Sam said:
Yesterday was the first time I noticed what a difference those 2 make to our team. I assume that Pasquali has the ability to score goals as well. That’s the final piece of that jigsaw
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7 matches played, 6 wins, 1 draw.... 4 clean sheets and at least 2 goals scored by us in all but one match.....

We dont have a massive gaping hole in midfield anymore :love: :love:
 
With it being an FA run event I doubt we will have access to the social club or VIP areas. At least the grandstand might actually look full on Saturday arvo with the balcony brigade being forced to sit in the stands with the rest of us peasants
 
smfc_hellas59 said:
With it being an FA run event I doubt we will have access to the social club or VIP areas. At least the grandstand might actually look full on Saturday arvo with the balcony brigade being forced to sit in the stands with the rest of us peasants
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Do we know for sure its fa run? Those middle bays that have been taken may be for South juniors and family members.
 
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