Revealed: The big problem with the A-League grand final that NOBODY is talking about
On Saturday, Melbourne City will tackle arch rivals Melbourne Victory in the A-League men's Grand Final at AAMI Park - but ask the average Aussie sports fan and odds are they'll have no idea it's even on.
For decades, football has been a sleeping giant in Australia.
When the Matildas reached the semi-finals of a World Cup - the nation got behind them with gusto back in 2023.
The likes of Mackenzie Arnold and Cortnee Vine joined Sam Kerr and Mary Fowler as household names, with countless sports fans of all ages swept up by Matildas mania.
Same goes for the Socceroos, who qualified for the round of 16 against all odds at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Graham Arnold's men were eliminated after losing to eventual winners Argentina - and won plenty of admirers for holding their own against the might of Lionel Messi on the sport's greatest stage.
The incredible fan scenes at Federation Square in Melbourne and Darling Harbour in Sydney told the story - surely the code would now finally be woken from its slumber?
In short, it hasn't happened, because when it comes to the domestic competition, the A-League has faded into obscurity.
Poor social media engagement and televising the majority of A-League fixtures via embattled streaming service Paramount hasn't helped.
A lack of star quality in terms of decorated international names gracing team sheets has also been an issue.
Examine the A-League's official account on X and you'll soon get an idea of the scope of the problem.
Many of their posts only attract a handful of comments and shares, with the big announcement of the squads for the grand final getting one comment and three likes despite being up for four hours at the time of writing.
The league's presence on Instagram isn't much better.
Despite the fact the grand final has no competition from the AFL in Melbourne on Saturday, the buzz around what should be the season's showpiece event has been next to non-existent if you're not a committed supporter already.
Thankfully for soccer fans, Saturday night serves as an opportunity to show why the code shouldn't be permanently viewed as AFL's poor cousin in Melbourne.
An A-League spokesperson confirmed the Grand Final is a sell-out, with all remaining tickets snapped up on Tuesday.
Two Melbourne teams chasing bragging rights and silverware in a decider is also an A-League first, dating back to 2005.
'We are the only sport in town,' the A-League spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
'No AFL, NRL or even netball is being played (in Melbourne), so we are excited (to be in the spotlight).
'The capacity at AAMI Park is just over 30,000, and we have sold all tickets.
'Fans can enjoy the spectacle, and also see Socceroos such as Nishan Velupillay, Marco Tilio, Mat Leckie, Aziz Behich and Daniel Arzani in the flesh.'
Meanwhile, interim Matildas coach Tom Sermanni has delivered a scathing criticism of the A-League Women competition's professionalism and says Australian football remains 'grossly-underinvested' in the women's game.
The fact the league is still not fully professional is particularly 'irritating' for Sermanni, given the blockbuster success of the 2023 Women's World Cup.
Sermanni, who is usually a reserved character, didn't mince his words ahead of the Matildas playing Argentina in Melbourne on Friday night at Marvel Stadium.
'We really need to have, at A-League level, a real re-think,' he said.
'The (women's) league has been going for 17 years. When we started, the coaches came from our institute programs, we had fulltime coaches and more fulltime staff than we have now.
'We are grossly under-invested in the women's game here.
'It is irritating....when you think how we had the most successful World Cup ever two years ago, and A-League Women are in the situation that they're in now, it is just not good enough.'
Sermanni was referring to the minimum wage in the ALW being just $26,000 - with the salary cap for squads a paltry $600,000.
In contrast, Canada's Northern Super League pays players at least $56,000 per contract - and boasts a salary cap of $1.8million.
Kick-off in Saturday's A-League men's Grand Final is 7:40pm AEDT, with all the action live on Channel 10.
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What's the best parallel to draw. A bank card? A prawn cracker? A Nokia 8210? There have been times this season when I've pondered what a referee — or the game's lawmakers, Ifab, for that matter — would do if footballer actually decided to stuff one of the above down their socks instead of the micro shin-pads many are choosing to wear these days. You must have noticed. The trend of players wearing mini shinnies beneath socks rolled down beneath their calves. The outline of a pair no bigger than, as Everton's Dominic Calvert-Lewin once described his, a custard cream. A couple of the alternatives above would probably offer more protection — and, as it turns out, providing they were covered by the player's socks and stayed put throughout, there's nothing much a referee can do about a player's choice of lower-limb protection. Shin-pads have been mandatory since 1990, but there's nothing in Ifab's laws beyond hazy definitions like 'suitable' and 'appropriate' that states what size or material they should be. As the trend for smaller and smaller versions grows, Ifab maintains that it is the responsibility of players, not the referee, to decide what constitutes reasonable protection. Jack Grealish's penchant for low slung socks and children's shin-pads is no secret — a look born during his youth-team days with Aston Villa, when the socks kept shrinking in the wash. He performed well and a superstition took root that has never left him. Grealish is by no means the first maverick to eschew shin-pads, of course, but when England's best centre half and Real Madrid's newest defensive recruit are shunning them it is clear that this is a trend that has moved beyond flair players and fashionistas. The uber-confident Dean Huijsen, who will swap Bournemouth for the Bernabeu in a £50million deal this summer, has spent the season nonchalantly marshalling the south coast club's defence wearing a pair no bigger than a Mars bar. So too Illia Zabarnyi, 22, with whom Huijsen, 20, formed the Premier League's youngest central defensive pairing, but they are by no means alone. Marc Guéhi, Crystal Palace's FA Cup-winning captain, bossed England's defence at last summer's Euros wearing a pair that looked as substantial as a piece of cardboard — and, these days, it wouldn't come as much of a surprise if that's what they were made of. A few years back, the right back, Aleix Vidal, suffered a nasty gash to his right shin while playing for Espanyol against Real Betis, which left him requiring 15 stitches. Turned out his only protection was a floppy piece of material inside his sweaty socks. Some players are now slipping a piece of foam padding down there to comply with regulations. Back in November, Michael Olise went a step further, refusing to wear shin-pads altogether. As the former Crystal Palace winger prepared to come off the bench for Bayern Munich in their Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain, the fourth official noticed he wasn't wearing any protection at all. After a curt exchange, and begrudgingly slipping a pair down his socks, Olise surreptitiously removed them and tossed them back towards the dugout before running on to the pitch. Now, does any of this really matter? Are micro shin-guards dangerous? Or are shin-pads really as important in the modern game? And have they ever done much to protect you from the most serious injuries anyway? In one sense, none of this is new. Before 1990, players could wear what they wanted under their socks and many preferred wearing nothing at all. Believe it or not, though, shin-pads have been around in football for about 150 years. Sam Weller Widdowson, a cricketer for Nottinghamshire and footballer for Nottingham Forest, is credited for introducing the concept after cutting down a pair of cricket pads and strapping them to his stockings for a game of football in 1874. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, he's said to have copped a bit of stick that day. But they soon caught on and Widdowson — who was also capped once by England and became chairman of Forest — went on to produce and market them with the Nottinghamshire batsman and Notts County co-founder, Richard Daft. The shin-pad's ultimate origin is arguably the greave (from the Old French greve 'shin, shin armour'), which was used to protect the tibia from attack from as far back the Bronze Age. My first shin-pads certainly bore closer resemblance to heavy battle armour than today's microscopic wee things. There are pictures (in my loft) of me playing for junior teams with my skinny legs guarded with contraptions that wouldn't have looked out of place in the film 300. 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Jack Hinshelwood caused a stir last season when one of his micro-pads fell out against Arsenal. When the referee handed it back, it looked like he was sharing a Pringle crisp with the Brighton & Hove Albion defender. The trend has spawned a cottage industry. As well as micro shin-pads by specialised brands, customised versions adorned with pictures of family, sporting triumphs or, in the case of the former Real Madrid and Spain striker Joselu, his beloved dog, are now commonplace in changing rooms. The Manchester City defender, Josko Gvardiol, has been known to rock a small pair of Godfather-themed numbers, with the message, 'Keep your friends close but your enemies closer,' above an image of Marlon Brando's character, Don Corleone. Gvardiol must really like The Godfather. If you're willing to part with £195, your shin-pads can now gather reams of performance data too. XSEED, created by the Italian analytics company Soccerment, collates everything from passing, shooting and expected goals metrics, to distance, speed and geo-location data. All the information is collated on an app on your phone, to be harnessed by coaches or uploaded to scouting platforms. Inter Milan's Federico Dimarco swears by them, even if you have to charge them up every few games. However, unless Ifab steps in, the humble shin-pads' days could be numbered. Widdowson would be turning in his greve.
