The one benefit that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on Australian sport is that it’s given the A-League an excuse to hold a transitional season on the move to winter. And so, just after Christmas, the 16th season is kicking off at the unlikely locale of Kardinia Park in Geelong.
In all seriousness, however, Football Australia have done an amazing job in even getting there to be a season, especially considering the recent bubble emerging in Sydney. They’ve come up with a fairly clever, neo-hub solution: delaying a bunch of games until later in the season, and restricting the first month to only games between two New South Welsh teams or two interstate sides. It’ll lead to some messy boundaries between matchweeks, and will be very confusing, but it’s certainly a good start.
There are plenty of questions to be resolved, mostly depending on how the new boys in the Macarthur Bulls get a start. They’d be hoping it’d be more like last year’s Western United run to the playoffs, but that’s not what our predictions are saying. Without having a player-based system, we’ve said that they’ll be about on a par with the previous lowest-rated team – that would work better if that team wasn’t as singularly terrible as the Central Coast Mariners.
But, here we are. Will Melbourne Victory still be bad? Will Wollongong Wellington Phoenix still be good? We’ll have found out 161 games from now – here are our tips for the first four.
The Flag 