A-League Men

The first game of the season kicks off when this post is 3 hours old, with Brisbane Roar hosting Melbourne Victory.

Australia's most intense fixture - the Sydney Derby - is also happening this weekend, kicking off tomorrow at 8:30am UTC. The game is set to break attendance records for the league

It's looking like it may be the strongest season yet on the pitch, with all but one or two clubs making several good looking signings.

Jump over to if you want more info!

Bloody brave for the young guy. Good luck to him.

At 7:45pm local time (around 27 hours from now), the 16th Australian A-league Men's season kicks off, and as a long time fan and club member, I have never been more excited.

The league has undergone a massive restructure in the past 12 months. Previous seasons have seen dwindling crowds (COVID not-withstanding), poorer media engagement, and a very public disagreement between the Australian Football Body and the owners of the clubs within the league. Now, the A-league has had its own foundational Premier League 1992 moment, where the clubs have split from the football association, and are fully in control of the future of the competition.

Since the split, we have seen massive changes to how the league has been structured. A new record TV deal has been signed with a major local free-to-air broadcaster as their flagship Saturday night sports product (including a partial investment by the parent company in the league). I have seen more advertising in this preseason than I have every seen in the competition's history (For example: ). What was previously the A-league and the W-league (the women's league) is now the A-League Men's and A-League Women's, with the Women's league having its own free-to-air time slot and full streaming for every game. Furthermore, new stadia have been built or are in the process of being built for multiple clubs, and the first academy products from the major clubs are starting to find first-team spots in the league.

I'm not here to pretend that the league itself boasts the world's best football, but I think it makes an excellent shout to be some of the world's most entertaining football. Last season, the average A-league game boasted roughly 2.93 goals per game (), which is higher than Serie A (2.81 goals per game), La Liga (2.78 goals per game), and the Premier League (2.76 goals per game) (). It also boasts the second highest tempo league in the world with some of the highest build up (only behind the J-League) . It also regularly produces some incredibly hilarious moments (, there's a video of these for practically every season), and also some amazing ones ().

Outside the football itself, there has been 30 million dollars spent developing a new "one-stop shop for Australian football app" (), and it is also the league that is home to Josh Cavallo, who famously came out as gay last month (), who will be playing left back for Adelaide United in the coming season.

There is a real buzz around the league this season, with the new ownership, new investment, and new TV deal. The time to get involved is now. Getting involved now is like buying Bitcoin at $1,000. Sure, some people got in sooner, but even so your bitcoin was worth $25,000 one year later. All the while, you're sure to be entertained, whether that's by the insanity, the memes, or the occasional spark of brilliance.

Melbourne Victory, the next best team, just lost to Brisbane, mathematically guaranteeing Sydney's place on top of the ladder come the end of the season. Melbourne are 11 points behind Sydney, with only 3 games left to play, and the team in third is another 9 points behind them.

Sydney have broken numerous already this season, are on track to break more, and came extremely close to going undefeated (their only loss being under highly controversial circumstances).