The World Game with Stefan MaukThe World Game with Stefan Mauk - 12 December 2024
From the A-Leagues to the EPL, Adelaide United star Stefan Mauk brings you the latest results, news and analysis from the World Game.
This is the World Game with Stefan Mark thanks to Football Essay bringing South Australian communities together.
Yes, welcome to yet another edition of the World Game. Great to have you with us all thanks to Football Essay and the all new Cherry to Go four Pro and it's landed at Southern Cherry right in top of kickoff twenty three nine to ninety drive away. Great value. Indeed, I'm Sam Tugwell with me of course has read Superstar himself Stephan Mark Stefan World unto you. Congrats you're another game into your career and another game and show into your radio career as well. One fifty on the weekend in the A League. Congrats to you, just straight off the top.
Yeah, it's I actually didn't know that until I think it was posted afterwards saying you know, it's nice to get a goal in his one hundred and fiftieth.
So I didn't know. I had no idea, which.
Is just obviously nice to hit milestones and obviously to score in it.
But yeah, it's not something I really look at too much.
I'm more just worried about winning the match and scoring and that was more important to me than notching up the miles one hundred and fifty games.
Well, if you missed the moment, we might as well limit.
For our listeners. Milami and Kiito good one.
It is a very tight and Stephan more in the Milestone match, he celebrates he's one hundred and fiftieth a league men's match in style, actually a couple of games and Away are getting on the score sheet now making.
A habit of it. Yeah, I should be on.
I reckon four or five, to be honest, so I'll make sure I keep scoring. I think we probably spoke about it, whether it was on here or different platforms. I think people ask out where the goal is going to come from and losing Ibusuki, losing in erin Kunda, and I said, I think myself and Zach Claff, being more experienced players, we probably need to get to close to ten goals. And then you've got Archie Goodwin Luka as well the other number nine's who need to probably score you know, seven or eight each. And to be honest, where I think we've scored the most goals this season.
I'm pretty sure we are on thirteen.
We've played a game less than Victory, who are on twelve.
The only thing with.
Maura MacArthur with fourteen, but you're right sick and equal with Western Sydney thirteen yourself.
So it's like it's something that's really good that actually the goals have been spread across. Dylan Pirius as well from that right wing right wing back position has been scoring.
So you know, I think, you know, having you know.
A striker that can score twenty goals is great, but if you can have four or five players that are chipping in, it's probably more of a danger. And you know, if that striker has a bad game, maybe nobody scores. Where for us we've got four or five players that can pop up. And on the weekend was probably the most pleasing thing was it was our first game where we kept a clean sheet and we got you know, I think we could have been for nil up in the first twenty minutes and we should have been. There's going to be a game where it clicks and we take all those chances early on and we really do punish aside, So fingers crossed this weekend, but the red card came about which kind of changed the game and to hold on with ten men hal.
Now, yeah, that's how tough a period was. That for you guys as a great.
Yeah, well, I think, and it's always hard to tell on the on the TV as well, but you can probably tell by our shirts that they were stuck to us.
Because it was so humid there.
The game got pushed back by an hour and didn't change, didn't change.
What it felt like out there.
If anything, it was worse in the second half. I reckon the humidity kind of went up. But you know, we we were tired, we were fatigued. We've spoke about this desperation to defend, and I think we did that. You know, you could say Newcastle should have created more chances, but I think the way we defended, we didn't enable them to get into good positions and for us as a team to keep building, to keep showing this resilience that we've spoken about and being hard to beat. That that was the perfect game, because if we won four nil, everyone would be saying, oh, a great performance. But did we learn a lot from ourselves? Probably not really. You know, when when things are going easy, it's not an issue. But when things are tough, you know, you get a player center off in those conditions. To win one nil away from home, it was really was really pleasing for obviously, for the players, for the staff, and hope the fans are starting to think, you know what, maybe we can go really far along in this season's competition.
Well, we hope.
So we'll keep the form coming because you've got another really important game coming up tomorrow nights, So you're going to jump on the plane pretty quickly and get over to Central Coast because they you've already played them earlier in the years. One all drawer in the first round, wasn't it so last year's champ So how are you expecting the face up against them this time around?
Yeah, I think they're They've probably been a little bit up and down. They've had the schedule in Asia with the Champions League Elite and they've struggled in that competition.
Obviously, they've lost a lot of players from the last.
Two seasons and I think maybe it's caught up to them a little bit. But they're still a very well organized side. They eat Sydney FC on the weekend to one, and we know they've got quality. We know, I guess you know from that first game in the season that they're a good team. You can't make too many mistakes against them because they will punish you on the counter attack, and we just need to be clinical, like I said, you know, probably what we weren't in the first twenty minutes against the Jets or against Perth Glory for that matter.
That's what we need to do. We need to take those chances.
And I think it's been maybe five or six seasons where we haven't actually beaten Central Coast away from home, right, So that's something, you know, again another step for a young team like us. You know, we want to keep progressing, we want to keep improving. That's a big thing. We haven't been able to beat them away from home. So we're going there to win. And we've started the season extremely well with the four wins and two draws. But you know, we want to win. We want to win every game that we play, and we're very very confident, but also knowing, you know, we have to respect them because they are a good side.
Yeah, absolutely right, Well, another tough challenge. You undefeated though through the first six games, which is a really great positive to start the season, I must say. And then of course your next game after of course tomorrow night is a home game here against Sydney FC, which will be a right challenge, I reckon probably the biggest test you've got for the year. So we'll get onto that of course next week when we get a little bit closer to Sydney. But all eyes are on a massive challenge against the Mariners tomorrow night, Friday night. Of course you can watch it on Paramount and Channel ten is on Channel ten for Yeah, I think I'm pretty.
Sure the Friday game is.
So it's Friday night obviously, I think holidays have started for the kids, so beautiful parents can get the kids, chuck them out in the back and then the parents can sit there and watch again more if the kids want to watch it as well, even better. But yeah, nothing better than to do this Friday night than to tune into us away to the Mariners.
All right now around the grounds So the rest of the A League there's a lot happening and a bit of spice as well in some of the games outside of your own. Let's walk through a few.
Yeah, well, I guess we had last Friday night was Melbourne City winning for one against the Brisbane Raw, which was a massive, I guess, a massive result. I thought that was going to be a little bit tighter in the two imports, Quinn and Coen kind of stepped up for City, which is yeah, I guess a bit of a statement win for them, and it shows Brisbane or are in a whole heap of pain there that he had to win a game. I'm obviously not one to be ever deciding if coaches stay or not, but you know, you see obviously the rumors and stuff like that. It becomes when you get seven eight games into a season, if you did near the bottom, fans start calling for a coach to go or players to go, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens there. But on the Saturday game, I think this was the one that actually got pushed onto Channel ten because our game got delayed, so maybe that was strategic from the aletes.
They pushed us back on purpose so they.
Could get the Auckland Derby or El Classico as there. I think they're calling it anyway on air because this had a bit of spice to it on the field, and I guess before the game even started it started with a bit of war of words.
So the two coaches of Auckland and Wellington went hit the head in their press conferences have a quick listen.
I think they're there for the taking. I think they've been very lucky, to be fair, last four weeks they only traveled once. You know, you get a bit of momentum. I'm not disrespecting their defensive side. I think they're a very good team. There will structured, but I think you know, scheduling is a big part of.
The A League.
It's so easy to go away and win games. That's probably the hardest part, and the KEYWI teams have probably more of a.
Savantaged disappointed, to be honest with you, with Chief, you mentioned a couple of things in the media which you know, a little bit disrespectful to our team. You know that they were there for the taking. We've been lucky. We haven't been lucky. You know, you need a little bit of luck obviously to win games. But we won all six, so you know, you don't get lucky by doing that. There's you know, the process you have to go through. Obviously we've had a few home games early on, but at the back end of the season we still have to play the same amount of games away from homes. And I don't make the rules, don't I don't do the draw.
Before the big game, especially a derby.
Yeah, well, I think first it was obviously chiefly talking about, you know, the new team Auckland, which everybody's raving on about, and he's probably thinking, you know, we we were the one team in New Zealand.
Everything was about us there and now it's not just about them.
And he's got some extremely valid points which he spoke about, obviously them not having to travel too much early on. Obviously Wellington have already traveled away to I think it's Central Coast and Perth.
And Auckland haven't had to do that.
They're away game which was the Unite Round, which was kind of neutral territory for both teams. And then they played away to Wellington which is obviously a very short trip, no international flight they're required, And and Steve Corricer comes back and bites after the game. And it's very easy to say something back when you've obviously got the three points, isn't it.
And he spoke about the disrespect.
I don't think he was meaning chief he was meaning to be disrespectful. But I also think for this league, for sport in general, you know, obviously headlines are the things that kind of in the media is what you want to grab onto and that's a headline there in itself. And this is something you know, you know they're going to play each other that third time, and this is going to be plastered everywhere because that's what we want. We want excitement, we want there to be stories. So I'm all for it. I know it can come back to bite you in the but a little bit. And I don't think Chief he was trying to do that at all, because he came out and clarified it again obviously after this as well with some more me stuff. I'm sure that's not the only questions he was getting asked this week was around that.
But I think this stuff's good.
I like it.
If you want to come out and cool something out, it's your rival. You should hate them, you should not want to not want them to win games. If you think they've got an easy drawer, you should call it out. And you know you saw in the documentary actually with Michael Jordan when he spoke about it, he used to make stuff up in his own head just to hate that position, hate the opposition, to kind of get that motivation because there's some times, you know it's not that you're ever lacking to go out there and playing for you want to get that little extra fire in the belly, something that makes you angry, and if that's what's required, I'm all for it. I think you saw there that Auckland are the ones that get the last laugh, and apparently it kind of spilled out into the tunnel after the game. I don't know if that's true or not with some of the players from Auckland saying something. So it's going to be very interesting because we're probably we need this more. I think, you know, the Sydney Derby is great, obviously, the Melbourne Derby.
I think you know, you need what it was like back in there. You need this hatred. And I know in Australia it's small.
Every player kind of knows each other, the coaches know each other, but you know, as fans you hate the opposition and I think you need the players to hate it. I want to not that I'm saying it should happen, but you know where there's those brawls coming in or before the game starts. I think it was australiaa Uruguay and Tony Povovich had had someone up by the collar or something like that.
Before they started.
And you know, if that happens automatically, you're gone out there and you know, I want to hurt this opposition player.
I want to make sure we win. I want to stick it up them.
And then the fans get behind it as well, and then it's something that people think, Oh, when they're playing each other next, I want to be at that game. So I remember when being a kid going to Melbourne Victory out Laid United. It was so heated it was I think it's died off a little bit. I think, you know, we still hate Melbourne Victory, but I think it has died off a little bit. I think we need to get back to that and we want the Melbourne Victory fans to come over here and obviously we don't want fights outside the stadium, but we want there to be that hatred on the field that translates into the stadium as long as there's no violence. It's something that that's what separates football from the other codes.
It's the sport. It's way that and hate can be a strong word. I think we can probably find other ways to say, but I think we all know exactly what you mean.
It's the dislike for opposition.
You don't want to give them a niche, You don't want to give them any excuse, you don't want to give them any reason to be liked. You just it's a passionate dislike in a sporting environment. And that's what it's all built on the rivalries of every competition. I mean, you can take it to an AFL perspective. Here in Adelaide. We saw it when one of the Hawthorne players said, we'll see the opposition in fourteen days in this preliminary final. They hadn't been played the semi year. Like that just spurs on an opposition and that sort of stuff. That's the plaster on the wall, the whiteboard sort of thing during the week, isn't it. You pin up the piece of newspaper that sort of says this is what the opposition is saying about us. Yeah, and you can spur yourself on for a week and turn that into a positive result for you. And that's and teams you would have experienced that many a time, I'm sure.
Yeah, Like I think you're you're kind of trying not to cross the line because if like Hawthorne obviously for example, or Josh ra Shelley with the Crows. When you make a comment, you kind of you bring extra heat on yourself, so you need to make sure you win.
But I also don't think that's the reason why you're going to lose. The opposition. It's also going to be motivated anyway.
It's just in the media you can click onto that and you can say this is why they've lost. They were getting ahead of themselves. Hawthorne were confident, you know, that's the same way in this game. I'm sure Chief he's saying these comments to you know, to make the point of it, and I'm sure he was very confident Wellington we're going to win that game, which they didn't. But I don't think that should change the way you should be because it doesn't mean you're preparing any less for the match. You're not doing less tactics, you're not eating you know, as a player, you're not eating bad things.
You're still doing everything the exact same way.
It's just adding that little extra spice to the occasion. And with the relevance of the A League right now, I think we need to increase it. So I'm all for players calling stuff out. I think it's I think it's great as long as when you know, when we do it or if I'm ever doing it, as long as we win the game on the weekend, then I'm happy.
He's not the only, not the only coaches that have been talking during the week either. What happened down at Newcastle.
Win, Yeah, well I just saw this when I got back into Adelaide. It came on my X feed and it was just the Newcastle Jets coach talking a little bit about the younger players. And I think someone asked him, you know you saw Welless, Soul and Adams arguing after the match, and he said, oh, I didn't see that, but I'm happy. I'm happy that's happening. There needs to be more fight, you know. You know what, maybe I'm going to bring the boxing gloves up.
That's a great idea.
And he just went on on a tangent saying, you know, the younger players, this new generation, they're too soft. You know, these hands, they're the things that built this country back in the day.
And it was it was.
Pretty crazy, but it showed the passion that he has and what he wants from his players. And he said, you know, the Newcastle fans, they're going to boo you if they don't see you fighting, and they're going to cheer you if they can see you giving one hundred percent even if you do lose.
And I think that's that's all.
Fans actually want. At the end of the day. You know, you can't not everybody can win. You know, there's thirteen teams in the league. One team wins. That's the reality of it. But if you know, you know, as a fan, your players are going out there, they're playing for the badge, they're giving one hundred percent. They'll accept you're gonna lose games, you're gonna make mistakes. But if they see you're not fighting, if you're not running, that's when I think, you know, they start to kind of drop off. And I noticed that in that game, the crowd was dead, silent, like it was probably one of the lowest worst atmospheres I've experienced. That it was hot as well, which doesn't help, but did look it on it was just like the crowd wasn't and it's a big stadium, it wasn't that bad, but it was just from probably you know, the red card happened. That was the loudest moment for them, and after that it was like nothing was you know, I could almost hear the players on the field from the opposite side, which normally you don't hear. So I think the coach of the Jets, the Robbie Stanton, obviously wants a reaction from his players.
So I'm interested.
To see how they go out this week in their match against Perth Glory, who's another team that's quite low on the table there without a win.
So it's a late one.
It's nine I think it's nine to fifteen here in Adelaide that one, So if you're up late, you know, going into the Premier League games, I would be interested to see how that one starts, especially the beginning of that match. I reckon the Newcastle Jets players will be coming out of the change rooms and flying about. Hopefully there's no.
Red cards though that'll be quite a matchup. There's plenty of good ones around. We'll keep taking ourselves through the world of football on the other side of this break, including you just mentioned. They're the Premier League. Another big weekend to talk about and posta Cooglu, we have to talk about him too. The pressure is starting to come around him. It is the world game here with Stephan mark On five double.
A The World Game with Stephan mark On five double A.
Yeah, welcome back to the World Game, all thanks to Football Essay and the all new Cherry to Go full pro landed at Southern Cherry for twenty three nine ninety drive away and I'll tell you what if you're a Red supporter and you want to get along to next Friday night, December twenty when we're at home against Sydney FC, this will be a fantastic match up stiff and looking forward to this. Our mates Cidney Discount tires Port Adelaide have given us a double pass to get you into the Greend stand to watch it close up, which would be a great occasion. You'll always get the best advice and price on tires and mechanical City Discount tires Port Adelaide call right now eight double two three double O double five. Those two green stand tickets could be yours if you're first one through. Let's do one of these.
Premier League updates.
Yes, we we head back to the Premier League and it was a pretty interesting week started off with the I was annoyed about this one that the first game which was meant to be the Merseyside Derby Everton b Liverpool got postponed because of weather.
The wins it was. It was pretty crazy.
I saw some videos of some people walking in the street and actually getting blown over.
Wow, it was that strong.
So on a person, I was disappointed because after our game, I wanted to watch it and I want to.
I wanted Everton, after.
Getting a big win midweek, to beat their rivals in Liverpool, but wasn't to be, so they're going to have to play that at a later date. And then, to be honest, everything fell into Liverpool's hands really because all the teams. Manchester City drew away to Palace again after they won midweek. You thought things were turning around. They drew, which was disappointing. Manchester United they lost to Nottingham Forest again. I think it goes to show, you know, a new manager comes in, things aren't just going to turn around straight away.
It's going to take you know. I think this season is written off.
It's more about can he probably get the squad he wants. Can he sign a few players in January? Can he get rid of some dead weight players that he thinks, you know, aren't going to be with the club moving forward.
That's probably the biggest decisions they've got to make.
And then my boys, Arsenal we drew away to Fulham, which was really disappointing.
I thought we.
Scored an eighty eighth minute winner, but it got called off for off side. And it's probably one of my pet hates as a player, even when I'm playing, or even as a fan, is the winger the win who they can look across the whole line, so they should never be off side. Martinelli, he's come on and he's played well for that thirty minutes he came on, but he was getting a ball from I think it might have been Declan Rice or Marino, and he was coming back from an off side position, so he wasn't even running in behind to get the ball, So whether it was a step further forward or back, it made no difference to the play.
The verire calls that he's half a step off side.
And that's two points dropped when we really did need to get the maximum there. And then you go into I guess the next game, which was I guess the most exciting one of the round was Tottenham be Chelsea. This was the one I actually didn't see any of it live because it was on as a silly time, but it was the one that if I had to pick a game of the week, knowing the way Tottenham with Ange plays, knowing the way that Maresca sets Chelsea up, there was going to be goals in it. It ended up being four to three to Chelsea. But the game started perfectly for Tottenham. Two I guess mistakes from cook Orea for Chelsea. Looked over and he's actually was wearing the new Puma boots and he's taking them off after twelve minutes. And then afterwards he's put up a photo of them in the bin. Oh no, and it got quickly deleted because I reckon. His agents called him and said, listen, mate, you're getting paid a lot of money from humor.
I don't care if that's the new model. And they made you slip.
You're deleting that post. But the damage has been done. So it was quite funny to see that. But they you know, it's all funny when I guess, Chelsea end up coming back and winning the game, and they won four to three. They ended up going four to up and then and then Son scored kind of a late consolation for Tottenham, and and the pressure just keeps mounting on engine. They went, you know a few weeks back. You know, and this is the way that football is over there. You play so many games that you really think you're on top of it, and then all of a sudden you're not. Because they beat Manchester City back on the twenty fourth of November four neil they beat them in the cup, everybody is flying thinking, all right, Andrews finally turned them around. They're there, They're gonna win something. They then drew in the Europa League with Roma to to It's not a bad result, but it's not what you want, I guess at home, but anyway, it's not the worst. You then draw at home again to Fulham, who had a red card, and you know, I guess that was where the alarm bell started to ring. And fans over there have short memory. They're not thinking, oh, we beat City four nil a week ago. They're just thinking we dropped two points at home to Fulham. They then got away to Bournemouth, who have been I guess a bogie team for.
The top sides.
You know, they lost one nil to Bournemouth, but Bournemouth have beaten City, Arsenal, Tottenham.
They're a strong team.
But you know what, the fans don't care going into this game. They needed them to bounce back and that's probably one thing Tottenham had been good at was beating the other bigger sides. And they went down four to three, and again the talk comes up about Plan B and Andrew's obviously philosophy is Plan B is doing Plan A better?
Yeah?
And I think you know where does the where do you stop as a coach and change your philosophy? Do you ever do that or don't you? Because he's had success everywhere he's been. We've spoken about it a lot and I don't think they're going to get rid of him because it took Michael Arteta at Arsenal two to three seasons to turn things around, to change the mentality of the club and now.
Look at him weeks.
We've gone to TOTO with Manchester City for the last two seasons. This season, I think we'll go again, but it took a bit of time. I think as Tottenham fans they need to stop getting on his back and hammering him after every performance and understand it's going to take time. There's going to be players that change. I know they've gone after the chairman Daniel Levy as well. But I think you need to back the manager in and say, you know what, he's shown he can play good football. He's shown he can beat Manchester City away from home four nil. If you're a crap manager, you can't do that. I think they just need to back him in, give him the money that he wants, get rid of the players that you think can't handle it.
But it's not an easy fix. He's with their last season.
This season is still I think changing things because it's normally in his second season he wins things. But no disrespect to the other leagues, this is the best league in the world. You know you've got He's not.
As easy to win compared to the other comps. He goes in and has instant success. He'll die on this here, won't he.
Yes, he's he's not going to change anyone and I hope he doesn't because I think it's a proof to all managers out there, and you know, even players, you stick to your philosophy, you stick to what you're good at, and things will turn around.
So fingers crossed they do turn around, because you just need a little bit of success.
They're playing Friday morning, which is tomorrow at six thirty against Rangers. So I'm sure, being an ex Celtic coach, he would love nothing more than to turn things around away at Rangers. So it's another big week obviously of Premier League that's coming up.
That's all we've got time for.
But I appreciate everyone listening in and I hope you've taken a lot from today's episode.
I reckon we have. Thank you so much, Stephan. Good luck tomorrow night as well, by the way, against the Marylands, it's getting another big win and stay undefeated on the year.
