Probably the Most Important Australian Sporting Event This Weekend

Okay, I know I said Super Bowl coming up, but with the Super Bowl still over a week away, and with Australia Day right around the corner, I decided to focus on the most important Australian sporting event this weekend - the first round of the A-League playoffs! ...oh yeah, and I guess they're playing some "major" tennis tournament this weekend too... but back to the A-League Finals Series. We are now less than two hours away from Sydney-Queensland getting underway. Honestly, I think this is one of the coolest tournaments in sports.

The A-League is the top soccer league in Australia, currently in its 3rd year of existence. And you thought the MLS had no history! (More on A-League History in a moment.) Going into last week, the final week of the season, the top four teams all had the same number of points - all had clinched the four playoff spots, but they were all fighting for seeding. Drama. The Newcastle Jets and Central Coast Mariners came out with wins earning the top two spots, with Sydney FC tying their way into 3rd and the Queensland Roar limping into 4th with a loss.

But the playoff format is what makes the A-League so interesting. Instead of your standard American bracket, with #1 v #4 and #2 v #3, the A-League's first round has a "Major Semifinal" with the top two teams, and a "Minor Semifinal" with teams #3 and #4. Two games, home-and-home aggregate goals, yadda yadda yadda... And then the loser of the Major Semifinal gets to face the winner of the Minor Semifinal in the "Preliminary Final." The winner of the Preliminary Final and the winner of the Major Semifinal then face off in the "Grand Final" in Sydney.

I love this playoff format - imagine if we used that over here in the NFL? This year, we would've had a Major Semifinal of Pats-Colts and a Minor Semifinal of Packers-Cowboys... there's so much epicism there I don't even know where to start... the potential for 2 Pats-Colts playoff games, where each team had just seen the others' tricks! Who would you pick in that Grand Super Bowl - the winner of the first fresh from a week off, or the loser of the first with a chip on their shoulder? Imagine if the Pats lost the Semifinal - would they be able to salvage a Super Bowl win? Sure, a first-round bye is a nice treat for a good season - but imagine a second chance in the playoffs. I'm sure Peyton would've stayed on the field in Week 17 if that were at stake.

I'm really excited to see how this goes, because this is my first A-League playoffs - I got my first exposure to the league this summer (our summer, their winter) when there were talks of Robbie Fowler signing with Sydney FC, and my first reaction was "There's a pro soccer league in Australia?" So naturally I read up on it and I was hooked - the league's story is pretty fascinating when you sit down and look at it. In 2003, there was a complete overhaul of the governing body Soccer Australia after an independent review (if only the same would happen in Canada...). The new league began in 2005 and after just three seasons, it's made many strides that took the MLS eight or nine years. Several Socceroos (gotta love those kooky Aussies) returned home, and the league's overall average attendance in the first year was over 12,000 - and more impressively, that number went up in Year Two (MLS averaged about 17,500 in the first year; the number fell each of the next 4 seasons and still hasn't reached that high since).

Like the MLS, the A-League has a salary cap to keep costs down, but the A-League was way ahead of MLS in allowing each team one "Marquee Player" who doesn't count under the cap - that rule's been in place since day one. The cap is only $1.8 million Australian (about $1.56 million US), which limits salaries even more than MLS does (I don't know if the MLS cap number is actually out there anywhere - I've heard anywhere between $2 mil and $2.5 mil). Actually, there was a big controversy this summer when DC United and MLS stole Player of the Year Fred away from champions Melbourne Victory by offering to pay him three times as much. Even if the Socceroos' coach isn't a big fan of the A-League as it is, the league was included in FIFA 08, so that gives it some legitimacy (I would argue that the boys at EA Sports' opinion means more than that of a coach who made 39 call-ups for a Qualifier, but that's just me).

In last year's Grand Final, 55,000 fans watched Archie Tompson scored 5 goals in Melbourne's 6-0 thrashing of Adelaide United, and somehow the New Zealander is still toiling away in the A-League... Sadly, Melbourne won't have a chance to repeat, but apparently the Aussie advertisers are thrilled to get a Sydney-Queensland semifinal... If I'm making a prediction, it's Sydney all the way. Despite their hideous sky blue jerseys that remind me a little too much of UNC, Sydney FC are my team in the A-League. After following them in the Robbie Fowler saga, and then in the build-up to their match with the David Beckham Roadshow, I can't get behind another Australian team.

I like Fox Sports AU's coverage of the A-League better than ESPN's (which still listed last years stats 3 weeks into the season, though they expanded their coverage as the year went on). The best columnist out there writing on Australian soccer is Jesse Fink, who's blog Half Time Orange used to be at Fox Sports AU and now runs at The World Game.

And as far as the Australian Open, I guess I'm pulling for Federer? Honestly I lost interest when John Isner lost in the first round. Gotta pull for the guys who went to college.