Auckland City FC - Thanks a Trillion

Auckland is even more fudgeed for venues than we are.

What was the name of the Auckland car dealer, once mooted as a the potential backer of an Auckland A League team?

Finding Auckland's equivalent of Welnix is obviously problem numero uno. Amongst a swathe of challenges.

Ivan Vuksich sounded a bit luke warmish 2 years ago.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/football/a-league/al...

A combined bid with Eastern Suburbs? - as I presume FFA (or whoever will in future be in charge of the A League) would like to see a large junior playing base.

Colin Giltrap?

Sorry, Sir Colin Giltrap.

ACFC posted that the match isn't being shown live anywhere ?

Was looking forward to it past few weeks, absolutely gutted. Wouldn't have minded seeing Fellaini get outplayed by our midfield, will still search for a stream in the depths of the internet when the time comes

As I typed that, they just tweeted out that it will in fact be streamed, albeit 2 and a half hours delayed. Catch it at www.rthk.hk/tv at 11:30pm our time

Will Fellani even play against ACFC in first game.

It’s a little mickey mouse pre season tournament of 2 games in 3 days.

Chinese Super League starts in a month.

No need to put it down just because Auckland are in it mate, it's a genuinely cool cup and it's nice to see NZ teams play the big boys.

Fellaini's injured and not on the bench either, but Pelle, Gil and Roger Guedes are all playing. Funnily enough Shane Smeltz was contracted to for Shandong Luneng for a grand total of five days in July 2010

Look good on ACFC for securing an invite, but perhaps the zero TV coverage is an indication of how seriously the games are being taken, even in Honkers.

2-1 loss to Shandong lead for a short while before Roger Guedes scored a double considering the vast financial gulf between the two teams it's very respectable. 

Just watched the game, absolutely gutted at that.

Auckland dominated for the first 15, Lea'alafa the best player on the park for that period. Then the game went Shandong's way for a while before it evened out. Less than a minute into the second half Lea'alafa latches onto a lucky deflection and slots it, 1-0. Guedes scores from a free kick to make it 1-1, which i'm pretty miffed about because it was a non-foul, and if the wall had jumped properly they would have stopped it.

Was all Shandong after that, leading to their second in the 88th minute, Zubikarai parries a long shot (saw it late I think, otherwise definitely should have held) into the path of Guedes who was surely the best player on the night - Fellaini absent and Pelle did nothing all game apart from be a head to aim at.

Lea'alafa seemed to get badly injured in the 60th, which is a shame as he was fantastic. Tavano also very good. Passing out of defense was shocking (Bilen and Berlanga especially), cost us a lot of possession. Manickum made a good impact coming on for Lopez at half time, it was his deflected pass that saw Lea'alafa score.

Crowd was awesome, cheered at every goal and every nice move - Tavano's silky nutmeg, Vale beating two players at the corner flag, Guedes hitting the post - and applauding Lea'alafa when he went off injured. Good stuff, very disappointed at the result but can't forget this is a team paying Fellaini more than NZD $30 million a year.

yep definitely fair. Auckland controlled the game but Shandong looked far more dangerous all because of one guy. If he ever gets out of China, keep an eye on 22y/o Roger Guedes, he did everything for the team

On loan there from Palmeiras so could quite possibly end up elsewhere

Yep but obligation to buy for Shandong which is a real pity, too young for that

2-1 win, not the best viewing experience but ACFC never looked in real danger. Waine hit the post with a beautiful effort early on and Gulley grabbed a great goal from range when ACFC forgot to mark him, but those were the only two real changes for the Nix in the match. With that, Auckland win the league title with four games to spare - incredible

Even more so given that this is the least convincing ACFC side for a looooong time.

Incredible as well considering that they only landed back in Auckland yesterday morning about 30 hours before kick off. 

Especially when guys like Tavano and Riera have been gone as well. Been nullified by the improvements of guys like Kaltak, Morgan and Lea’alafa

Fairly comfortable win on Sunday. City fell asleep in the last 10mins or so and conceded 2 goals, but until that point Hamilton never really troubled them for most of the game. 

The Swedish striker they had looked bang average at best and the squad a bit disjointed - which is understandable given the number of games they've played recently, so Ramon's assembled a make-shift squad (less so than last weeK). 

they had about 7 changes from usual as they rested some fo the players before heading to the Solomons on Thursday

Think the Swedish guy has had his chance and won't be seen again

He's come from the Swedish 5/6 tier so not unexpected. Having lived in Sweden for a while & watched football at a few levels, once you go below Tier 1/2 (Allesvanken/Superettan) it is just that - "average"....Get down to tier 5/6 & its "village football" ;-)

OFC Champions League's biggest win record broken twice in less than 24 hours, wild. Auckland City with a 15-0 win over Tupapa Maraerenga

Technically it's the 3rd biggest score as Central United and Wollongong Wolves both beat Lotoha'apai 16-0 in 1999 and 2001 respectively but that was in the old OFC Club Championship the precursor competition. 

Just got done 2-1 by AS Magenta

Google says the weather in Noumea was 26 degrees & 85% humidity.

Harsh that the two NZ sides don't get return SF legs back here.

Still could all end up a bit irrelevant if FIFA get their way and CWC moves out to a 4 year cycle.

This is exactly what OFC has been searching for, they've finally come up with the formula that gives Island teams the best chance to knock NZ teams over. But like you say, may be completely moot.

no CwC dollars riding on this aye?

Not confirmed by FIFA yet, but that's highly likely. 

? bit.ly/2WjQadj

Roman off roaming 

Amazing record: During Ramon’s tenure as Head Coach ACFC won 26 competitions including the OFC Champions League (7 times), NZ Premiership title (3 times), Minor Premiership (7 times) & 3rd place at the 2014 FIFA Club World Cup.

"Ramon Tribulietx is leaving Auckland City as the club undergo significant changes to its financial structure."

There goes the pokie money! https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/domestic/11...

err its more likely the lack of CWC money

Possibly. That's missing out on around $750k over 2018 and 2019.

Their records say they received 175k in 2017/18 from FIFA prize money. Up from $118 in the previous year.

Which is about 15% of their income.

I fear this means Jose will move back to Auckland. Baby on the way, second job that is Auckland based. Team that needs a coach who can work with a limited budget. 

Is that what they've recorded as income? From memory, they should be getting around half of the prize money, which is US$500,000 for getting knocked out in the first game.

But yes, very likely that Jose is going back to Auckland now.

"a coach who can work with a limited budget" = Paul O'Reilly down at Southern ...

Said limited budget, not no budget!

:-D!  agree has performed miracles