Pyrrhic victory - Bentleigh Greens 1 South Melbourne 2

What an amazing night. I finished work just after midday (the Queenslanders who run the company call it an "early mark"), so I was able to get home, get changed, and not have to lug my bag of fruit and the rest of my stuff to Kingston Heath later that day. Thanks to Melbourne's magnificent public transport system, I got to Cheltenham station much earlier than I expected, so I had dinner at the Indian joint with pretty much only five star and one star online reviews (I'd give it 3.5) across the street from the station, before eventually heading to the ground.

Now while I was at the bus stop across from the station, I got notifications from at least two different people that rather than the game not being televised, it was actually being televised! Live-streamed to the dozens of people watching for reasons of so-called entertainment, and also a few thousand watching for reasons of loving the odds, not the game. Quite how Football Victoria came up with the idea to stream this match a couple of hours before kickoff, I do not know. Would it have changed my plans, but which I mean, would I have stayed home instead of making the long journey to and from Cheltenham from Sunshine? Maybe. Maybe not. But it would have been nice to have the choice, I suppose.

I did offer to that night's designated match commentator to help out on special comments, which some people may remember I did for a couple of games back in 2019 (to rave reviews, albeit mostly by people who knew me), but it turned out it was much more important to don a supporters' marshal vest, and be part of what looked like a knockoff Croatian I&D crew. Fair enough.

In the context of this particular season - where we are running the very real risk of relegation - this was perhaps the worst possible result. We won the game, which means that we have to play at least one more match that will make preparation for the relegation avoidance battle more difficult. We also won this game in extra time, which means we had to play an extra half hour in a midweek fixture, when we have a very tough game on the Sunday. We also lost two more experienced players to injury, which will make the task associated with league survival that much more difficult.

The loss of Jake Marshall (calf), our most solid defensive player, is going to be brutal at both ends of the field. Apart from his service at the defensive end, he's one of the few remaining aerial threats we have up front from corners. Worse, losing Andy Brennan (hamstring) - regardless of whether you think he's too old, or hasn't had a good season - means the loss of one of the few line breaking players at our disposal. So no Marshall, no Brennan, no Bonada, no Archibald, no Moller (for the sake of thoroughness) - it's not looking good, by which I mean, it's looking worse than before. 

And Max Mikkola's even abandoned the long throws, I'm not sure whether due to instruction, spite, or injury. Our one now only semi-dependant, near-obsolete weapon, and that's been tossed aside for... reasons. Maybe good ones, I don't know. But it was wild to see that on a narrow field - quite strange to see such a thing, considering every team has been widening their pitch where possible to nullify the long throw - Bentleigh's gone the other way. Well, I'm sure George Katsakis has his reasons.

And the loss was right there for the taking, too. We weren't bad, all things considered - we've been much worse this season - but everything in the final third was absolute rubbish. When they were ascendant in this see-sawing match, Bentleigh looked much more likely to score than we did in our ascendant phases. Eventually a cheap midfield turnover saw the Greens take the lead late, and blessed defeat was in sight. Then we had to go ruin it by scoring an equaliser. After all that, you might as well go win the game, right? Andriko Mesourouni's tap in from the one time we actually put in a proper low ball across the box, so there's that lesson to be taken out of this game. Play a striker, win the match? Madness, in its own way. 

Next game
Tomorrow (Sunday) at home against Oakleigh to round out the first half of the season. In a strange turn of events, the under 23s will actually be the curtain raiser.

Dockerty Cup draw
The draw for rounds six and seven was held on Wednesday night, where it was revealed that in the next round we will be hosting Pascoe Vale. It's the first time since 2019 - so, before the pandemic - where  we've been drawn against a side lower than the Victorian second tier. Back then it was Doveton, of course, after which we ended up signing their goalkeeper Josh Dorron. Maybe we'll get a striker out of this match? Who knows.

There were so many worse match-ups that could have happened. Knights again, of course. One of the many NPL sides still remaining. Another Greek club, for another chance at local community humiliation. North Sunshine, where I assume the People's Champ is still playing. But no, we got lucky, because we've got Pascoe Vale, currently bottom of the VPL2. Of course considering our own form and personnel issues, there's no guarantee that this will turn out well anyway, but we could have got a lot worse.

If we do get past Paco, we'll be away to the winner of Dandenong City or Brunswick City. so we're cooked anyway. And what if we did get into the national round of 32 of the Australia Cup? What would we do? Where we would we find useful non-cup tied players to bring into the squad? OK, calm down, one week at a time, we've got more immediate problems to deal with.

Someone should do something about all the problems
Normally I'm partial to the work of Neos Kosmos contributor Dean Kalimniou, who writes interesting articles about all things Hellenic, from the ancient to the now. One area, however, where I refuse to even bother reading him is when he starts talking about soccer, especially Australian soccer - not least because, as one reader of this blog commented, what does it mean for Dean to call himself a South Melbourne supporter, if Dean is never seen at any of our games?

Now I bring that up only to set up the scenario here - Kalimniou wrote an article about Preston Lions trying to trademark the name "Preston Makedonia", and the obvious consternation that would cause members of the Greek community. I'm not going to comment on that, but rather the reaction by some readers on Facebook to the article, as seen to the right.