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Air Miles Man - Back to Civilisation


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April brought about some impressive form before the post-season. We wrapped up the title when after beating Adelaide United, Melbourne City lost, and that gave us another A-League regular season crown. The draw against Gyeongnam also qualified for the next stage of the Champions League. We have been very good defensively letting in only one goal all month. The assistant manager is worrying about a lot of players fitness this season. The AFC Cup has not helped us with the fitness levels but we a juggling the squad to try and get through the big games we have left until the season ends.

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In the end we won the regular season by quite a margin as Melbourne City faltered towards the end of the season. We are joined in the post season with Melbourne City, Sydney, Melbourne Victory, Perth Glory and Western Sydney Wanderers. We are looking for our first post season crown, so I hope we don't blow like we did last season.

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What originally looked like a tough group, has actually been a cake walk, we win the group with a game still to play. Sanfrecce Hiroshima join us in the next round.

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Right our air miles calculation is as follows:-

We won 32 games this season.

The equation is as follows:-

3 x 5.28 x 2 x 1 (Over 30 games in season) = 31.7 miles per win = 1,014.34 miles earned this season, added to our 1,313.79 miles that we already had in the kitty gives us 2,328.13 miles.

The map now looks like this

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As you can see we have covered the whole of Australia and we can now actually add a new league in Indonesia.

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A closer look sees that island of New Guinea is pretty well covered and I know there are at least few clubs that are from the island of New Guinea. We will add Indonesia and see what comes of it.

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This is a huge call. I have decided to let Brendan Cummings go. He was and is arguably the best player at the club, a club leader, a fan favourite, but I am doing what is best for the club, in cashing in now on the 31 year old and getting rid of his high wages at the club. This may not pay off, the DoF really needs to replace with a young guy who can grow into the role on the right hand side.

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This is not a good signing. I misstated Brendan Cummings as a right winger, he is a left winger. We already have Segren there and this guy comes on pretty high wages to warm the bench, when we needed a guy on the other wing. Disappointed with the DoF.

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We are purring like a Ferrari as we take Hebei apart 7-0 back in Australia to win the tie 11-1 on aggregate. I am sure that they were not expecting that, neither was I. I had a look at their team and it is stuffed with South American's but it made no difference as we give them a humiliating experience in Oz and move into the semi finals.

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Well it looks like Australia will have a participant in the final as we face off against old foe Melbourne Victory in the semi finals of an all Australian affair. They won the competition last season so I am very wary of this tie, we have been doing well against the Japanese, Chinese and Korean opposition, but will it be fellow countrymen that are our undoing.

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After the disappointment of losing in the AFC Champions League semi final first leg we needed a pick me up and we got in the FFA Quarter final victory over Brisbane Roar. It was a pretty tight game, but the early goal gave us confidence and when we got the second, you just felt we were set despite Brisbane pulling one back.

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Wow! What a performance, we were hard done by at home and couldn't find the net and got punished, but we showed grit and a never say die spirit to get back into it. Kavanagh put away a penalty in the 26th minute and suddenly the nerves were setting into Melbourne Victory. Just after half time the ball fell to Kavanagh again and now Melbourne needed two goals to go through, as they went for young Scottish midfielder Murdoch made the game safe as we roar back 3-0.

Just like Highlander there can only be one Australian team in the final and it may as well be us! Brilliant performance all round.

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24 minutes ago, Number seven said:

Would be cool if you take charge over Wellington Phoenix after the Mariners, and make the Kiwis a winning team.

That would involve going back to New Zealand which would waste my air miles. Unfortunately I think they will have to be left to their fate. Next move has to at least move me more toward Europe, even if it's just in a round about way. But yeah actually I feel sorry for them and wouldn't mind helping them out.

Anyway the only side in New Zealand that we love is our very own Hamilton Wanderers. 

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Well Sydney certainly have an annoying habit of getting rid of us at the semi final stage of the FFA Cup. Again I have no idea how they keep doing it, the total match they were dominated, but then were stupid enough to let them get 3-0 up after 18 minutes. You don't win many games from that position generally.

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Well October, the opening month of the A-League is in the books and we have done very well. The FFA Cup blip aside we have got through to the Champions League final and got through our fixtures in the A-League well enough. With Brendan Cummins going and not really getting a replacement we have chucked in recent regen Sean McManus into the first team and he has been performing very well. Let's hope we don't regret that piece of business.

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Well both us and Sydney have exploded into the new season with three win and Melbourne City could still very well join us on that milestone. This season already feels like it could end up being a lot closer and we may have pull out our A-game to make it a third Regular season title in a row.

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The Champions League semi final first leg went better than we could have hoped for, even despite a very early red card, we were able to smash Al-Ittihad in our own back yard. Of course we still need to do the hard part and play them in Saudi Arabia, a hostile atmosphere I am sure, but at 4-1 up we should be losing out from here. A brilliant, resolute all round performance.

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We did exactly what I wanted us to do and after 3 minutes the tie was effectively over. Al-Ittihad did come back into it and late on they did find their way to the goal and ended up denying the win in Saudi Arabia but they couldn't deny us our maiden AFC Champions League win!

CENTRAL COAST MARINERS ARE CHAMPIONS OF ASIA!!!!

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An historic month in the history of the Central Coast Mariners is complete as we lifted the Champions League for the first time. We also did pretty well in the league, drawing away to Melbourne City who are among the favourites this year for the league, and then winning the F3 derby against Newcastle before we trounced Adelaide United away. Three away games and 7 points in the league. I have to be pretty happy with that.

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Sydney look very strong this year and we have to take them seriously. We are equal on points with Sydney at the top of the table. At the foot of the table is Wellington, its a better start this year by virtue that they have already secured their first point of the year, something they did not so last year until the 20th fixture of the season, but still it looks ominous for them.

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