Fan culture: This weeks positive story and the beep test at your club
After the miserable display of a few fans misbehaving last week in Melbourne how great it was to see A-League fan culture alive and well in New Zealand.
Not only did a few Sydney fans make the trip, or at least wear the shirts of Sydney FC, but the dismissal of Tony Popovic was a great moment.
Not for him, but for Yellow Fever, The Phoenix's football fan base.
Poppa had to walk from halfway to the corner flag, where the players entrance is at the Beehive ground, and the Pheonix Yellow Fever army let him have it.
In unison the hands went up and gave him a wonderful loud and prolonged cheerio.
Great stuff.
And not to be outdone in keeping us laughing. Steve Laybutt came on for the Newcastle Jets and we were in histerics.
Jardel did 9 on the beep test this week we were informed. Most Jets players did around 14. You suspect Joel Griffiths won. But what would Steve Laybutt have got.
And if Jardel is fat, how has Steve got off so lightly. To heavy to have on the same bench as Jardel?
But he had an amusing but disastrous few minutes when he came on. Luckily for him it all came to nought. But everything he headed he missed, his kicks went up in the air and in the end I think he just started fouling.
That way he didn't have to worry about the ball.
But made me wonder how your starmen would go in a beep test.
Tony Popovic maybe around a 10. Sasho Petrovski similar. Romario, who knows? Not sure Kevin Muscat would get past 12. And Carlos Hernandez might just these days.
James Downey of the Glory would be flying. Fred last year did 15 plus. Socceroo Carl Valeri is up there when he's fit. Brett Emerton, in his day, would have won the record for the Aussies I suspect. David Carney would be a strong performer.
Big Nikolai Topor-Stanley would surprise many. For the Roar non-stop Matty Mackay would surely be number one. Travis Dodd would be strong. Olyroo Ruben Zadkovich surely would be great.
There's no ball involved just two cones twenty meters apart. And you have to go there and back a number of times within an allotted time.
And that's one set.
Who would fail the beep test at your club. Failure? For a professional footballer, in season, anything 13 or under I reckon is poor, unless you are an older player with experience:)
Hey Poppa!
2 comments:
You obviously dont know what your talking about. Steve Laybutt has played at all levels off football and honestly has always been the same size.
For your information Laybutt got 14 in the beep test and was one of the players who did not have to attend the afternoon trainning session.
Eeveryone seems to be bagging laybutt, but what they dont know is that Van Egmond was begging him to sign with the club. He could of quite easily of signed for an overseas club but after playing for over 10 years in Europe i was informed that he had had enough.
Everyone raves about the Australian lifestyle, why wouldnt he want to come back.
You accuse him of not being able to head the ball or hit his mark in pass's either, well try to look at some stats and you will notice that laybutt has hit 89% off all pass's this season. which makes him 4th off all players in the league.
So next time before you start laughing your ass off realise Laybutt is 30 and is still keeping up with the best of them.
Well in the game I mention even the commentators were laughing, admittedly Laybutt had a few amazing minutes by his standards and I know he's a far better player than those few humourous minutes...I didn't actually comment on his playing ability or performances in other games.
Laybutt is carrying weight, have a look for yourself, check him out the next time he plays.
Sure he's been a strong performer in the past and will be again, but I'm merely commenting on his return to Australia and his weight...
it is not unreasonable to expect a returning overseas professional to be carrying no extra weight...is it?
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