For the second week running Sydney FC threw away the opportunity to ascend the table ... failing against teams below them.
Cellar-dwellers Wellington Phoenix for the second time this season took three points from Sydney with a gutsy, well-managed game plan that countered Sydney's few positives and exploited its mounting weaknesses.
Fortunately I missed much of the misery. Had to parade around the pitch with other New South Wales Champion of Champions winners. Had to have another celebratory beer with team mates after our jubilant circuit.
More significantly we had to move to the marshalling area soon after kickoff. We wanted to take the shortest route but were not permitted to cross in front of the three dozen Wellington supporters. So we lost ten minutes battling through bar, food and toilet queues going round the long way.
We had been comfortably seated among season ticket holders (coincidentally) around my regular seat. A rare opportunity for fans to converse with champions!
Branko predicted a 1-2 result. Vito thought it would be 1-0, with Brosque to score. But don't quote me, he said. Too late, I replied. As it turned out, Branko had it figured.
The seats we later took in the far corner weren't too bad. We could at least see how badly Sydney were playing. I took mental note of Tim Brown and Shane Smeltz for Wellington. And Terry McFlynn for Sydney seemed to be very involved at both ends of the pitch.
Steve Corica was presenting himself frequently, but seemed to be giving away more than usual possession. Though perhaps less than his team mates. Even we old champions could play more intelligently than that!
Then we were told we were supposed to be sitting in the front row. The worst possible seats to see a goal being scored at the other end. Which is what happened.
Leo Bertos headed home a Tim Brown cross. Who was marking Bertos?
Apparently we also missed Alex Brosque, Beau Busch and Shannon Cole miss chances.
As part of the parade of champions you realise that football fans --- especially the younger ones --- love champions. Any old champions. Back in the stands you can't help but know how pissed off the fans can be if their team looks nothing like champions.
Phoenix came out in the second half looking champion material: Brown, Michael Ferrante, Smeltz, Tony Lochhead and Leo Bertos all having chances.
In the 70th minute Mitchell Prentice seemed to score with a free kick, but the ball skirted the outside of the net.
Sydney were playing so badly, the fans were so desperate, they were calling for John Aloisi to come on. Eventually so he did, replacing Brosque.
Then McFlynn messed his chance to be man of the match. Bridge kept possession on the right against Ben Sigmund and Karl Dodd. Then answered McFlynn's call with a good ball into the box. But McFlynn struck wide.
Which gets one to thinking. Okay, Sydney collapsed a week earlier, giving up a three goal lead. But, hey, six of the better defenders were unavailable. This week a couple of those were back. But why, in a team with forwards of the reputation of Aloisi, Brosque, Bridge and Corica available, is McFlynn needed to be so involved at the front?
Partly because, like Corica, he wants it and runs his arse off. But where's the balance?
And how did Sydney score in the 77th minute? Stuart Musialik --- muscled out of the game for the most part --- had a pot shot from distance and Mark Paston was somehow caught out.
Aloisi can't score because he is always falling over. Want to see the photographs?
Bridge can't find the speed when it's needed.
Brosque runs but never gets a decent ball.
Corica runs but who's with him?
In the 85th minute Corica had a run to the Wellington penalty area but was held back. Bridge had a shot deflected wide. Golec shot poorly from the corner.
Three minutes later Smeltz shot from the right side of the Sydney penalty area. It looked to go straight to goal where Necevski made a good diving save. But the save was necessitated by a deflection from Popovic's hand --- which many fans didn't see. I was getting text messages: What was the penalty for? Referee Craig Zetter was already unpopular with the fans. That sealed it.
But a penalty it was. And Smeltz scored. Sydney could not come back.
Fans to my right angrily left early, dismayed by coaching and refereeing decisions. They were joined by many others who departed before the final whistle.
Fans behind me who stayed to the end and who saw more of the game than I did reckoned Corica tried hard the whole game. But Jonathan McKain controlled it from in front of the Wellington defence.
Ben Sigmund and Emmanuel Muscat also seemed busy keeping Sydney at bay. And Bertos had some fun in attack.
Sydney coach John Kosmina was feistier in the post match media conference than his players were on the pitch. So miffed was he at Back of the Net's impertinence that he spat a dummy that made the TV news the following night.
Which was very odd, considering that at the conclusion of the previous week's post match media conference, when all questions were lame and tame due to fear or pity, Kosmina threw a typical quizzical smirk and said, "Intriguing." As though, "We just threw away the game and that's the best you could dish up?"
So Back of the Net thought, Well, this week I'll try to make you happy.
Unfortunately, I jumped in too early, interrupting the great man's train of thought and it was downhill from there. It was rude to interrupt and I did apologise. But he was trying to blame Sydney's poor play on his players' emotional balance. They were still dealing with the public criticism of their failure the previous week.
Hang on. What level of football is this? We aren't dealing with 14-year-old girls here.
And I'm not now and never will be the coach of one of the country's top club sides. But I've been to my share of coaching seminars. And your players' emotional situation is surely something you address one-on-one, privately, as required; not something you blab to the national media.
Surely he can't be saying, "My players can't cope with the pressures of this level of football and with what the media are saying about them." The A-League isn't that much more demanding than the leagues some of these guys have come from. Is it?
Surely all Kosmina needed to say was the obvious: many of the first choice squad have been unavailable, many of the supposed stars have been underperforming and the new guys have been thrust into a team that's way out of kilter. We need to get back to basics. Marking tighter close to goal. Stop just punting the ball in someone's general direction. Get the simple things right. Play like you want to win.
On paper Sydney had the better team, even with a few players still missing. In heart, Wellington were all over them.
But Kosmina clearly wanted to try the line about his players' emotions because, even though angrily saying he wouldn't finish his answer, he spun it out later:
"There's been a lot of talk about our capitulation last week and maybe that's affected the players emotionally," he said.
"Maybe we're suffering a little bit emotionally from last week. Because everyone's talked about it and it's still a young side in a lot of areas.
"Anthony Golec hasn't got over last week. He takes everything to heart. He's got a great future but he takes a lot to heart ... The same with Beau [Busch]; it's been hard for him."
But the questions I really wanted to ask were the fans' questions; there were possibly obvious answers, but the people I sit with wanted to know these things.
Why, when you need a goal, do you take off an attacking player, Shannon Cole, and put on a defender, Fyfe? Why when you need a goal do you take off one striker, Brosque, who always works hard, to find a place for ... Aloisi?
Kosmina mostly answered these questions anyway: Cole and Brosque weren't running hard enough.
He found some positives from the game. Sydney came back. They turned the ball over too easily at the beginning but they were more compact in the second half.
Apparently Kosmina was also unhappy with another journalist; one who suggested he had been out-coached the week before. I'm glad then, since Wellington coach Ricki Herbert was well satisfied with his game plan, that I didn't confess another thought: Is the problem that the Sydney players aren't doing what Kosmina desires or is it that what Kosmina desires is the problem?
Of course John won't be disturbed emotionally by me asking that; he won't have visited the Internet, since it .. "lets the lunatics out of the asylum".