I know it might be early to start the thread, but I'm going to anyway, because there's a whole stack of activity going on in Melbourne this week that may be of interest to some of you folk 😉
So we know Suarez & Coates have arrived, and the team are now here, with a reasonably decent sized crowd to meet them.
I hinted in an earlier post that there were certain "battle lines" being drawn in football in Australia. The Guardian ran an article questioning whether Man utd were now Australia's team, on the basis of more tickets were sold for their game in Sydney on Sat night than the last Socceroos game where they qualified for the World Cup. The Utd players were present at the Rugby League State of Origin game on Wednesday night, with Giggs being interviewed on the pitch at half time.
Lou Sticca, the promoter responsible for bringing Liverpool to Melbourne, commented earlier this evening at a function earlier this evening (more on that later) that he had to convince the Melbourne City Council that Liverpool were going to be as big a draw as Man Utd - the council had originally wanted the game to be played at Ethiad Stadium (60,000 capacity - where the recent lions test was played).
Sticca won his argument, and the game has now sold out at the MCG with a crowd of 95,000+ expected - making it one of the biggest sporting events of the year in sport-crazed Melbourne.
The battle line is drawn, in that Liverpool have never come to Australia before.... and Melbourne are now claiming them as "their team".
There are a whole range of things going on over the next few days that I'll try and update on.
So we know Suarez & Coates have arrived, and the team are now here, with a reasonably decent sized crowd to meet them.
I hinted in an earlier post that there were certain "battle lines" being drawn in football in Australia. The Guardian ran an article questioning whether Man utd were now Australia's team, on the basis of more tickets were sold for their game in Sydney on Sat night than the last Socceroos game where they qualified for the World Cup. The Utd players were present at the Rugby League State of Origin game on Wednesday night, with Giggs being interviewed on the pitch at half time.
Lou Sticca, the promoter responsible for bringing Liverpool to Melbourne, commented earlier this evening at a function earlier this evening (more on that later) that he had to convince the Melbourne City Council that Liverpool were going to be as big a draw as Man Utd - the council had originally wanted the game to be played at Ethiad Stadium (60,000 capacity - where the recent lions test was played).
Sticca won his argument, and the game has now sold out at the MCG with a crowd of 95,000+ expected - making it one of the biggest sporting events of the year in sport-crazed Melbourne.
The battle line is drawn, in that Liverpool have never come to Australia before.... and Melbourne are now claiming them as "their team".
There are a whole range of things going on over the next few days that I'll try and update on.
