GOOD NEWS ; Australia’s eyes on the astonishing four-way Championship title race…….
It’s been a while since an Australian was a regular part of a Premier League lineup. Youngsters are plugging away in academies, it must be said, highlighted by Brighton & Hove Albion prospect Cameron Peupion, while Joe Gauci just made a record move to back up Emiliano MartÃnez at Aston Villa. And, obviously, there’s Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham Hotspur.
But there’s no week-in, week-out starters. It’s a frequently bemoaned topic Down Under, not surprising given that memories of when Harry Kewell, Mark Viduka, and Tim Cahill were some of the league’s most notable in the mid-2000s run deep. Combine this with the ever-increasing cultural hegemony the English top flight holds around the globe, and it’s inevitable that angst will come with a perceived lockout.
This season, however, Championship stars Cameron Burgess and Massimo Luongo are doing their best to change that with Ipswich Town. And with three matchdays remaining in the campaign, and Kieran McKenna’s squad sitting atop the league heading into them, it would appear the Tractor Boys are in a strong position to earn promotion to the Premier League.
Well, that’s the theory. In reality, the two Socceroos are caught in four-way race for the two automatic promotion places that is increasingly threatening to descend into anarchy; a dash in which its belligerents have all looked, at times, unbackable certainties only to fall back to the pack and almost do their best to throw their chance away. And for those of us who aren’t so emotionally invested that they need to cover their eyes, it’s a wonderful watch.
If you’re not familiar with the Championship, 24 clubs square off in an arduous 46-game, home-and-away season across 10 months, with the resulting top two sides gaining automatic promotion to the Premier League. The sides finishing third through sixth then enter a post-season playoff to determine the final team to go up. It’s a cruel system; in the past 10 seasons, only four of the third-placed finishers have won promotion via the playoffs.
The rewards for promotion are obvious. Outside of winning a trophy, going up is one of the states closest to nirvana that anyone in football — player, fan, coach, administrator, whoever — can experience; the catharsis of recognition and reward for the work that has been undertaken to get there, and the (even fleeting) unbridled optimism that comes with a new journey on a new stage. And if spreadsheets are more your thing, it’s incredibly lucrative, too, with tens of millions of pounds in increased revenues on offer to the clubs that reach the Premier League — with hundreds of millions of pounds potentially to be had if they can stay there. There’s a reason the playoff final at Wembley is often called “The richest game in football”; at a minimum any promoted team will make £170 million over the next three seasons (via broadcast revenues and parachute payments.)
At present, Ipswich (89 points), Leicester City (88), and Leeds United (87) are all engaged in a dogfight to avoid the playoffs and automatically punch their ticket back to this land of milk, honey, private equity, and petrodollars. After defeating Preston North End on Tuesday, Southampton now sit on 84 points, just four back of the automatic promotion places, with a game in hand and looking to crash the party. That spare fixture, fittingly, is against Leicester at the King Power Stadium next week — with Enzo Maresca’s Foxes holding the chance to either kill off one of their rival’s hopes or, potentially more likely given what’s being going on as of late, the Saints will inject even more tumult into this whole affair.
Southampton fell to a 97th-minute winner from Jeremy Sarmiento against Ipswich on Easter Monday, since when the wheels have threatened to come off the Tractor Boys. They suffered a derby defeat to Norwich City in their subsequent fixture before drawing with Watford and Middlesbrough — where Socceroos Riley McGree, Tom Glover, and Sammy Silvera all ply their trade — and Ipswich have picked up two of just nine points in their three games since the Southampton fixture.
Retiring from international duty, in part, to focus on helping Ipswich to secure promotion — a life-changing event, both emotionally and fiscally, for any footballer — Luongo has started 34 of 40 matches for Ipswich this season, helping to keep the side ticking over in possession from the base of midfield and leading them in interceptions. The midfielder spent years in the wilderness as he battled injury and form issues, but has experienced a career renaissance since arriving at Portman Road.
