Ten Days to Pre-Season Cup

The round robin Pre-Season Cup tournament kicks off next Saturday (July 15) with last year's winners the Central Coast Mariners hosting Perth Glory, the team they topped 1-0 to win the inaugural trophy in 2005. (The tournament is still without an official name. Perhaps the FFA are hoping/waiting to sell naming rights to a major sponsor?)

This year, the FFA is touring the event across several regional areas, including the Gold Coast (Queensland vs Sydney), Wollongong (Sydney vs Perth) and Canberra (Sydney vs Newcastle), places that may accommodate their own A-League teams in the near future. Obviously, fan interest in all regional matches will be closely monitored by the FFA.

Group A comprises Adelaide, Melbourne, Central Coast, and Perth, while Group B contains New Zealand, Newcastle, Queensland and Sydney.

Inclusive of finals to decide all eight finishing positions, each team will play a total of six matches -- something of a short-term antidote to the low number of regular season games offered in the A-League.

The action is set to heat up in the fourth 'bonus round' of the Cup, which offers extra points to teams that manage to score at least two goals, regardless of whether they win or lose the match. Two goals earns the side one bonus point, while three goals earns two extra points and four or more goals gains three bonus points. Theoretically, a big winner in the bonus round could earn six points and vault from last place in the group to first. (New Zealand and Perth are the most disadvantaged teams during the bonus round, given that each is required to travel thousands of miles to Adelaide and Wollongong respectively.)

It's very unlikely that the tournament will provide an accurate guide to the season proper. All of the teams are still building towards the mid-August start of the league, with a large number of playing squad and coaching openings yet to be determined. Triallists are likely to be mobilised in abundance, especially at Perth where up to five more players need to be signed before the start of the regular season. Some contracted players won't be available either. Dwight Yorke hasn't returned to Sydney just yet, while injuries will keep the likes of Simon Colosimo, Daniel Piorkowski, Jacob Timpano, Dario Vidosic and John Crawley sidelined.

While Sydney, Central Coast and Adelaide will clearly be striving to add to their collections of silverware, last season's strugglers may approach the tournament not to win it but to measure their off-season progress and answer some pertinent questions. Has pre-season training adequately prepared the squad? How will new signings perform under pressure against A-League opposition? What areas still need to be improved in relation to other teams? For the New Zealand Knights, the big question will be to what extent they have bridged the gap with their Australian-based rivals?