The curtain came down on the 2016-17 A-League season on May 5th, with Sydney FC securing an on-penalties victory in the Grand Final. The Champions had led the division for the majority of the campaign, with their defence looking particularly impressive. But can their backline continue to be miserly next season?

Despite needing a penalty shootout to sneak past Melbourne Victory in the Grand Final, Sydney FC deserved their status as champions. They finished on 66 points – 17 ahead of their nearest rivals – and conceded just 12 goals all season. The structure of the side remained solid throughout, with the spine of the team avoiding too many absences, allowing consistency and team spirit to flourish.

Australia national team coach Ange Postecoglou says that the Australian A-league will always find it hard to replace a player like Thomas Broich.

The former Brisbane Roar coach was responsible for bringingBroich to the A-League. His presence was extremely important in the team managed by Postecoglou, and it went on to achieve a lot of success. The 36-year-old may not have appeared for the German national team, but he became a club legend at Brisbane. After having made more than 60 assists since moving to the club in 2010, Broich has quickly became the top goal creator in the A-League history.

Just weeks after failing to progress beyond the Elimination Finals, Melbourne City have begun to make some significant changes to their playing staff, confirming that four members of last season's squad will leave the A-League club.

Despite being tipped to mount a real challenge for the title this season, City never looked like competing with the league's best teams, eventually being outplayed by Perth Glory in the first round of the finals.

With the club's ambitious owners clearly not happy with another season of relative failure, aside from winning the FFA Cup, it looks as though it's going to be a busy few months at AAMI Park.

Sydney FC are set to go head to head with Melbourne Victory at the Hyundai A-League final in the Harbour City.

The big question is if the Sky Blues can get the result one more time this term. Both sides have met three times already this season with Sydney winning each occasion. Ahead of the grand final on Sunday, will they be able to maintain their dominance?

Australia are introducing some youngsters into the national team fold, according to manager Ange Postecoglou.

There have been some shock inclusions by the former Brisbane Roar manager over the last few squads. However, the biggest surprise has come from the inclusion of Riley McGree for the squad and that takes on Iraq and UAE in key World Cup 2018 qualifiers towards the end of March. After having had a mediocre start to the campaign with only two wins from the five matches, Australia are in desperate need of three points in order to start dominating the group.

Ange Postecoglou reckons that the Australian association should enrol new teams into A-League sooner rather than later.

In the opinion of Postecoglou, with the lesser number of teams being there in the league at the moment, the regular chances are not there for the local youngsters because of which they are not being able to develop as quickly as they should.

Australia haven’t had everything their own way so far in the qualification stage for the 2018 World Cup but Ange Postecoglou’s men can take a giant step in the next few months. Wins against Iraq and the United Arab Emirates should see the Socceroos take firm control in the race for Russia.

With five qualifying fixtures remaining, six points could prove crucial come the end of the preliminary round. It would be foolish for Postecoglou and co to underestimate both sides but the Socceroos will be confident of victory; especially as they have defeated Iraq and the UAE already in this competition.

Australia national team coach Ange Postecoglou claims that he has sent scouts in order to watch the national team’s next opponent Cameroon.

The African team were recently involved in the 2017 African Cup of Nations. As of the most successful teams in this tournament, Cameroon were one of the early favourites going into the title. However, not many actually expected them to go all the way and win the honour for a fifth time in their history. As a result, expectations are already high about the team being able to do well in the upcoming Confederations Cup.

AngePostecoglou is a 51 year old Australian manager that has been in charge of a number of clubs including: South Melbourne, Panachaiki, Brisbane Roar, Melbourne Victory and the latest obstacle which was given to him was to control of the Australian national football team.

The German manager HolgerOsieck was sacked from being the head coach of Australia on October 23 of 2013 after the national side had sustained consecutive losses against Brazil and France.

Aaron Mooy has become the lynchpin of the Australia midfield over the past two seasons due to the vast improvement in his standard of play. The 26-year-old enjoyed a dominant two-year spell in the A-League with Melbourne City, while he also impressed greatly for the Socceroos.

Due to the quality of his performances both on the domestic and international stages, Manchester City secured his signature on a three-year deal. Mooy had a previous spell in England with Bolton Wanderers where he rejected the chance to remain with the club, while he also struggled during his time in Scotland at St Mirren, making 30 appearances in two years before returning home.