Alessandro Del Piero
Paul Williams
Whatever it is cast your mind back 12 months. The A-League is ramping up its 'We Are Football' campaign and fans are excitedly anticipating the 2012/13 season after surviving the season of doom, with the disastrous ending to Gold Coast United's brief existence, talk of rival competitions and Clive Palmer's short lived Football Australia all set against the backdrop of general owner unrest.
The Western Sydney Wanderers, hastily thrown together by FFA to ensure a ten team competition, were capturing most of the attention and had managed to lift a lot of the doom that was hovering over the game only months earlier.
In the background, however, their crosstown rivals Sydney FC were quietly working on arguably the biggest and most audacious plan the A-League had seen in its seven and a bit years, and one that would change the A-League forever - the signing of Italian legend Alessandro Del Piero.
Bling FC was back!
With ADP on board the league has gone to a new level, highlighted most recently by Sydney FC's three-week, all expenses paid training camp in the Italian city of Jesolo, near Venice.
Scenes of ADP and his Sydney teammates being greeted by 5000 locals at a public presentation put on by the City of Jesolo were unthinkable this time last year, and while they were all there to see just one man, the scenes are still a fantastic fillip for the A-League. In that essence Sydney isn't just on a three-week training camp, they're on a goodwill mission. They're our A-League ambassadors.
Fans turned out in droves to watch Sydney FC take on ADP's first ever professional club - Padova - on Wednesday night (Thursday morning AEST), with the match also being broadcast live on Sky Italia. This is exposure you simply cannot buy and cannot put a value on.
What is even more remarkable is that quite a few of those fans were wearing sky blue kits.
Just think about that for a second. People in Italy, one of the great football countries of the world, wearing the kit of an A-League team.
It's an all too familiar site to see people in Australia wearing a Barcelona kit, or a Manchester United kit. They're massive global "brands", but people wearing Sydney FC kits in Italy? Who thought we would ever see the day?!
Sydney may have paid a king's ransom to get ADP to sign on, but it will be the best investment they'll ever make. And we shouldn't underestimate what an achievement it was actually getting ADP to sign on the dotted line.
In this off-season it has been Melbourne Victory making the news for their, so far ill-fated, attempts to lure a big-name marquee player to the A-League. First was Giorgos Karagounis who looked like he was headed for the exit door at Fulham, only to do a 180 and re-sign with the London club.
Then news broke that Victory were on the verge of signing a fellow Italian, Fabrizio Miccoli, who had just left Palermo after a decorated career, but one recently blighted by off-field controversy.
He looked for all money to have signed, with some reports suggesting Victory were advanced in preparations to unveil him at their glamour friendly with Liverpool. But he had a last minute change of heart, and signed for Lecce, the club he supported as a kid.
And while both Karagounas and Miccoli are fabulous players in their own right, neither of them come near ADP in terms of their stature in the game, and yet despite their best efforts Victory were unable to tempt them down under. That only highlights what a remarkable feat it was by Tony Pignata and his Sydney FC Board to actually get ADP in the first place.
With Heskey and Ono following not long after there was, and perhaps still is, a perception that the A-League can now easily attract these big name marquees. But as has been shown with the Victory's efforts this pre-season, it is far from easy and you need all your stars to align perfectly to pull off such a coup.
After such a euphoric response from the public last season, with record crowds, television audiences and memberships, it remains to be seen just what impact ADP will have on the A-League this season, both on and off the field now that the novelty factor has worn off.
But whatever that may be, as far as football in Australia is concerned he's already done his job - he's put the A-League well and truly on the world map.
Grazie, Il Pinturicchio.
Copyright © Paul Williams and Soccerphile.com
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