So Sydney FC finished top of 2009/2010 A-League table after playing 27 matches, losing "just" a third of them but winning one more game than closest rivals Melbourne Victory.

Hooray for them.

The past season has been quite a turnaround for the Sky Blues.

Almost as much as it was for Adelaide United who finished in second place last season but were stone-cold last this year.

Sydney's low-key Czech coach Vitezslav Lavicka did exactly as his job description required by making Sydney the best football team in the land.

Didn't he? But what's this?

Sydney FC have won only the "Minor Premiership" – according to many media reports.

It seems Football Federation Australia still has some work to do in branding the achievements of A-League teams.

The governing body claims Sydney became "Premiers" by being the best team over 27 matches.

To demonstrate this, FFA Chairman Frank Lowy presented the team with the Premier's Plate – a trophy that to most of us more resembles a pewter fruit platter.

Yet "minor premiers" prevails.

Of course, having grown up in Western Australia, I know that our sporting culture dictates a "finals series", a four-week crap shoot where what matters is what happens on the day and a poor decision from an errant match official can wreck an entire season's planning.

Australian Rules football competitions (not just the AFL) and rugby league competitions follow this pattern and the A-League (and the National Soccer League before it) has joined the party.

(That FFA Chief Executive Ben Buckley and A-League boss Archie Fraser are former AFL employees has nothing to do with this so conspiracy theories can be kept under the bed, for now.)

Admittedly, it's a great system for adrenaline junkies, especially in high-scoring sports decided by attrition where the strongest team is pretty much guaranteed of winning and results are decided by broad factors.

One of the beauties of the A-League is that mediocrity is rewarded.

A team that finishes sixth – out of 10 teams – gets a chance to be crowned A-League "champion", thanks to this finals format even though Newcastle Jets – for it is they – finished a whole 14 points behind Sydney.

So just who is the best team in Australia this year?

Sydney – who consistently performed better than ever other team in the league over the past six months or the Jets if they can put a run together over the next four weeks?

Like German Pierre Littbarski before him, you can guarantee Sydney coach Lavicka will be telling his mates back home he's steered his team to the top.

Nothing that happens over the "finals series" will convince him or them otherwise.

The rest of us?

Cutting down tall poppies and upsetting the top dog is a national characteristic.


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