Sydney FC coach Graham Arnold would surely be taking the 3-0 loss to Melbourne Victory very hard.
It is vastly different to when the Central Coast Mariners side he coached led 2-0 against Brisbane Roar with three minutes of extra time left in the 2012 grand final only to have Roar score twice and then win on penalties.
At least Central Coast was well in the game and would have won had it not been for that freakish late turnaround. Sydney was never in the game against Victory and was well beaten in normal time.
But Arnold doesn't give up. He brought Central Coast back to win the 2013 grand final over Western Sydney Wanderers and he'll work overtime to take Sydney to the top next season as well.
Kevin Muscat has got his first A-League championship as a coach with Melbourne Victory now. His confidence will soar. He'll work just as hard to try to keep Victory on top as Arnold will to try to unseat it.
The grand final was the first time either Arnold or Muscat had beaten the other in a coaching duel. The three regular-season clashes between Sydney and Victory were all drawn.
Muscat and Victory have established an advantage now. Arnold and Sydney must respond. It's game on between the two former Socceroos team-mates.
Arnold and Muscat are bound to get involved in some fascinating tactical battles as well as trade some verbal volleys in a bid to find an edge. It will no doubt get a bit of touchy at times, which just adds to the theatre.
Grand final week provided a sneak preview. Now let the real show begin.
Green day for Frank
It is a wonder an 84 year-old man was able to get up at all after the nasty fall Frank Lowy took from the stage during the grand final presentation.
But Lowy started with nothing and is a self-made multi-billionaire. He's resilient, so it probably shouldn't surprise us that, although obviously badly shaken, he was able to recover sufficiently to return to the stage and take part in the formalities.
The FFA chairman was looking a bit punk-rockish when he got to his feet though, with a patch of his white hair stained green as a result of his head-first collision with the AAMI Park turf that had earlier served as a boulevard of broken dreams for Sydney FC.
Where to now for Archie?
Nothing that happened on grand final day suggested Archie Thompson would be at Victory again next season.
He didn't get on the field until added time, by which stage Victory was already celebrating.
And Victory coach Kevin Muscat, when asked about Thompson's future at the post-match media conference, replied: "Archie will be treated with the utmost respect. The conversations will be had this week. Give us five minutes to enjoy tonight and then we’ll get through that."
That was a neat deflection of a difficult question.
Thompson wants to play on and would naturally prefer that to be at Victory, but - at a club that now fields many star players - salary cap restrictions would presumably mean the 36 year-old having to take a big pay cut to do so and Victory would surely be loathe to insult him with such an offer.
False 9 reads the tea leaves as saying that if Thompson goes around again he'll be playing against Victory, not for it.
How did that feel?
Victory striker Besart Berisha admitted there was an element of luck attached to his goal, but that was really only in how the ball came back to him off a ricochet from team-mate Gui Finkler.
The rest was pure genius as Berisha hooked the ball past a defender and then turned to unleash a shot that gave Sydney goalkeeper Vedran Janjetovic no chance.
"It was good - a little bit lucky, of course," the Albania international said. "But I always say, I’m a striker, and strikers are there to score the goals to help the team. I’m in these positions where I have these balls and I’m so happy for this club to score the first goal in the final.
"It’s a special moment. I cannot describe it - it feels like even better than the other goals. It was a good turn and my first touch was really good - I couldn’t have hit it any better."
False 9 would like to celebrate Berisha's tremendous strike by bringing you some fabulous entertainment from the lovely Tuna, who shapes up as a bit of an Albanian version of Lady Gaga.
The man of the hour (and a half)
Victory captain Mark Milligan was a dominant force in the middle in the grand final, blocking many Sydney attacks and often getting his own side moving in attack as well.
Milligan is a Socceroos veteran now and while he is still a physical player he is changed from the one who used to get into more trouble than it was worth for rugged challenges early in his career.
He runs the ball, he distributes and he tackles hard and all of that was on show against Sydney FC. But, above all of that, he is a team player who tried to deflect all of the plaudits that came his way after a match-of-the-match performance.
The most pleasing thing to Milligan was that his team-mates gave it their all.
"I think the most satisfying thing is we set out to do something a long time ago and I asked the boys one more time to dig deep and to start the game well," Milligan said.
"I asked them to give everything they had and to have no regrets. I think that's the most satisfying thing for me."
Tweet, tweet #1
It takes a good sport to rise above his own, crushing disappointment and acknowledge a job well done by a rival team.
Perth Glory goalkeeper Danny Vukovic had to cope with his club, which led the competition for most of the season, being barred from competing in the finals series because it had cheated the salary cap, but when it came to grand final day he warmly congratulated the winner.
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If Kevin Muscat had any hair, False 9 could say this was Kevin Muscat letting his hair down after the win.
Instant Instagram
Archie Thompson gives the fans what they want - the most prized toilet seat in the country!
Proud of all the boys
Whenever you're in trouble won't you ...
One for Victory fans to finish. Here is Ben E. King, the co-composer and singer of the classic song Stand By Me, who died at the age of 76 late last month. No doubt he was willing the navy blue on to victory from above as the fans sang along to Stand By Me pre-game.
