Every side in the A-League Men begins the season with their sights set on winning silverware. And as the Newcastle Jets showed in coming from the clouds to claim an Australia Cup and Premiership — putting them a title away from a historic treble — the Australian top flight is the type of league in which that’s not a fanciful proposition.
At the same time, however, proving unable to do so doesn’t necessarily represent a failure on a team’s part. Every squad comes into a new year facing their own unique expectations and circumstances, and it’s within the context of those that they need to be judged. Have they exceeded expectations or failed to meet them, for example? Or have put themselves in a better position to succeed in the future than they otherwise may have?
It’s through these parameters that ESPN has taken a look at the six sides that will not play finals football, utilising a standard A through F grading rubric to analyse how they performed. As teams are eliminated throughout the playoffs they’ll be added here, so be sure to check back in.
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After being pillaged by the January transfer window in 2024-25, Macarthur made a splash during the offseason, re-signing Luke Brattan and bringing in the likes of Anthony Cáceres, Damien Da Silva, Šime Gržan, and Ji Dong-won. They dodged losing any of their younger talent this January and, on top of that, added Socceroo striker Mitch Duke as he attempted to stage a late push to secure a place in Tony Popovic’s squad for the World Cup. As a result, Mile Sterjovski deployed the oldest average side in the league when weighting for minutes played, per FbRef, in what, regardless of whether it was planned that way or not, represented a win-now move.
And yet, come the end of the season, they’ve missed finals once more; their 4-0 win over Wellington on the campaign’s final day papering over their elimination from contention the previous week. It’s not awful, especially given that they had to balance their domestic commitments with the ACL2, but with a much more settled squad they managed just a one point improvement on last year, so you can’t give that a great grade, either.
There have been rumbles around Sterjovski’s job security during the second-half of the campaign, and Newscorp reported in March that the coach had a heated clash with defender Tomislav Uskok as tensions rose within the four walls. Combined with missing finals, it suggests that a decision on the future of the former Socceroo, who is contracted until the end of the 2027-28 season, is coming. But there’s much more that the Bulls need to get right this offseason, including coming up with a strategy to increase average crowds of 4,193 — the lowest in the league and down 10% on last season’s figure even with the bump of free entry for their game with the Nix.
Lowlighted by the midseason resignation of coach Giancarlo Italiano and failing to take a point off Auckland FC once again, the Phoenix missed finals football for the second-straight season in 2025-26. The memories of their remarkable run to the semifinals during the 2023-24 campaign feel like an increasingly distant memory, as their rivals from the opposite end of the North Island establish themselves as the dominant force in Aotearoan football.
Indeed, with Auckland receiving a licence to compete in the inaugural iteration of the OFC Pro League — which provides a pathway to the Club World Cup — and their sophomore season delivering a second-successive title-push, the Phoenix’s men risk drifting into irrelevance if they cannot find a way to turn things around in the years ahead — doubly so if the APL does pursue the idea of adding another expansion franchise in New Zealand.
A late-season surge under interim coach Chris Greenacre, nonetheless, did show signs of promise. After looking like possible wooden-spoon contenders, the Nix picked up four wins in their last six games and ended the campaign in eighth, concluding with nine more points than 2024-25 and three more wins. Greenacre is expected to be promoted to the full-time role for next season as a result.
However, their shellacking at the hands of the Bulls on the final day of the campaign showed that there’s still plenty of work to be done and perhaps even cast a shadow on Greenacre’s prospects. With skipper Alex Rufer headlining a class of veteran talent out-of-contract, the Phoenix could be facing a significant rebuild in the offseason.
Yes, the Mariners missed finals football for the second-straight season, got walloped by Newcastle in the last round, and ended up in ninth, which isn’t great compared to the treble-winning heights we’ve seen them ascend in years past. But then consider that most preseason expectations had them collapsing both on- and off- the field amidst ownership chaos — punctuated by coach Mark Jackson’s departure just weeks out from start of the season — and them ultimately ending up in a position wherein they lost just three games in the second-half of the campaign and were in finals contention until its final weeks, and you can’t argue they didn’t vastly surpass expectations — finishing with more points and more wins than last season despite the chaos surrounding them.
After being taken over by the APL midseason, a move that, in hindsight, looks to have been an important step to bringing some stability and oversight to the hunt for new ownership, rumblings persisting that sale of the club’s licence will soon be complete — with a consortium between local Sydney businessman connected to Wests Tigers owners the Holman Barnes Group and Championship side Queens Park Rangers amongst the suitors.
In the long-term, finding the right ownership is vital for the ongoing health of the club, but, in the short term, whoever does come in will be faced with the immediate challenge of replacing coach Warren Moon, who did a remarkable job in elevating the club but who has already signalled his intention to return to Queensland to be closer to family, and a squad that looks set for a decent level of upheaval.
Few were surprised when the Glory sacked David Zdrilic, given their abject form under the former Socceroo. What did raise eyebrows, however, was that they did so just two games into the campaign — effectively throwing away an entire preseason that an incoming coach could have used to implement their methodologies within the group, as well as given input into finding players to fit said ideals. It’s still a baffling move in hindsight.
Adam Griffiths came in as interim following the move and, as well as making a memorable impression off the field with his press conference antics, generated some level of fight in the club, which rose into the top six off the back of a three-game winning run that was enough to see him confirmed to lead the club through the rest of the season. But not a lot has gone right since then, with the West Australians winning just five of their remaining 19 games — including just two since January — and sinking down to 10th.
Nonetheless, given the low, low bar of back-to-back wooden spoons the club was coming off, one can’t give this season an outright failing grade; they almost doubled their wins total from 2024-25, conceded 18 fewer goals, and managed to increase their crowds 17% year on year. An optimist would look at that and see it as the moment where the worm began to turn. Nonetheless, with Griffiths’ future uncertain — he signalled after a win over Brisbane on the season’s final day he wants the job — 2026-27 shapes as a make-or-break year, given the Glory Army’s patience has to be wearing pretty thin.
2025-26 began with such promise for the Roar. After taking until January to record a win in 2024-25, they opened the new campaign with a 1-0 triumph over Macarthur on their way to winning five of their first ten games — matching their win total for the previous season before 2025 was out. They sat second after seven rounds, and while their physical style and battling demeanour were polarising outside of Queensland, coach Michael Valkanis looked like he was getting genuine buy-in from his players, and fans were rallying around the flag and the siege mentality being constructed. But then everything fell apart.
The Roar have just won one of their 16 games in 2026 — against Perth Glory — and will end the campaign with just one more win and five more points than what was supposed to represent a historic low for the club. The rhetoric and combativeness that marked their early-season success was exposed as lacking a foundation to sustain it, and fans have reached a level of bitterness that can only be nurtured by being teased with a brighter tomorrow, only to have it evaporate in their hands. Valkanis has signalled that work has already begun on next season and there’s clearly a lot to be done.
Nominally, the Roar should be one of the league’s biggest clubs, the closed-shop system enshrining them as the only professional team in Queensland and able to evoke the memories of a “Roarcelona” side that was the best in the league. Yet after years in which dysfunction has been their defining feature, any semblance of benefit of the doubt that those on the ground working to try and turn things around may have benefited from has long since dissipated, while the club’s relationship with its fanbase could soon be rendered beyond salvageable as long as current ownership remains in place — if it hasn’t already.
Western Sydney entered the season with ambition, off the back of a finals appearance and with the signings of Kosta Barbarouses, Steven Ugarkovic, and Angus Thurgate to an already expensively constructed squad representing a nominal signal of intent. Indeed, the Wanderers, for all the talk of their lauded youth system, fielding the second-oldest side in the league in 2025-26. What followed, though, has been an abject failure, as both the Wanderers’ men’s and women’s sides sank to wooden spoons and the club, given the way it has positioned itself as one of the game’s biggest and best, becoming the butt of the joke in Australian football.
Admittedly, its men underperformed their underlying metrics significantly this season, scoring 12 goals fewer than its expected goals total, per FotMob, and shipping eight more than its expected goals against figure; if the table were based upon xG, rather than games won and lost, they’d be playing finals football. But that and $5 will get you a small coffee these days. History will instead remember this Wanderers’ campaign as the one in which the rot could no longer be hidden, with misfortune on the pitch ensuring that the hubris that had been allowed to fester throughout the organisation could no longer be hidden and instead dragged them down to the table’s foot. Against this backdrop, what had once been the league’s most celebrated fanbase dwindled to its last remnants — crowds, despite being propped up by two home derbies, falling 22% — and with many of those that remained wishing they could be rid of the sense of loyalty that kept them coming back.
With Alen Stajcic sacked midseason, the Wanderers have already poached Ufuk Talay from bitter rivals Sydney to take over next year, but the 50-year-old hasn’t exactly engendered much enthusiasm since his announcement: Sky Blues fans are not exactly upset to see him walk, let alone to their biggest rival, and the coach has yet to win a trophy in his six-year head coaching career. He was also hired before football director Mal Impiombato, somewhat putting the cart before the horse and evoking memories of the Wanderers anointed ‘saviors’ in the dugout that proved anything but.
Of course, football being football, perhaps Talay is the man to turn things around. The doubt will no doubt give him plenty of motivation to serve up heaping servings of crow (medium-rare, if it comes to it, Ufuk). But given the toxicity that has built up around the club, one imagines he’ll have to deliver fast if he’s going to get the chance.
