The A-Leagues All Star Game is a

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

match contested by the A-Leagues All Stars team against an invitee club. The All Stars team is made up of selected

A-League Men A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competit ...

players. The game is played during the footballing

off-season In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of Se ...

, the first of which was held on 20 July 2013. After the 2014 edition, the All Star Game was not held for almost a decade, before the concept was revived in 2022 and is expected to continue for at least the 2023, 2024 and 2025 A-League seasons as part of the commercial agreement with the NSW State Government to play a "Football Festival" culminating with the A-League Grand final in Sydney for those three seasons.

Background

On 13 November 2012, it was confirmed that Manchester United would come to Australia and play an all-star team consisting of A-League players. The inaugural A-League All Stars Game took place on 20 July 2013, against Manchester United. The A-League team was picked by an online vote by fans and by the appointed manager. On 20 December 2013, it was confirmed that Juventus would compete against the all-star team for the 2014 game, again hosted in Sydney. On 6 April 2022 it was announced that a third A-League All Stars match would be held against

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

on 25 May 2022, again in Sydney.

Games

The 2013 and 2014 matches were televised in Australia by

Seven Network The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by Seven West Media Limited, and is one of five main free-to-air television networks in Australia ...

. The 2022 match was televised on

10 Bold 10 Bold is an Australian free-to-air digital television multichannel owned by Network 10. It originally launched on 26 March 2009 as One HD with a focus on broadcasting sports-based programming and events, but rebranded to One in April 2011 to ...

References

External links

{{Football League Select XIs All Stars Annual sporting events in Australia Recurring sporting events established in 2013 Recurring events disestablished in 2015 Australian soccer friendly trophies