Trying to draw meaning from pre-season friendlies is a fool’s errand. But this is the A-League’s silly season, after all - so in that spirit, let’s have a crack.

If you’ve thought about club soccer in Australia for longer than a few moments, the following unanswerable question may have crossed your mind: how would our teams fare in Europe? Specifically, England.

James McClean in action against Melbourne Victory.Credit: Getty Images

In an alternate universe in which A-League sides have the opportunity to compete in the English pyramid system … how would they go?

Would our best survive in the Premier League? Almost certainly not. So what’s the level? Could champions Melbourne City hold their own in the Championship? Could the Wanderers climb out of League One? Would the likes of last season’s cellar-dwellers Perth Glory and Brisbane Roar sink to the bottom of the League Two table … or lower?

It’s totally subjective, and yet that hasn’t stopped many fans and players from openly speculating about these questions in pubs, online forums and dressing rooms over the years. Because it’s banter. And banter is fun.

Until Portsmouth fields an XI filled entirely with former A-League players - which might not be too far away, judging by their recent recruitment - the visit of Wrexham AFC to these shores offers perhaps the best chance to test this thought experiment. With the obvious caveats that, yes, this is only pre-season, and Sydney FC, their opponents on Tuesday night at Allianz Stadium, won’t play their next A-League for another four months, so their squad is not only incomplete, but rusty.

Lewis Brunt of Wrexham AFC.Credit: Getty........

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