In 2003 the Crawford report into Soccer Australia brought about many changes to football that, in my opinion, have brought about huge improvements to the game. Becoming champions of Asia would have to be the pinnacle of the achievements of the report, underpinned by the success of both the Hyundai A-League and W-league national competitions.
Poor performances last night in the Asian Champions League by two of Australia’s most successful A-League teams has led to a conversation about the issues that Australian football is currently facing (issues that people often do not feel comfortable talking about).
The issues that the Australian football family have are many and are spread from the elite to the grass roots level. The biggest problem in my opinion is the excessive costs ($1500- $2400 to play local representative junior football) and the lack of opportunities that these young players have when it is time for them to turn professional in their late teens and early twenties.
The question has to be asked, is this money being well spent? In the 80’s and 90’s the National Soccer League clubs never charged fees near the level families are currently being made to pay by NPL clubs, yet these same clubs were able to produce a host of players who matched it with the world’s best only 10 years ago. It seems to me that we have stopped developing world class players, the question is why? What role is the national curriculum playing? Have small-sided games had the desired effect of creating more technical players? Is the current NPL structure a positive breeding ground? What role are distractions like technology playing? Was the golden generation just a fluke?
I feel like these questions and many others need to be answered. People are keen on the FFA solving the problems but I think the issues are so diverse that there needs to be another intervention of sports just like there was in 2003.
I see IFS as a bright beacon in an otherwise fairly bleak Australian youth development system. Trent has made a successful transition from NPL to A-League and the gap between the two was filled by the IFS program. I can see quite a few of our current students following Trent’s path to a professional football career but with only nine Australian A-League clubs will they have the opportunity to have long and fulfilling careers?
You can see the video that inspired this blog below, in my opinion no one is in a better place to assess the state of the game than Mark Rudan.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/video/football/asian-champions-league/this-is-the-darkest-day!610426
Thanks for the thought provoking blog Martin.
First I would like to put the level of performance into context by considering the scheduling of the matches? Although I have not looked in detail, I am assuming that after playing on the weekend and then being required to play again relatively soon, the teams would have undoubtedly been at less than their best…in a competition that is supposed to represent the best of the best.
Really enjoyed the interview and would agree with many of the opinions expressed by Rudan and Bosnich, however they are just that, subjective.
In contrast, players who are assessed/coached to have superior tactical procedural knowledge of attacking and defensive situations, the odds ratios can indicate a 7 times greater chance that they will become a professional.
One of the big ideas Bosnich expressed was the low fee paid for transfers and the effect it might have on the incentive for quality coaching.
It has to be said that at IFS this problem has been inverted.
This quote from regarding the correlation between rest and performance reminded me of this recent blog post.
“In 1st leg Benfica & PSG had 3 rest days and Dortmund & Barca only 2. Last night in 2nd leg all teams had 3 rest days”
Ahh someone actually replied to my blog !!!
i agree the scheduling of the matches was probably the biggest issue when it cam to those individual games. It just seemed to be the tipping point for the discussion.
Funny the Iraq game last night really put the Australian system into perspective. Here we are playing a war torn nation whose development system must surely be in disarray yet the other factors involved (travel, foreign environment, poor pitch ect) made the game fairly even.