On Monday night I took a call from a coach working in Asia asking me where I thought some job opportunities might be coming up in the A-League. He was credentialled, capable and was genuinely interested in checking out what was going on in Australia.
I quickly did some mental maths and the tabulations weren’t encouraging.
Apart from John Kosmina, who was swiftly replaced Czech manager Vitezslav Lavicka (in fact, he had already got the job weeks before Kosmina departed), none of the nine others (including the two start-ups for next season) looked like budging, irrespective of how they performed.
Ernie Merrick, for all the criticism he gets for his kick-and-rush style, looks like leading Melbourne to the championship.
Frank Farina has got Queensland Roar motivated and switched on.
Lawrie McKinna, though presiding over one of the most boring teams in the comp, could safely be Mariners coach for life if he so wished.
David Mitchell turned around Perth Glory last season and has made them a genuine title contender.
Aurelio Vidmar, though faltering in the end stages of the campaign, can rest on his Asian Champions League laurels.
Ricki Herbert is the heart and soul of Wellington Phoenix and an immovable object.
Miron Bleiberg and Ian Ferguson haven’t even kicked a ball in anger, and will at least have one season to show what they can do before getting the heave-ho.
The only potential candidate for a sideways move seems to be Newcastle’s Gary van Egmond, coach of the year not so long ago and an unhappy recipient of the wooden spoon this season. But he’s got the Asian Champions League campaign in a few weeks’ time and, with Branko Culina announced as his new high-performance manager, you know who’d like to take his job next.
So the vista for any foreign coach looking for work opportunities in the Australian game isn’t that lively. Positively barren, in fact. Which is unfortunate as I would hazard a large part of the appeal of the European leagues is the volatility of the coaches’ job market. On any given week fans can’t be 100 per cent certain who’s going to be coaching their team. It keeps the game in the news, the papers churning out, the TV bulletins ticking over.
In the past 24 hours Chelsea sacked Luiz Felipe Scolari, one of the best coaches in the world and by far and away the best remunerated, whose failure, if it can be called that, was to take the Blues to fourth place after 25 games of the English Premier League season, just seven points shy of leaders Manchester United.
The axe fell after a scoreless draw with 12th-placed Hull.
His sacking came a day after Jimmy Nail-lookalike Tony Adams was dumped as manager of Portsmouth following Pompey’s dramatic 3-2 loss to Liverpool. He was only in the job three months.
That brings to a over a half dozen the number of managers sacked in the English Premier League in 2008/09 and there is still a third of the season to go.
Obviously the A-League is not the EPL in any way, shape or form: it is small in number, there is a restrictive salary cap, and no form of relegation/promotion exists.
But it would be a far more exciting competition, I would venture, if coaches were held to a greater expectation of performance by fans, club owners and the media, just as they are in England.
As it stands presently getting a coaching job in the A-League, excepting the perennial hot seat of Sydney FC, is like getting tenure in the public service.
There is a common view that having such stability makes for a better football competition, but how so? All I’ve seen stability do in four seasons of the A-League is encourage a culture of mediocrity, safety and monotony. Would it be so bad, then, to replicate a little bit of the employment circus of the EPL?
Circuses might be going out of style in the real world, but in football, as we’ve seen in the English Premier League, they’re positively cutting edge.
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Michael C said | February 11th 2009 @ 5:28am | Report comment
Thus far, SFC seem typical of bending to the soccer mentality of ‘sack ‘em’, It DOES not portray the club well to the broader Australian demographic. Hopefully it never will.
Me thinx you’re still getting a little ahead of yourself with the HAL. The next 10 years might be a real hard slog, and consolidation and incremental growth will be far more important and sustainable than some silly merry-go-round in about the ONLY area that stability CAN be shown, i.e. the coaches and off-field – - because, on the field, well – - the player groups have a constant movement of players.
Cpaaa said | February 11th 2009 @ 6:04am | Report comment
cant help agreeing with you again Jess,
“All I’ve seen stability do in four seasons of the A-League is encourage a culture of mediocrity, safety and monotony.”…your words. It may sound ruthless to some, but i still love the AL over any other for it is the one i follow. but if the Australian game is to attract a larger audience then playing safe is not acceptable.
i must give credit to Miron Bleiberg as far as i can remember (in the HAL) is the only coach to step aside when he no longer felt he was in control of his club. he can play attractive football but can also make some stupid decisions. hopefully hes learned a thing or two when he manages the GCU.
md said | February 11th 2009 @ 7:08am | Report comment
Oh geez no more circuses (although I think the Gold Coast has dog tricks written all over it, with Miron and Palmer running the ship. The phrase “Very GC” was used in irony to refer to blokes like those two, long before it became an advertising campaign).
Cheers
md
dasilva said | February 11th 2009 @ 7:38am | Report comment
Geez I don’t think we want to copy something a negative or ridiculous part of another culture.
Guys like Alex Fergurson could have never weaved his magic without a bit of patients and stability. Man U could have easily sack him earlier in his career for poor short term results.
Phil Scolari getting sack was tremendously knee jerk and shows a complete lack of empathy on what’s needed to build a side.
Yeah stability shouldn’t be there for stability sake but neither should circus.
Slippery Jim said | February 11th 2009 @ 7:53am | Report comment
dasilva, Scolari had a far worse win percentage(56%) than either Mourinho (71%) or Grant (69%), and did not seem sufficiently motivated or able to motivate in the EPL, did not seem to be able to make effective tactical changes and rumour has it his fitness training was second rate. He seems a nice enough fellow, and for me the highlight of his tenure was the first game of the season in which Chelsea played the best I have ever seen them. But as a Chelsea fan I am glad he is gone. With Hiddink possibly taking overuntil the end of the season (sharing his job with Russia) I hope Chelsea gets their act together and find someone more capable at club football next season.
Simmo said | February 11th 2009 @ 7:54am | Report comment
Thus far, SFC seem typical of bending to the soccer mentality of ’sack ‘em’,
Sack ‘em is a “soccer mentality”? What on earth is meant by this, Michael C?
I think you’ll find that in soccer, as with every other sport, stability and patience with capable coaches are seen as virtues; and that coaching merry-go-rounds are symptomatic of clubs with poor board-level leadership.
The A-League isn’t different in this respect to any other Australian league.
Seriously mate, stop making these cheap, ill-founded partisan digs at futbol.
dasilva said | February 11th 2009 @ 8:23am | Report comment
SJ
Not a great sample size in Scolari to start pulling out win percentages.
According to Terry, he had his supports and other key players but not the entire squad.
Most sides that’s mean rebuilding the sides to your image after a season or two. With manchester united Sir Alex has certain star players of the club who had a fall out with him lets say a bosnich or a beckham or a van nisterooy but that’s just mean offloading for Sir Alex and subseqauent rebuilding and replacement. However for scolari for him that’s mean he get sack
If Sir alex took over he probably would get sack mid-season as well as they will never allow him that lattitude that Man U gave him
If your happy with immediate short term results criteria that Chelsea has then fine but it’s not something I like to see my club go under.
StiflersMom said | February 11th 2009 @ 8:27am | Report comment
Sorry Jesse, the most boring team goes to Wellington, those guys seem to stop moving forward any where past the half way line. CCM do come a very close second though…
Pippinu said | February 11th 2009 @ 9:15am | Report comment
Circuses have been receiving bad press for decades in Australia.
To be honest, I’m not even sure what this article is about.
Some no-name coaching somewhere in the jungles of South-East Asia wants a coaching stint in Australia, and that becomes a catalyst for concluding that Australian coaches stick around their clubs far longer than is good for the health of the comp?
Only Lawrie and Ernie have been there since the inception of a league that is less than four years old, that sort of suggests that there is no problem with permanency on the coaching front.
Anyway, if clubs acted on fans who talk big as if they are following Real (nothing but the absolute best will do), Melbourne would have got rid of Ernie (along with Danny and Carlos) mid way through last season – and who knows where the club would have been now. It’s harder to be better than number one.
A double and now a treble within the first 4 years of the comp, and the two highest goal scorers in the history of the comp, and two blokes who are regulars with the Ticos – I’ll take that thank you very much.
jimbo said | February 11th 2009 @ 9:46am | Report comment
Jesse,
its players we need, not coaches.
The biggest trick in the circus at the moment is to wave a magic overseas contract and abracadabra . . . the players disappear.
Can this guy kick a ball at least 10 metres towards the opponent’s goal line?
If he can, get him to contact Vitezslav Lavicka for a trial.