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.
Recommend this story.
February 11th 2009 @ 10:23am
Towser said | February 11th 2009 @ 10:23am | Report comment
Given he newness of the A-League & the froth hardly settled on the beer, the turnover of A-League coaches is in balance with its credibility as a competition. The coaching/admin turnover at SFC just reflects that clubs inability to have read its market & create stability accordingly in all areas. The new owners should have been there after the first year & not Frank Lowy as a saviour.
THe hardest part of picking a coach is how effective will they be over a period of time & how long do you stick with that coach to prove it. If I remember correctly Sir Alex didnt exactly set the world on fire at ManU in his first few years.
Take Laurie Mckinna for instance now the Mariners are in the ACL. Should they stick with him ,does he have what it takes & the personnel to take the Mariners to another level ?
New league ,old league the coaching game may not be a circus but it certainly is a giant Ferris wheel with the board of directors taking the coach for a ride & at at the highest point of the wheel, giving him a collective shove.
February 11th 2009 @ 10:49am
jimbo said | February 11th 2009 @ 10:49am | Report comment
Towser,
Good points.
SFC is not being managed to its true potential and has lost a lot of good fans on the way and not capitalized on the large football base in other parts of Sydney.
Ripe for a rival bid from W Syd or the Gong.
Mariners have also stolen a lot of their supporters from N Syd.
MV is the benchmark of the A-League, but if run a lot better, SFC could have been just as big.
Their short history is a litany of wrong decisions, player disputes, sacked coaches and lost opportunities.
They have also done some good things and were once Golden Toilet Seat holders and their fan base is still around 10-15K.
While My Lowy has been a truly wonderful patron of the sport in this country, he has also tended to pick favourites and exert some unwanted influence sometimes in a throwback from his old Hakoah days – I guess if it’s his money, he thinks he can spend it how he likes.
Now with new owners they have new ideas and a fresh approach.
Never heard of the new coach and I don’t even know if he speaks English, but if he gets some top international players here and they start winning again, he has the potential to increase the fan base up towards the MV numbers.
That will be greatly appreciated by the new owners with undoubtedly a second Syd A-League and W Syd AFL team due in the next year or two.
BTW I think Frank farina is doing a good job and will get the Roar to the GTS decider.
Next season he will give Mr Palmer and Fowler and co a rude awakening to A-League competition in the Sunshine State.
February 11th 2009 @ 11:06am
Slippery Jim said | February 11th 2009 @ 11:06am | Report comment
dasilva, those percentages were taken from the Guardian website. Take it up with them if you think they are not relevant. Roman Abramovich is basing the sacking on results, so he obviously feels the same. I personally think Scolari had ample opportunity to show his ability and failed, after all, he did not manage a win against any of the other three big sides. If you had been watching every single Chelsea game as I have for many many years now you would know exactly why he had to go. He thought that man marking system was the problem with Chelsea’s defence, for heavens sake – the same method that Chelsea used to maintain their unbeaten home run and clean sheet records. My main gripe with him is his lack of commitment and leadership – he was often ‘too tired’ to front up at post match press conferences, for example. I guess once you have won a world cup you can’t be overly bothered whether you win the league or not…as opposed to Mourinho, who patently had a burning desire to win and prove himself. The fans chanted at Scolari after the last draw with Hull “you don’t know what you’re doing” and this time, they were right.
February 11th 2009 @ 11:34am
sledgeross said | February 11th 2009 @ 11:34am | Report comment
I think the Chelsea situation comes from the fact a champion team will beat a team of champions. Its all well and good to buy players at over inflated prices, but it doesnt guarantee success. Football is a team game, not an individual one.
February 11th 2009 @ 11:47am
Slippery Jim said | February 11th 2009 @ 11:47am | Report comment
Good point Sledgeross, very true.
February 11th 2009 @ 11:49am
dasilva said | February 11th 2009 @ 11:49am | Report comment
Sledgeross
It normally takes time to build a champion team. Especially if you are going to implement new style or a new system.
I guess in modern football that time is a luxury afforded to very few coaches.
February 11th 2009 @ 12:01pm
Midfielder said | February 11th 2009 @ 12:01pm | Report comment
Jes
Not sure what your on about … or maybe in support of Fozzie .. it’s marquee coaches that are needed as the coaches are crap ……
Imagine that someone from the SBS stable questioning the standard and technical abiluty of A-League coaches;- fanct that .. well I never …. same story IMO …….YAWN YAWN
February 11th 2009 @ 12:10pm
Joe FC said | February 11th 2009 @ 12:10pm | Report comment
-”if coaches were held to a greater expectation of performance”….does the same criteria apply to journalists?
February 11th 2009 @ 12:53pm
sledgeross said | February 11th 2009 @ 12:53pm | Report comment
Of course coaches are going to get the arse end of the deal. Im pretty sure there were not too many chelski jerseys with Big Phils name emblazoned across the shoulders. Clubs invest too much money in assembling their squads and merchandising to ignore prima donna players. The coach will always go first.
Being a small market, we can have a tendancy to regurgitate managers. Its only by:
a) hiring experienced “name” coaches from overseas to manage A League teams and
b) sending our young coaches over seas to gain experience,
will we get any sort of levity in our coaching ranks.
Case in point, our good mate G Arnold. Had the chance to gain experince in Belgium or wherever, and chose not to. Just ask Scolari, coaching a club is diffeent to managing a international team.
February 11th 2009 @ 1:02pm
dasilva said | February 11th 2009 @ 1:02pm | Report comment
Actually Scolari had experience coaching a club team and very successful experience. He coach Gremio and Palmeiras to league victories as well as Copa Libertadores victories (South american equivalent of UEFA champions league).
It seems to me he has success managing in Brazil both at club and international levels but has troubled adapting to european countries. He may have had moderate success with Portugal but they speak the same language as in Brazil and therefore less cultural adaption was required.
AFAIK his english fluency isn’t great. That may have contributed to his failure.