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Gold Coast United FC player Tahj Minniecon during the United A-league team's first training session at Southport on the Gold Coast, Tuesday April 7, 2009. AAP Image/Tony Phillips
After reading Mike Tuckermans’s recent Eurosnobs article, a tangent of it caused me to think about what constitutes the best pre-season approach for A-League clubs to take in regards to their pre-seasons.
Thankfully, the old pre-season cup is gone. This works well for the AFL, but football is a different kettle of fish, and such a competition is not ideal.
For football, there are basically three dimensions which are in the club’s best interests to cater for in its pre-season: the local grassroots dimension, the Asian dimension, and the European dimension.
All serve important purposes.
Firstly, the local grassroots dimension. This is important to establish resonance with the hardcore grassroots community, the fans who follow State League teams and extend this to their local A League club.
This is also important in getting fans of A League clubs who woudn’t normally venture out into the suburban State League grounds and hopefully encourages them to make the trip back to watch State League teams.
Through that and the Canteen Sales, this ensures good revenue down into the lower reaches of the local football economy, while the prospect of higher membership/season ticket numbers helps to facilitate a stable upflow from football’s potent grassroots level into the fledgling upper tiers.
Sydney FC have had to learn the value of this the hard way, and they have commendably moved to correct mistakes made of “ignoring the grassroots” through an extensive grassroots tour this pre-season.
Melbourne’s previous pre-seasons often involved a reasonable number of pre-season games at suburban grassroots venues.
Not so this year, unfortunately, with a number of matches even ending up being behind closed doors. And that is something this Melbourne fan advises the MVFC administrators to seriously reconsider.
The second dimension is Asia.
This is important, primarily because they are important relationship building exercises, which is of extreme importance given Australia’s entry into the AFC Confederation and the fact there are some hostile quarters.
This is, thankfully, being done through Melbourne’s Lord Mayor trophy, played with Melbourne’s Chinese sister city (Tianjin) and other friendlies, such as against Ghangzhou.
Then there is also the forging of sister club relationships such as Sydney FC and Shanghai. The proposed friendly, despite not going ahead, was still a worthwhile venture.
Another reason is because these trips and the logistical challenges and insights they facilitate help to develop institutional know-how within the Australian football fraternity on managing teams to perform within Asia, and ensure competitiveness within the AFC Champions League and Asian Cup. t
The 2007 Asian Cup farce is an infamous example of the impact of a lack of institutional know-how – where Australia’s famed sports science capability and the high ability of the players were undone by a lack of practical understanding gained only through experience.
Experience through their first ACL campaign was also a reason quoted in helping to underpin Adelaide United’s dream run to the ACL final at their second attempt.
Another reason is that these tours help to familiarise local fans better with clubs and leagues within the Asian region.
The third dimension is the Europe.
As has been commented in some quarters, this has freshened up the A League pre-season, providing good quality opposition while getting some new bums on seats in terms of people who wouldn’t have gone otherwise. This thereby opens up new people to the possibility of going along to the games.
There’s also the mainstream media exposure in the lead-up to the start of the A League right in the middle of winter when other codes are in full flight and media space is at a premium.
Finally, A League clubs would do well to consider the format of their pre-seasons, not to just hold friendlies, but also to consider Dutch pre-season mini tournaments often consisting of four teams.
A local example could be the Far North Queensland Trophy, which Melbourne played in and won a couple of years ago.
But in this sense, what I suggest is to try and and host mini-tournaments consisting of touring EPL/Euro sides, as recommended by SBS commentators, but expand on that by involving Asian club sides as well, hopefully meaning we can see Asian sides locally, encourage Asian clubs sides to come to Australia, as well as facilitating good relations generally.
There is a need to balance the three nicely, though, which hasn’t yet occurred
Recommend this story.
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July 17th 2009 @ 9:45pm
NUFCMVFC said | July 17th 2009 @ 9:45pm | Report comment
Pippinu, it is tricky of course (regarding the Asian teams), as the Shanghai cancellation showed, but we have a pretty long pre-season, and SE Asian teams often have a bit of a break, the J League had a bit of a hiatus for a few weeks as well (internationals), some teams may be interesting in keeping themselves ticking over, or warming back up before matches for points start up again so they can hit the ground running after their breaks
Locations may help, some of these games could be played up in Queensland (or far north Queensland)
But it is certainly something to think about, especially with regards to alliances like with Perth where they are aligned with Man City and some Asian teams in some ways, a mini-tournament in Australia would be a good way to facilitate that, or Central Coast with Sheffield United and a few other teams etc, perhaps Melbourne could try and bring out the clubs from their Asian sister cities being Tianjin or Gamba, maybe even throw Bordeaux (kits!) in there!
A logistial challenge, especially with AUstralia’s space, but something to think about, I remember they had a 4 way tournament amongst some countries Olympics sides in Hong Kong as well. We can even do it the other way as well and host some of these in Asia, extending on Gold Coast and North Queenslands tours of Singapore etc, but agree to alternate, that way we may be able to get some more of the EPL and Euro teams touring Asia
July 17th 2009 @ 10:22pm
MVDave said | July 17th 2009 @ 10:22pm | Report comment
NUFCMVFC
Heard anything on the MV vs ManU rumour going around on MV forum? United had to cancel their Indonesian game…or just wishful thinking?
July 18th 2009 @ 4:51am
melbvictory87 said | July 18th 2009 @ 4:51am | Report comment
NUFCMVFC you make a good point that would be awesome
July 18th 2009 @ 8:31am
MVDave said | July 18th 2009 @ 8:31am | Report comment
“Manchester United set for Sydney
Phil Rothfield
From: The Daily Telegraph July 18, 2009 1:00AM
A FRANTIC bidding war is underway between NSW and Victoria to entice Manchester United to play a match in Australia as a result of the Jakarta bombings.
The Premier League champions were due to play in Indonesia on Monday night but have cancelled the game as a result of the terrorist strike.
Both Events NSW and Victoria Tourism were last night involved in high-level talks with Football Federation Australia in a bid to lure the Red Devils Down Under at short notice.
Sydney FC will play Manchester United if the game goes ahead in Sydney, while Melbourne Victory will host them if Victoria wins the bid.
The Daily Telegraph understands Manchester United have been offered $2 million to play the game in Sydney at Homebush on Wednesday night.
ANZ Stadium officials and Ticketek were last night preparing a contingency plan to sell tickets from today if an agreement can be reached. ”
Hopefully the game can come to Oz and specifically to Melbourne…fingers crossed.
Just the fact that such bids are being thought of and attempts made to pull them off says how far football has come in Oz in the last 5 years.
July 18th 2009 @ 5:29pm
jimbo said | July 18th 2009 @ 5:29pm | Report comment
Just an update on a previous thread.
http://www.theworldgame.com.au/australia/ffa-backflip-on-van-egmond-205842
GVE has been left high and dry by FFA and misses out on the national U17s job, due to legal threats from the Jets.
No real winner out of this and a throwback to the bad old days of Soccer Australia.
July 18th 2009 @ 5:59pm
Mick said | July 18th 2009 @ 5:59pm | Report comment
GVE obviously had a water tight contract with newcastle and his only way of breaking it would of been mutual consent.
When GVE applied and subsequently got ffa job i thouht he must of had an escape clause to leave otherwise his contarct would of had to of been bought out by the ffa.
GVE stuffed up on this one
July 18th 2009 @ 7:22pm
NUFCMVFC said | July 18th 2009 @ 7:22pm | Report comment
Jimbo,
Not necassarily a throwback IMO, the FFA needs a degree of concentration of power but can’t just be let able to run roughshod over the fraternity and disrespect everyone, because that would end up becoming as problematic and a move too far in the other direction of the spectrum as the old in-fighting problems of the past
July 20th 2009 @ 12:01am
jimbo said | July 20th 2009 @ 12:01am | Report comment
At first I thought FFA had stuffed up – surely they would have checked if he was released from the club before they gave him a job, but maybe they were told to keep it confidential by GVE who didn’t want Con to find out.
GVE’s fault maybe.
Anyway, all a bit messy especially for GVE who doesn’t have a job and is threatened legal action by Con.
No one will win from this, except for Con’s lawyers.
July 20th 2009 @ 12:34am
Pippinu said | July 20th 2009 @ 12:34am | Report comment
To be honest – it sounds like a complete balls up – and a professional org should have seen this as a possibility before embarking on what they did.