i ackknowledged his fluke of a goal against holland… slide rule indeed… and the spell at dortmund

the nothing is relative to your claim above that is not evident from the history you copied out…

How could Ned Zelic’s slide rule finish against The Netherlands in 1992 an exceptional effort talked about of one of Australia’s best ever goals, be “a fluke”

I’m starting to wonder if you are talking about the same Ned Zelic I remember.

Zelic started his career in the old Australian National Soccer League, at 17 years of age, where he played with clubs Sydney Croatia and Sydney Olympic.

Zelic spent most of the 1990s playing in Europe, most notably for Borussia Dortmund, where he reached the UEFA Cup Final in his first season with the club, losing to Juventus Turin of Italy. In Dortmund,Zelic was coached by Ottmar Hitzfeld and in 1995 won the German Bundesliga title. He had a small stint in the English Premier League for QPR, moving for £1.3 million, which was beset by injury and discontent.

Zelic went on to play for Eintracht Frankfurt of Germany and AJ Auxerre in France, where he replaced Laurent Blanc, who moved to FC Barcelona.With AJ Auxerre,he participated in the UEFA Champions League.

In July 1996 Ned Zelic was selected to play for a World All Star team vs. Brazil at Giants Stadium New York. The All Star team was coached by Euro 92 winner with Denmark Richard Moller Nielsen and consisted of such players as Juergen Klinsmann, George Weah, Marcel Desailly, Lothar Matthaus, David Ginola, Fernando Redondo.

In 1998,Zelic decided to move back to Germany and went on to make 102 appearances for 1860 Munich in the Bundesliga.

In 2002,Zelic moved to Japan to play in the J-League,where he stayed for 2 years. In Japan he played under Dutch coaches Hans Ooft and Wim Jansen and won the Japanese Cup, with his club Urawa Red Diamonds.
Zelic signed for FC Wacker Tirol of Austria in July 2004 and stayed there for one season.
In 2005, Ned Zelic agreed terms to a two year deal to captain the Newcastle Jets in the Hyundai A-League where he played out the whole season from central defence. The Jets finished fourth on the league table and lost to the Central Coast Mariners 2-1 on aggregate over two legs in the Minor Semi-Final.

After being granted a work permit, he signed a one-year deal with Dutch side Helmond Sport in August 2006. In Helmond he worked again with his former 1860 Munich team mate Gerald Vanenburg, who was trainer there. He left Helmond however after only 2 months, due to knee problems and was considering retirement.

In January 2007, Zelic joined Georgian club FC Dinamo Tbilisi on a free transfer,where he played under former Czech National Team coach Dusan Uhrin. He announced his retirement from football in May 2008,after winning the Georgian Championship with Dinamo Tbilisi.

He has played for the Australian Youth,Olympic and Senior teams but made himself unavailable in 1999 in controversial circumstances, after disagreements with coach Frank Farina.

Upon announcing his retirement, Zelic was quoted as saying “I love Australia and love playing for the Socceroos but I refuse to play for Frank Farina”. Zelic was captain of the Australian team.

Zelic has won numerous awards around the world and was selected in Four Four Two Magazine’s Top 25 Australian Footballers of All-Time.

But apart from all that, what has Ned Zelic ever done for the Romans?

Nothing!

There are only a few spots availiable and with the FFA playing hard ball with releasing under 18s to pursue overseas options , i fear for the future of our national squads . As we have seen Aleague players are not up to the job .

he fluked a cross into the net in the qualifier against holland and had a good stint in dortmund but apart from that he’s done what?

nothing

However, you right, there isn’t much point to having academies for kids under 11. But kids probably shouldn’t play on a full size pitch till they are 13 (perhaps even 15). As soon as you go to full size fields, the bigger and stronger kids stand out. Not only that, coaches here don’t understand that and just pick rep teams that are likely to win (not players with the most potential). And, the coaching for 11-15 year olds here is not as good as Europe or South America (probably not even as good as Africa because a lot of European clubs invest a lot of money in African academies).

All this illustrates my original point that youth development here isn’t great (it’s only okay). So you cannot blame any teenager that wants to try his luck in Europe.

we still produced kewell and viduka (as towser said) also. but are the africans and South Americans, on average, better? we see the best those continents can provide in Europe… or are the spanish, italians, dutch and french generally more accomplished professionals? messi (barca boy) and kaka or ronaldo and zidane… hard to say.but the French and Spanish (and potentially germans) seem to be producing consistently good to great players, whereas England have not. or so the argument goes.

with clubs like CCM setting up academies etc we are getting similar infrastructure and are on track to teach our kids and prepare them for the HAL and beyond.

So basically, the ages of 5-10 is probably the most important if you want to develop a player of true world class ability. This where you learn the building blocks of football skills. If you haven’t mastered these basic skills by 10, you can still be a good player, just not one who has the touch and dribbling ability of a Messi or even a Kewell. It’s like learning to draw, unless you practise drawing as a young child you cannot be draw life-like portraits latter in life. You brain can only establish those neural networks in those early years. Thus, coaching in the 5-10 age group is main area where Australia is lacking.

As for teenagers heading to Europe, the two major thing a teenager would learn in a European academy that he can’t learn in Australia is professionalism and tactics. Training intensity is higher and coaching is generally better. So should Aussie kids try go over to Europe at 14/15? Yes if they are going to a club with a good youth programme. If they have trouble adjusting, they can always come home. However, there is no reason why a talent teenager cannot become a world class player coming through the NYL. He just has to put in a lot more extra hours on the training pitch.

Finally, when player is good enough to play in the A-League, his technique isn’t going to improve out of sight. It will improve a bit, but what improves the most is decision making and tactical awareness (when to apply what skills). The technique and style of football in the J and K League promote possession football more than the A-League (at the moment, no reason why the A-League won’t improve here over time). Possession is the most important part of football IMO. Therefore, IMO currently the J and K League are better finishing schools for players in their early to mid 20s.

there is a limit to how many overseas players are allowed in the A-League (5). Overage players can play in the youth league. Wanted to clear this up.

George & Towser,

With the advent of the A-League & the Youth League, this gives the Aussie youth the opportunity to choose, those strong & willing to move to Europe aged 15-16 years & those who may find this experience too much, they can go via the A-League/Youth League. It’s asking alot for a kid of 15 or 16 years to move from Australia to live in Middlesbrough or Birmingham without their parents.
Not all are at the same level of maturity, while their football level may be the same.
The other issue is kids may not be pressured to look at other int’l options by their clubs like both Lowry & Williams due the great distanced of Australia if they took up their football route via the A-League/Youth league.

. To quote the cliche “Football is a game of opinions” & we can spend all day on it . You have yours, I have mine. I doubt whether either will be swayed by the other to change it. Better to respect & acknowledge the merit of the other view.
I see it as a case of development & money ,because without the moolah,their is no development. Were just coming from different angles. Kids may be at top academies in Europe ,but show me the proof they will further their career any more than Brett Emerton Or Mark Viduka did coming from the NSL
The mindset has to change at some point that we can in Australia produce quality senior players from our youth, able to transfer overseas & not struggle like 95% of them do to break into the big time.
We did it from the NSL & having followed that closely there is even more reason to believe that the A-League can do much better.
The bottom line is we both want the same thing to improve the quality of Australian footballer produced. Its important for the standing of the Socceroos on the world stage. Lets face it they have to play in the top Leagues of Europe to acheive our full potential in the sport.
Just have a different viewpoint on how it should be acheived to extract the maximum for the progress of the domestic game.

So this is all about money and not about development . Keep them as long as possible and sell to the highest bidder , but how many are we producing in oz . The last 2 players to step up to the socceroos were both in english academies at the age of 16 , Shane Lowry ( aston villa ) and Rhys Williams ( middlesbrough ) . You should check out wikipedias list of aussie overseas players , we have kids in top academies all over europe . They earned those spots and deserve to be there , there are no political players there , they will learn from some of the best coaches in the world , do you really think they will get that here .

Life is about choice , if they are good enough to earn a youth league spot overseas they should go with our blessing , if they decide to stay and take the Aleague route so be it . In the end it is their decision and no one elses .

I dont no how bring in dud overseas players that cant get a job anywhere else is a help to the youth players , they just pickup their bad habits . Why dont we have a cap on the amount of overseas players ? we only have so many spots in the league , and why can we play over age players in the youth games ? lets take away more oppotunities .

It will take many years more for it to be an option to stay here to develop to your full potential . This is just my opinion .

You asked why it is so bad to go overseas? I’ll tell you why, because it does nothing to improve our football or clubs here.
Better to produce players of quality then transfer them at a decent fee to the likes of Bolton or better still Arsenal.
Then we get to see their prodigious talent for a few years in the A-League & our clubs get more money to improve coaching facilities & develop more quality youth players.
As it stands now we get sweet FA when the likes of Jamieson,Williams, Patafta take the path they did.

He went to Borussia Dortmund as a 20 year old after an excellent FIFA U20 World Cup. He won a Bundesliga title and UEFA Cup runners up medal with Dortmund.
Then Eintract Frankfurt a few years later and TSV 1860 Munich.

In my opinion one of the best players to wear the green and gold and captained every national team he played in.

Such a great shame he had a problem with the Socceroos management team and didn’t play for the Socceroos – one of the reasons why it took 32 years to qualify for another WC Finals without him.

why is it bad that they travel overseas to learn their trade ? Scott Jamerson left australia at 16 spent 2 years at Bolton academy , was released , came back joined AUFC and was voted young player of the year in the Aleague . I think it did him the world of good .

At this point of time the australian system does not offer enough elite places for the amount of youth players coming through the ranks . Are they supposed to give their dream away and go back to local club football and be taught by their mates dad .

For your interest Bailey Wright was a former Joey who was released by the AIS and joined Preston north end in july . He is a strong centre half and a big reason they knocked sunderland out of the Fa youth cup last night at the stadium of light .

Its true that alot of the kids that venture overseas will be back with there tails between there legs , but the experience they gain can only return with them . And there will also be a few that make the nexy step up ,

Would be interesting to see your reaction if your son was offered a spot at a youth academy at 16 in a european club , would you say no , he will stay in aleague academy ( youth teams ) . I think not .