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If Sir Alex Ferguson had been named as coach of Melbourne Victory, would it be considered a backwards step by those who take umbrage with A-League clubs hiring Britons?
I refer, of course, to Craig Foster’s column in yesterday’s Fairfax press which so spectacularly raised the hackles of his former Socceroos team-mate Robbie Slater.
Slater went ballistic on Twitter, labelling Foster a “racist” and highlighting an alleged indiscretion in Tahiti which supposedly ended Foster’s Socceroos career.
It was far from a dignified tête-à-tête but I can understand Slater’s frustration because Foster’s column wasn’t exactly brimming with indisputable logic.
In it, he states Magilton should not have been imported as a coach because he has not “demonstrated success in a league with a high tactical level.”
That may be true, but laudable as the desire to import the highest calibre of coaches is, we have to accept that ours is a recently formed league which runs for six months of the year in a country halfway across the globe from the cradle of world football.
Sir Alex Ferguson isn’t going to come calling any time soon, and nor are Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho or a cadre of “Italians, Germans, or Spaniards” whom Foster seems to think automatically make better coaches by virtue of their national background.
Foster cites former Sydney FC coach Terry Butcher as someone who “brought deeply entrenched views of how the game should be played” to this country.
But he neglects to mention that Butcher’s predecessor Pierre Littbarski – quite rightly considered one of the most technically gifted players of his generation – has also failed repeatedly in a coaching career which has taken him from his native Germany to Japan, Australia, Iran, Liechtenstein and back home again.
Littbarski had little impact on second division Japanese sides Yokohama FC and Avispa Fukuoka and the J. League is surely a higher tactical standard than the A-League.
Yet the only coach who came close to winning the J. League at the club I watched more than 80 times is an Englishman – Steve Perryman.
And while the J. League quite rightly has a reputation for importing foreign knowledge – particularly from Brazil – where is Foster’s analysis of why the likes of Akira Nishino, Takeshi Okada or Takashi Sekizuka have done well for themselves?
My point is: praising the virtue of coaches because they hail from supposed ‘football cultures’ is so pointlessly simplistic it borders on farcical.
And stating that signing a Northern Irish coach is a “step back in time” purely because his managerial experience is largely at Championship level is bound to spark heated debate.
Canadian-born former Dutch international John van’t Schip doesn’t possess a glittering managerial CV either, yet I recall no such questioning of his footballing pedigree when the former Ajax star signed on as Melbourne Heart coach.
I respect Foster’s right to an opinion and I think it’s sign of our burgeoning football culture that we can have these sorts of discussions.
But I also understand Slater’s dismay at the naked anti-British sentiment pervasive throughout the A-League.
British coaches have long made important contributions to the global game – including at Foster’s beloved Barcelona, which the likes of Patrick O’Connell, Terry Venables and the late Sir Bobby Robson once called home.
And when Foster questions whether Magilton can take Victory into Asia, he overlooks an ironic twist.
Jorge Fossati, the coach of current Asian champions Al-Sadd, may have learned his football on the dusty streets of Montevideo.
But the player who slotted home the winning penalty in last year’s AFC Champions League final, Nadir Belhadj, was signed from the English Championship side Portsmouth.
Jim Magilton is only one game into his Melbourne Victory career.
Let’s judge him on results and not the colour of his passport.