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A-League missing the boat in Asia

8th January, 2018
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Shinji Ono was a great recruitment decision. (Image: Peter McAlpine).
Expert
8th January, 2018
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Jumpei Kusukami’s recent departure from Western Sydney Wanderers would’ve barely registered on the radar of most A-League fans.
 
The Japanese winger mostly frustrated during his 18-month tenure with the Wanderers, showing glimpses of his undoubted talent but never producing the consistency to make his a first-team regular and fan favourite in the mould of the Wanderers original Japanese star, Shinji Ono.
 
But his loss is a sad one for the A-League and lays bare a statistic that is an indictment on the entire league – there are now no Asian players in the A-League. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not a single one. And this after being a member of the Asian Football Confederation for well over a decade.
 
Yes, Ali Abbas is at Wellington, but he has been a naturalised Australian for many years now and is classified as such for A-League regulations. He doesn’t count as a foreigner. The sad reality is, if he was still counted as an Iraqi then he wouldn’t be playing in the A-League.
 
How is it that after 12 years of playing in Asia, seeing first-hand the talent that exists, not only in the continental giants such as Japan and Korea, but also in the so-called minnows like Thailand, Vietnam and some of the Gulf states, that clubs still remain reluctant to look to our north when it comes to signing foreign players?

How many times do Australian national teams and club sides need to be ‘surprised’, and why we remain surprised is another point all together, before clubs and fans sit up, take notice and acknowledge the opportunities that exist?
 
Some of us have been banging on about this for a number of years. I remember calling for the likes of Thai duo Theerathon Bunmathan and Teerasil Dangda to be considered by A-League clubs many years ago, and now both, having shown their wares on more than one occasion against Australia at international level, will be lining up in the J.League next year.
 
Melbourne Victory are crying out for a left back and Theerathon would’ve been a perfect fit with their ACL campaign just around the corner, while there are countless clubs across the league who could use the predatory instincts of Teerasil.

The AFC U23 Championships kick off this week in China featuring the very best young talent that Asia has to offer. A-League clubs fought tooth and nail to stop their players from participating in what they’ve unbelievably described as a “meaningless tournament”.

Not only does that add to Australia’s poor reputation in Asia, it also misses the point entirely. How many A-League talent scouts will be in China, or at the very least watching online streams, scouting for young talent to bring to the A-League?

I hazard a guess the number would be the same as the number of Asian players currently in the A-League – zero.

It’s not as if the AFC U23 Championship has a history of producing talent either.

The 2017 AFC Player of the Year, Omar Khrbin, played in the tournament for Syria in 2016 (as well as in 2013), as did Thailand’s Chanathip Songkrasin and Korea’s Kwon Chang-hoon, who has since secured a move to French side Dijon and has been one of the standouts for the mid-table club this season.

The man who scored the winner for Japan in 2016 was none other than Takuma Asano, who is playing at VfB Stuttgart on loan from Arsenal.

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Meanwhile, the leading scorer back in 2013, Iranian Kaveh Rezaei, is now the equal top scorer in the Belgian Pro League, with ten goals in 20 appearances for Charleroi and looks certain to be included in Iran’s 23-man squad for the FIFA World Cup this year.

The Olyroos kick off their campaign on Thursday against Syria, and who knows there could be another Omar Khrbin on the pitch staring us in the face. But elsewhere there is talent aplenty, if clubs just dared to look.

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Thai attacker Supachok Sarachat, who at just 19, scored seven goals in 17 matches for Buriram United as they stormed their way to the title, has a bright future ahead of him, as does Iraqi midfielder Hussein Ali who starred at the recent Gulf Cup in Kuwait.

But one player Australia will see up close is Vietnamese star Nguyễn Công Phượng. The 22-year-old attacking midfielder is part of an extremely talented generation of players to have developed in the Hoàng Anh Gia Lai – Arsenal JMG Academy and is a player Australia should know very well.

The diminutive midfielder, who spent a season on loan with Mito HollyHock in Japan in 2016, scored seven goals in qualifying for the 2014 AFC U19 Championships, including a brace against Australia in a 5-1 win for Vietnam and followed it up almost 12 months later with another wondergoal against Australia to seal a 1-0 win at the ASEAN U19 Championships in Hanoi.

Australian fans have marveled at the skill of Chanathip when Australia has played Thailand in recent years, but how many would be happy for their club to give a chance to a player every bit as talented like Nguyễn, from what most in Australia would consider a football backwater like Vietnam?

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The longer we close our eyes, the more talent we miss. Let’s hope someone in club land has the foresight to actually watch the AFC U23 Championships, and not just dismiss it as a meaningless nuisance.

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