Two strikers, two horrible seasons, two different paths, one club. Mark Bridge, rolled out for the cameras as one of Sydney FC’s big pre-season signings, is on his way to Chinese club Tianjin Teda for a four-month loan spell, taking in the Asian Champions League.
Sydney FC chief executive Stefan Kamasz said at the time of his deal: “It’s a great opportunity for Mark and we are confident that the experience he will gain over the coming months will benefit not only him, but Sydney FC when we begin our next A-League campaign later this year.”
His team-mate, $1.4 million marquee man John Aloisi, was offered a similar off-season, Asian Champions League deal with a Chinese club, this time Mark Milligan’s Shanghai Shenhua, but after initially showing interest has opted out.
“I’ve thought about it and spoken to quite a few people about it and I want to have a good pre-season under [Vitezslav Lavicka],” he said. “We’re going to be playing a lot of pre-season games which is important for me, because I didn’t play a lot this season. If I went on loan, I would come back, probably have to have a week off and then play catch up in pre-season and I don’t want to do that.
“I want to make sure I’m right for Sydney FC and the right thing for me to do is have a good pre-season, play a lot of games and get to know the coach.”
An interesting study in united aims, contradicting ways of achieving them. If Bridge, who had far less of a worse season than Aloisi, and Sydney FC stands to “benefit” from his foreign decampment, then why doesn’t the same apply to his more illustrious peer, who needs as much football as he can get – especially do-or-die Asian Champions League games and not inconsequential A-League pre-season hitouts.
It’s a curious decision by Aloisi and smacks of a lack of confidence in his own ability, which is perhaps understandable.
At playing at a higher level he is exposing himself to the unpalatable prospect he might be shown up even more than he was in the A-League last season.
But is baulking at such a deal really holding him in greater stead with his new coach, Lavicka?
It strikes me that far from doing Aloisi a world of good, in staying at home neither he, Sydney FC or Lavicka stands to benefit.
Aloisi is obviously keen to underline his commitment to the club for the second year of his expensive contract, and undoubtedly doesn’t want to run the risk of picking up another injury or a recurrence of the one that afflicted him for much of 2008, but taking the risk of going to China potentially was going to be a bigger demonstration of his loyalty to Sydney FC and Lavicka – simply because in taking it he
had as much to lose as he had to gain.
Coaches like to see players get out of their comfort zone and excel and this was a great opportunity for Aloisi to do just that.
In choosing the easier path he’s made the job of returning to form – and gaining the redemption he s desperately seeks – potentially a whole lot harder.
Greg Russell
Roar Guru
Am I missing something here? Surely the point is that Aloisi is on a big, fat, over-valued contract, so he has no need to take himself out of his comfort zone - he can earn $1m a season just by doing nothing more than turn up to Sydney FC trainings. What exactly is his motivation for doing any more than that? By contrast, Bridge has motivation aplenty, because he has a whole career ahead of him, and future success depends on present success. This highlights an obvious problem with the marquee-player system. Of course in principle it's a problem in all professional sport, i.e., that once a player has a contract he can just go through the ropes to earn his bread. But paradoxically it is worse in a marquee-player system. One would think that getting a salary so much higher than anyone else's would place extra obligation on a player to perform. But it actually seems to have the opposite effect. It's not exactly clear why, but my guess would be that it's because the salaries of marquee players are an unreal distortion of the market. There is no way that if Aloisi was subject to genuine A-League market forces he would ever command anything like $1m per season. Because he sits outside A-League market forces, the pressure on him to perform is not real. Similarly for so many other marquee players in the history of the A-League. By contrast, someone like Cristiano Ronaldo is under more genuine pressure to perform, because his market value changes according to his performance.
Pippinu
Roar Guru
Good post by Phutbol - I reckon that sums it up nicely.
Phutbol
Guest
I'm not sure where else in the world Bridge has played but we know Aloisi has experience in the Europes big 3 leagues so I dont see it as a fair comparison as to the reasons each would choose to go or not. Put another way, Bridge probalby has a lot more to gain and learn from a loan move to China than Aloisi. Injuries and age would also be a big factor for each. I'm sure JA would put a lot of his poor last season down to the initial injury that kept him out at the start, and would just like to get a solid pre-season in.
dasilva
Roar Guru
Sorry Jimbo Using old data we were 7th in the april 2008 data before the recent rankings of 6th in the november data 6th in front of Iran using a combination of factors like you mention However in terms of ability there is a subcategory called technical standards which is the only category that is based on ability of players rather then organization, crowds and business capacity. This is the technical standard rating according to the april 2008 data (I can't find the score for the most recent November ranking) Countries Technical standard South Korea 94.8 Japan 82.4 Saudi arabia 78.8 IR Iran 69.6 China PR 61.5 Uzbekistan 59.5 UAE 53.7 Australia 51.3 Like I mention I'm using old data here but AFC believed that Australia is 8th best in Asia in terms of technical standards. Of course Australia could be higher in this AFC category in the recent rankings but I don't believe our technical ranking data would have changed drastically (perhaps above UAE) Just remember that our performance against chinese clubs in the ACL has been 1 win (Sydney FC), 1 loss (adelaide united), 4 draws (1 Sydney and 3 Adelaide). We can't conclusively say Australia is any better then China in the ACL. At most you could say equal
jimbo
Guest
das A-League was ranked 6th, but I agree with Los Oso. The rankings aren't only based on entertainment and ability, its also based on how many teams you have in the competition, whether you have a promotion and relegation system and a national knockout cup competition etc etc, all of which the A-League doesn’t have. If you take all those factors out of the equation the A-League is in the top 3. It was unlikely and very unfortunate that both players failed at SFC, you’d think one of them could have played well and covered for the other and vice versa. I think Aloisi’s confidence is down and he is really determined to go out on a high rather than be remembered as an A-League failure. But I think he can see the writing on the wall. SFC’s Checkmate is going to sell him for sure and replace him with a top line Ukranian or Russian striker, so Aloisi is going to struggle to get another multi million dollar contract and may end up in Asia after all. Bridge will fail to impress in China as well. He doesn't have the character to succeed outside his comfort zone.
David V.
Guest
I doubt the CSL is of a much higher standard than the A-League in the real world. In fact, Chinese football has been in a sharp decline in the last 5 years and Chinese fans have grown disillusioned. While the Chinese state does its best to censor criticism and stifle debate about Chinese society, culture and institutions, the men's national football team is fair game with the media and supporters.
dasilva
Roar Guru
Not too sure Los Oso The AFC in their ranking gave China the 3rd best league in Asia (behind Korea and japan) and Australia is rank number 7
Los Oso
Guest
"At playing at a higher level he is exposing himself to the unpalatable prospect he might be shown up even more than he was in the A-League last season" I wouldn't say that the Chinese league is a higher level than A-League. Obviously the money is better there, but as far as the standard of league is concerned, the A-League is much better than the Chinese Super League.
Brett McKay
Expert
Aussie, I think we all know why that won't happen...
aussie_sly
Guest
why couldn't sydney loan him back to the mariners so he could play in their ACL campaign that he contributed to qualifying for, that way he stays local and can have half a pre season with sydney while still playing the 'do or die' ACL football to showcase his abilities to the new coach and to get back the confidence he had when he played at the mariners
StiflersMom
Guest
Too hard to uproot his family for four or five months. I'd say that was the biggest factor in his decision.
The Bear
Guest
Mark Bridge is youthful. Hungry, ambitious, and a bit desperate. A turning point for Bridge will be this loan spell. John Aloisi is aging. Sated, though a tad adrift, it is probably for the best he stays put. He has been thrown off the horse and probably needs some time to recover. I can't see how the two should ever play in the same team, tho. Perhaps Bridge will be sold on.
Tom
Guest
Not sure I agree Jesse. Obviously there are positives and negatives. Person best placed to weigh those up is Aloisi himself.