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Australia's Carl Valeri tries to maintain control of the ball after stumbling as China's Zhang Yaokun and Gao Lin move in during their World Cup qualifier match at ANZ Stadium, Sydney, Sunday, June 22, 2008. AAP Image/Dean Lewins
I’ve just got back from meeting up with Carl Valeri at his new Serie B club Sassuolo. After a difficult few months late last year, when the president of Grosseto froze him out of the side for refusing to sign a contract extension, things have finally turned around for Valeri.
The Canberra-born midfielder is due to become a father any day now and is beginning to find his feet at Sassuolo, who are surprising everyone by challenging for promotion to Serie A.
However, what really sparked my interest amongst Sassuolo’s snow covered hills wasn’t Valeri’s impending fatherhood, but the overwhelming interest in coming to play in Australia from some of his team mates.
I’m not talking polite, “You’re from Australia? I’d love to play there one day,” chitchat, but genuine, considered interest in Australia’s A-League (even if one player asked how Marconi are faring).
It’s not the first time this has happened to me, either.
In fact, at every lower division club I’ve visited in Italy over the last nine months, from Serie B downwards, a number of players have voiced their desire to play in Australia.
In an interview I did for Soccer International with former Socceroo, and brother of Italian legend Christian, Max Vieri told me how much he’d like to finish his career in the A-League with his brother.
“I would love to play in Australia,” explained the 31-year-old striker now playing at AC Prato.
“I’ve heard the league is good now and has got good teams and good money to and I would love that.
“I would love to play in Sydney. I was born there, I’ve got lots of friends there but it doesn’t make a difference. I mean Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland there’s no problems for me.
“That would be beautiful (to play with Christian). That would be like a dream.
”If he doesn’t go to Brazil I’ll speak to him and tell him to come. That would be beautiful. For the city it would be nice to. Lots of people would come to the stadium. That would be a dream.”
So this interest in playing in Australia is real and I’m willing to bet it extends to more countries than just Italy. Unfortunately, it is being almost entirely untapped.
Former SBS colleague of mine, Vitor Sobral, wrote on the topic recently in his The World Game blog when musing about the talent on show at the recent African Cup of Nations in Angola.
“It is unfortunate then that, as far as we know, not one A-League club has placed scouts at the African Cup of Nations in Angola,” wrote Vitor.
“Sure, it may be nothing more than a matter of finances, or lack thereof, but it still would have been a great chance to look at players from unheralded nations like Malawi, Zambia and Gabon.
“It may not be financially feasible for clubs to scout players far and wide, but perhaps there’s a way it can be done. FFA has scouts all over Europe monitoring every Australian player on the continent, so no stone is left unturned for the World Cup.
“Perhaps after the tournament that network of scouts could be used for the A-League. They could go off to Africa, South-East Asia or Central America and compile reports on viable options for A-League clubs.
“Pooling resources seems the most cost effective way of scouting overseas talent.”
Now, other than being a total Football Manager tragic, Vitor is a real student of the game. He has an almost Encyclopaedic knowledge of European football and a passion to match. This leads to him often coming up with some rather intriguing and “outside the box” ideas.
And this is one of them.
The reality is our A-League clubs are overstretched and struggling as it is. That’s one of the reasons so many players have been signed from just watching DVDs in the past.
The other reason for this negligent approach to signing players is a lack of funds. Not only do clubs not have the time to send employees over to South America, Africa or Europe on scouting missions, they generally can’t afford it either.
A-League clubs’ youth also means they don’t have great contact networks in place yet either.
So, surely Football Federation Australia should consider, even if it is temporary, a national scouting network and database that A-League and State league clubs can tap into.
It would solve all the aforementioned problems and help ensure the quality of foreigners playing in the A-League is high. I’d certainly be happy to welcome a few more Fabio Vignarolis into our domestic competition.
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