Lately there has been much duscussion about the Dutch system currently being deployed by the powers that be at Football Federation Australia. There have been complaints about our national youth teams’ failure at two recent World Cups and questions about whether our young footballing talent is up to the job.
Even the coaches have come out and said as much.
Having seen the system in action first hand, and being acquainted with the ability of many of the players we are talking about, it has become crystal clear that the failure is a coaching failure.
The system as it is being deployed by the coaches of the youth national team is restrictive in the extreme and actually serves to nullify the talent of our young players. I have seen young players who have the potential to be world-beaters cut down in an effort to make them fit into the prevailing Dutch system.
If we consider the situation as regards player talent logically, every generation will throw up individuals who due to a combination of natural talent, circumstance and hard work will rise above their peers to be considered among the elite.
Some will be great passers of the ball. Some will be great dribblers. Some will be great shooters and finishers. Some will be good at two or more of these things in combination, as well as each possessing a mixture of other skills and traits which will make them who they are as players.
So how do you make a great team out of such a varied group of individuals?
Marcello Lippi, in his book A Game of Ideas: Thoughts and Passions from the Sidelines, argues that what is most important is that the tactical plan or formation is one that allows each player to maximise his utility for his teammates, and the expression of his full potential.
Lippi also noted that the choice of tactical formation is constrained by the qualities of the players available. Therefore, selecting the best possible team not only requires finding the right combination of players for the chosen formation, but also finding the right formation for the chosen players.
I believe that this is essentially the problem in Australian football. The Dutch coaches have declared that they have a curriculum and a system of playing that, in order to attain success, must be followed to the letter.
The problem with this way of thinking is that it does not allow, as Lippi put it, the expression of the player’s full potential. If, for example, a player has a creative dribbling style, he is immediately discouraged from dribbling as the system calls for immediate passing without thought for other possibilities.
When I say “discouraged” I don’t mean gently here. I have seen the youth national coaches swearing and screaming abuse at a player because he dared to turn and dribble, even though he did so successfully.
The current system is not tailoring the system of play to the abilities and talents of the players to hand. Therefore our creative dribbler is not encouraged to develop his skills while also developing the ability to know when to dribble and when to pass. He is merely ordered not to dribble.
What if Pep Guardiola did the same to Messi? What would be left? Would Messi be considered as great as he currently is if he was not allowed to follow his instinct?
Great coaches know how to fit the system around the players they have. They know that some players, like Messi, will wither and die if restricted in their play. Sven Goran Eriksson while he was at Sampdoria in the ’90s said of Roberto Mancini, “If I had been a strict disciplinarian with Mancini, he would have been a poor player. He could find solutions on the pitch you couldn’t find in any textbook.”
Australia, believe it or not has such players. Right here, right now. I have seen them with my own eyes at youth national level trying to play the beautiful game as it should be played, and as we all want to see it being played, but being abused and insulted for doing so as the Dutch coach tried to make the player fit the system instead of the other way around.
Every little child in kindergarten learns that when confronted with a round hole, it is futile to try to put a square peg in it. We could regard our players as pegs of differing shapes. The current system is like a board where all the holes are the same shape.
It is clear that the pegs will not all fit but they keep hammering away anyway, futilely clinging to the belief that they cannot be wrong and that they will make them all fit regardless.
Kindergarten children learn to modify their thinking. Our national coaches and the FFA need to learn the same. Develop a system of playing that is designed to accommodate the players of the moment and that allows our brilliant individuals to develop and flourish and then you will see Australia take its place on the world stage with the best of them.
We have the necessary talent right now. We just need to allow it to happen.
Come on Jan and friends. Small children can figure this one out. I’m sure you can too.
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