Jim Magilton may be only three weeks into his short-term appointment as coach of Melbourne Victory, but it’s time for both the Victory and Jim to make a call on his Australian coaching future.
The reason I say this is because Melbourne Victory cannot afford to wait until the end of the season to start planning and deliberating on its coaching set-up for next season. If it does, it will find itself eight weeks behind two of its fiercest rivals, Melbourne Heart and Sydney FC, in the search for a new coach.
It is likely that Sydney FC’s announcement was hastened by the mid-week decision of John van’t Schip to end his tenure at Heart, and the subsequent announcement that Heart would immediately commence a search for a new coach with a view to having a candidate in place for the next pre-season.
For several weeks, if not months, Vitezslav Lavicka’s future had been a source of speculation, and the question might well have remained in limbo until the end of the season but for the JVS announcement. With Heart in the position to begin a recruitment campaign there was nothing to be gained by Sydney FC delaying its decision any longer, and the Lavicka announcement came a mere three days later.
John van’t Schip and Vitezslav Lavicka will both be at the helm through the balance of this season, and for as long as their teams remain in finals contention. However, there is no doubt that the respective Boards will be busy in conversations on where their clubs are heading and the type of manager they need to help them achieve their goals.
While the worldwide talent pool of possible coaches might be large, it begins to narrow dramatically when coupled with unique Australian constraints.
The first hurdle is the money on offer, which is by no means large. Ironically the two departures are the league’s highest-paid coaches, with Schip reportedly on $700,000 and Lavicka taking home $500,000. I’m sure both clubs would like to target a new coach on a lower wage, and $300,000-$400,000 would be the target mark.
Expecting a foreign coach to uproot his family for the vagaries of a coaching job on the other side of the world for a mere $400,000 is a tall order. Even van’t Schip and Lavicka’s families didn’t want to reside in Australia, and it was a critical part of their decision to call it a day.
Secondly, there is the matter of the player salary cap. An arriving coach has to work within the unfamiliar constraints of an imposed maximum squad salary. European coaches might operate within the constraints of a club budget but budgets are flexible and there is always leeway for a special case expenditure for a push to a championship or avoidance of sitting bottom.
There is no such escape valve in the A-League. Team expenditure is fixed and the quality you can buy for your money is limited. A limit on foreign visa players is another handbrake on a coach building a team of his choosing.
Thirdly, there is location. While it is hard for an Australian player to get noticed while playing in Australia, it is doubly hard for a coach to get noticed if he is looking at the A-League as a stepping stone to something bigger in his coaching career. Attached to this is the reality that football is not the pre-eminent sport in the country and football coaches don’t achieve high exposure even at the pinnacle of football in this country.
And what about a local coach? Unfortunately, once again the pool is narrow, partly because seven years into the A-League there is still no clear coaching development pathway through the respective State leagues, into assistant A-League roles and ultimately to head coach of an A-League club.
Other than Ante Milicic at Heart, there is a dearth of well known names considered capable of taking the step up to the senior ranks. That leaves clubs banking on unproven locals, like Muscat and Corica, or considering relatively unknown locals.
Each of the constraints above quickly diminish both the quantity and the quality of candidates that might be available for Heart and Sydney to choose from, and Melbourne Victory might find itself behind the chasing pack if it doesn’t react soon.
When Victory sought to replace Ernie Merrick, the board reportedly had 70 candidates from far and wide apply for the position, including the inevitable rumours of some high profile names. That number is deceptively encouraging because the reality was that Mehmet Durakovic was chosen and Jim Magilton was apparently a close second thing. That should be a clear indication of the lack of real depth of possible or high profile managers available to clubs. (Sorry Fozzie but it appears Pep and Jose didn’t apply).
As of Friday afternoon, both Heart and Sydney are searching for the elusive managerial nugget, and let’s not forget Adelaide may also be in the hunt by year’s end.
Melbourne Victory needs to install Jim Magilton and start immediately planning beyond this season with Jim at the helm. Failing this, if Melbourne Victory is to go searching again, it needs to join the coaching search immediately or the club may be left with the third-best offering.
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