Time for the new breed to board the coaching carousel

While attention this week is on Sunday’s grand final in Brisbane, hovering in the background are a raft of technical decisions and announcements about managers that need to be made ahead of next season.

This includes key ones in Melbourne and in Sydney, particularly out west.

By my calculations, there are only four managers certain to be at the same club they’re currently at by the time next season starts: Ricki Herbert, John Kosmina, Ian Ferguson and Gary van Egmond.

The latter, of course, is on the list for now, but his future, like that of the players at Newcastle, depends on what transpires in the coming weeks and months.

If the speculation surrounding the future of both Ange Postecoglou and Graham Arnold is to be believed, with the former tipped to move from Brisbane to his home-town and the latter tipped to move down the F3 to Sydney FC, there will be new managers at at least six of the 10 clubs, including the new western Sydney team.

As far as coaching merry-go-rounds go, that’s quite a technical revolution.

There are some key decisions to be made, and ensuring they are the right ones rests on the shoulders of those across club-land entrusted with the call.

For this long time technical observer, my only hope is that the people making these decisions have the sufficient football knowledge to narrow the fields down, through a process, in order to get the appointments right.

For far too long in Australian football, there has been a culture of bringing in friends rather than appointing the right person on merit. This needs to be stopped, right across the football landscape.

To my mind, this culture of appointing friends, or “jobs-for-the-boys” as it’s often referred to, is driven by insecurity, or fear.

What has emerged over the past few years though, under the guidance of national technical director Han Berger, is a gradual shift in the culture of coaching appointments.

This, to a large degree, has been driven by the growing culture of coaching education, and Berger is to be commended for driving the structures that support this process.

Slowly but surely, the message is seeping through that, to get anywhere in coaching, you have to come from a knowledgeable base, progressing through the various stages of accreditation and being appropriately licensed.

What this football education revolution has created is a pipeline of Australian managers ready to step into either a head coach or assistance coaching role.

It include the likes of Ante Milicic, Paul Okon, Tony Popovic, John Aloisi and Steve Corica.

If A-League clubs adopt the right criteria and process to identify their manager, and place a supportive structure around him, now is as good at time as any to give a couple of young coaches a gig.

Perhaps the most significant appointment is the one by the FFA in Western Sydney.

If reports yesterday are to be believed, Lawrie McKinna is in the mix. Given his start-up experience at the Mariners and his knowledge of the western Sydney scene (he’s often been seen floating around New South Wales Premier League games in past seasons), it isn’t the most unlikely scenario, especially given his attachment to Lyall Gorman, said to be the CEO-in-waiting.

However, my guess is that if McKinna is involved, it is more likely to be in a football director role.

The role of head coach, therefore, would perfectly suit one of the up and coming breed of Australian coaches that hail from western Sydney.

Milicic, Popovic and Okon all fit the bill.

They might be taking their first steps at this level, but with an experienced technical director and possibly an experienced assistance coach, someone like a John Paul de Marigny alongside them, it should make for a smoother ride.

Among the many advantages of having a well-recognised ex-player from the area pulling the technical strings is that the community would instantly relate to him, helping the engagement process I wrote about last week.

Certainly, according to Mark Bosnich, the feeling among the fans gathered at the first fan forum for the western Sydney team at Mt Pritchard last week is that they’d like a local managing the team.

Yesterday, in response to the speculation about McKinna, Bosnich took to Twitter, “Although Lawrie is a good man, after listening to the fans on Thursday night, this will be a big mistake. One of the things that came out of the [forum] was that the people are insisting on a western Sydney local to coach. The FFA must fulfil their promise to listen to the fans.”

It’s hard to disagree with his logic.

The question is, which one to go with?

With both Milicic and Aloisi most likely to remain on the Melbourne Heart bench, either as coach and assistant respectively or joint managers, and Popovic at Crystal Palace at least for another month, perhaps the most likely option is Okon. He is a Marconi junior who was, until recently, involved in the Olyroos qualification campaign.

It would be a popular choice. As would that of Popovic.

Elsewhere, if the speculation about Postecoglou and Arnold is true, that would mean big vacancies at the two most successful clubs of the past two seasons.

One of those roles might go to Mike Mulvey. Given his work with the youngsters at the now defunct Gold Coast United, and an impressive but short stint as the main man after Miron Bleiberg’s departure, he might be the perfect candidate for the Mariners, particularly if the long-mooted deal with the Russian owner doesn’t come through and the club has to rely on youngsters.

Alternatively, Mulvey, familiar with the area, might become a candidate for the vacant Brisbane Roar role, although Rado Vidosic might also throw his name into the mix.

Or perhaps the owners, the Bakrie Group, might have different plans altogether, looking to bring in a high profile foreigner.

There’s certainly a sound argument if the right man was brought in for more foreign technical influence in the league, especially at a big club like Brisbane and having lost John van ‘t Schip and Vitezslav Lavicka.

Either way, with so many potential changes, it’s set to be fascinating off-season, and the hope at the end of it is that at least a couple of clubs line-up with Australia’s next breed of coaches.