With all the hype and excitement around the new West Sydney football team, there is hype and speculation about who should be signed to play for the team. I am thinking more longer term.
What the club needs to do in the long term is recruit straight out of the NSWPL team for players (particularly youth), and if there are none up to the required level (which I find hard to believe) then look overseas or to off-contract players.
They should aim to make the NSWPL, a feeder league to the A-League club (for appropriate compensation obviously).
The club could even supply or partly contribute prize money to the winner of the NSWPL, in an attempt to have a proper affiliation with the league.
There is a similar model to this in rugby league, which works quite well. Particularly in Parramatta and Penrith, where they have their allocated districts with teams, and they recruit youth directly out of that league at the required age level. Once they have selected their players, the club continues their development.
This should not be implemented this season because given the short turnaround, the team needs A-League-ready players as soon as possible.
But from their second season onward, this would be the optimal choice. It would allow all NSWPL players something to strive for.
The club should also have each of its training sessions rotated at some of the larger clubs’ grounds of the NSWPL like Marconi, Sydney United and Blacktown. This would allow the club to always be in the face of its target market and allow for optimal community engagement.
Young kids could see their local heroes on a weekly basis as opposed to the one-off visit they would get at school.
This is how we can marry old soccer and new football in the west.
Dinoweb
Guest
I'm all for the idea of recruitng locally for the new team, at least in the long term. They might need a bit of depth from outside of Sydney for the first several years of course. My concern is, I fail to see how existing fans of Marconi, Olympic, United and the rest are going to be happy about an A-League club coming in and pinching their best players. I am sure all of those clubs harbour thoughts of actually competing in the A-League in their own right one day. Taking their best and brightest will only further damage those aspirations.
wickedlenny
Roar Rookie
Agree, recruiting from your area does produce a lot of loyalty, pride and a sense of identity with your local club. As the examples above say, Bilbao is a perfect example. Also, recruiting young and recruiting strong could eventually lead to a system like Barca's La Masia.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
"What the club needs to do in the long term is recruit straight out of the NSWPL team for players.." BOOM!! I'm not form WSyd, but I reckon this could be a wonderful way for this club, in this region, to publicly declare "the Club's philosophy". This year, in La Liga, I've been mesmerised by the football played by Athletic Bilbao, who play the most delightful brand of football I've seen - for me it's even better than Barcelona b/c of its simplicity rather than individual technical genius. But, I digress. The reason I bring up Athletic Bilbao, is that Athletic Bilbao is known for its "Cantera Policy" - i.e. the Club only recruits players, who are native to, or have ancestry ties with, the greater Basque Country of Spain & France. Given the never-ending production line of top-quality football talent from this region of Australia, I reckon this is the only HAL club that could seriously implement its own Cantera Policy. What a wonderful statement this would be for the Club to say to the West Sydney community: "We believe we live in the best football region in Australia"!
Midfielder
Guest
Marconi. Olympic, Sydney United, White Eagles, Blacktown Demons, St Andrews, Penrith, Melta Eagles, that is eight former NSL clubs or senior state teams... suggest Ryde City as number 9 .. Five associations.... with close to 100, 000 registered winter 11 aside players... Just over 200 odd Socceroos from the 400 or so in total hailed from Western Sydney. http://au.fourfourtwo.com/blogs.aspx?CIaBEID=2722 South Western Sydney, Liverpool, Fairfield its football first daylight second RL third... If Popa & Gorman can unite the various football tribes of WS then it has the potential to become Australia's biggest club of any code... that's the potential converting will be the hard part but after listening to Popa I think FFA may have got it right ,,, early days tho...