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We can’t say we weren’t warned. John Kosmina told us his former assistant Michael Valkanis had agreed to a two-year deal to overthrow him at Adelaide United.
Half the footballing public thought he was crazy and jumping at shadows, the other half deduced his unexpected departure from the Reds was symptomatic of a club in poor health.
Either way, it’s hard to shake the sense that Kossie’s prophecy is about to come true, and the whispers in the corridors at Hindmarsh were on the money.
Adelaide United will make a “major announcement” today at 12.30pm South Australian time, when chairman Greg Griffin and A-League boss Damien de Bohun will hold a press conference at the Hilton in the city centre.
They are not expected to talk coaching – this is, apparently, ‘good news’.
So don’t expect an immediate answer to this conundrum until at least the end of United’s finals campaign. Which, depending on who you ask, might not be that far away.
The coaching appointment is the single most important item on the board’s agenda right now, given the need to solve the strange disconnect between the front office and the home end.
After Kossie worked himself up and and walked off the job earlier this year, Adelaide promised to scour the world for the right man to lead the recovery effort.
Yet a few weeks on from that announcement and word is Valkanis still has it in the bag regardless.
Last week, Craig Foster peeled back the curtain. The SBS analyst is part of a selection panel formed by the club, and is charged with weeding through the inevitable mountain of applications.
The panel is headed by part-owner Bruce Marveggio and also includes former Socceroos John Perin and Alex Tobin and ex-Liverpool fitness coach Darren Burgess, who now works at AFL club Port Adelaide.
It was a smart move to create this well-credentialed committee, and it ever-so-slightly hushed the howls of discontent from the terraces. This appeared a shift towards transparency.
But it could be a facade.
The jungle drums are beating. There have been a grand total of zero interviews conducted with other applicants.
Foster has asked questions of the panel’s exact ‘terms of reference’ in an intriguing statement on his public Facebook page. In other words, he is worried the panel is a toothless tiger.
The relationship between Adelaide and its supporter base is already strained, but this club cannot lie again and give Valkanis the job like this after the pledges that have been made.
Tellingly, there is an additional reason, one equally as compelling. Right now, he doesn’t deserve the job.
United stumbles into the finals with the worst form of the top six.
Brisbane Roar will visit for an elimination final this weekend but the prevailing feeling amongst the Red Army is the Adelaide is mere cannon fodder for the defending champions.
If Valkanis is offered the job after that, would it automatically put Kosmina in the right?
If so, and the selection panel is exposed as an invention purely for PR purposes, it is another gut-punch to a club that has already taken hit after hit.
This is a critical juncture in Adelaide United history. It will define the next few years. The trust of the fanbase hangs in the balance.
Valkanis is a former club captain and was loved by fans for his uncompromising approach in defence.
But he is not a popular coach, and is instead seen as a convenient, cut-price option for a board seemingly more worried about the bottom line than the back four.
Let’s hope Adelaide United’s powerbrokers instead opt to follow their own rules and allow the selection panel to fulfil its purpose.
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