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Adelaide United might be out of the A-League finals but they’re not out of the headlines. The search for a new coach reached new heights of hilarity last week.
In retrospect we can piece together the most recent chapter, which featured the seemingly innocuous announcement that Michael Valkanis would not stand for the head coaching role – and most notably, an unbecoming statement on Adelaide United’s website that was quickly taken down but spread like wildfire anyway.
As if to trumpet the fact that John Kosmina’s prophecy was wrong and that Valkanis had not penned a two-year deal to usurp him, the club instead toppled another set of dominoes.
But somebody clearly forgot to explain things in a satisfactory manner to the selection panel that had been tasked with finding the new coach.
When it came through that Valkanis had decided he wanted his old job back, and that the club had okayed this, the panel resigned on the spot.
Predictably after the last few months of the Adelaide United soap opera, the story blew up. On social media, the fans decided to do the same.
The club moved to clarify, explaining Valkanis had simply assumed the role he had left on an interim basis, and that he could well be asked to move on by any prospective new coach.
But the damage was done and United’s battered image took yet another hit.
It came after an embarrassing game of brinksmanship between Kosmina, who is said to have penned a piece that called for the heads of Michael Petrillo and Glenn Elliot in a newspaper article that was yanked at the last second, and Greg Griffin, who jumped the gun with a response that made Hindmarsh seem like high-school.
The spotlight won’t go off Adelaide until the new coach signs a contract, and rightly so. Fans are restless and tellingly, so are senior players – including captain Eugene Galekovic.
The next move is key. Who comes in? Queue the A-League coaching carousel. Former Reds assistant Phil Stubbins is reportedly the frontrunner.
Other candidates include Adelaide legend Damien Mori, the eccentric Miron Bleiberg, and the sometimes sour Ernie Merrick.
FFA is involved as part of a new ‘selection panel’, which means the club will probably be using the governing body’s established overseas links to help with the search – most likely the Netherlands, with the aid of Han Berger’s little black book.
Frankly, that is where Adelaide should be looking – elsewhere. Appointing a face that is familiar to the club would be a disaster.
Stubbins may have tried to earn his stripes overseas, but he knows all the protagonists in the latest stoush.
He would walk in with preconceived feelings and emotions towards staff and players.
Normally, possessing an in-depth knowledge of a club’s culture would be a big tick for any aspiring coach. Not so here.
And as much as it pains this childhood Adelaide City fan to admit it, Mori might not be the right choice either.
Though he has never been officially involved with United, he knows the corridors of power in South Australian football all too well.
This is not a job for them. This is a job for someone with absolutely no mates or enemies at Adelaide to come in, find out why the club is polluted and be given license to do whatever it takes to stop it happening again.
A coach from overseas might be going against the grain amidst this new wave of curriculum-driven local tacticians but it might also be Adelaide’s best bet right now.
Alternatively, there are options at home – just as long as they don’t call Adelaide home.
Merrick has more than the required credentials but his history with bitter rivals Melbourne Victory should rule him out – unless the board wants a Benitez at Chelsea kind of scenario.
Bleiberg is a polarising figure but he can coach. Gold Coast United were a supreme success on the field until Clive Palmer’s meddling stopped the former Israeli Navy captain and ‘lizard system’ inventor from doing his job properly.
His sides are great to watch, which is important, because Adelaide fans have started to turn off. His inimitable style in the media would help publicly douse the embers of this bungle-filled era.
He would not care about existing politics. Bleiberg is a Mancini-type who doesn’t really care if his players despise him, either – although it’s only a minority who do. He’d much rather drag them kicking and screaming into success.
And he is smarter than Rini Coolen, who had those very intentions but mistakenly ripped the heart out of a club by messing with the wrong things.
Of course, there are other options. Plenty of them, in fact.
The club is screaming for someone to come in and take control and with the growing international prestige of the A-League, there’s never been a better time to look abroad.
But vitally, the stakes have never been higher for Adelaide either. The right move can extract the Reds from the vicious cycle of embarrassment and clique-driven controversy they’re in right now.
The wrong move, however, will only further strain the already tenuous relationship between unhappy fans and headstrong management.
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