Imagine that you’re 14 or 15 years of age and you’re a talented young footballer for a club in Australia.
You’re at that age where you need to decide if playing football is going to be something you take seriously, or something you do for fun.
When you analyse your prospects for a future in the game, you see a dying national league tainted by in-fighting, ethnic divisions and lack of TV coverage.
You see a national team that did not play in a World Cup for 26 years. The national administrators are at each other’s throats, and there is not even enough money to fly overseas for the continental championships.
Given those prospects, it would be a pretty easy decision to pursue another sport or even give up on being an athlete altogether to join a band and chase young girls.
That was exactly the scenario that every young footballer in Australia faced at the turn of the millennium.
13 years later, football has had an unbelievable face lift.
Australia is now a part of Asia – perhaps the biggest and fastest-growing confederations in the world. It also has a vibrant national league with a national youth league, and they are on their way to a third straight World Cup.
Australia also has a national football curriculum and FFA-funded training for players and coaches. Things are good.
But there’s one thing missing. Our national team, despite getting through Asian qualifiers twice, has failed to look competitive on the international scene and hopes for a successful 2014 are, in the eyes of many fans, slim.
Far from the ‘Golden Generation’ of 2006, Australia has a national team bereft of world class players. Indeed, they are still relying on those wearied legs from seven years ago.
Back then, Australia used to call on at least half a team from the English Premier League or Serie A. Now, they only have a couple of back-up goalkeepers, youth team players and one genuine outfield first-team player in those leagues.
While many fans bemoan the lack of talent coming through and demand an action from FFA, the reality is that the missing talent did not come through the current system, but rather the dysfunctional culture of the late 90s and early 2000s.
Those teenagers from the dark days are now Australia’s prime players with their ages ranging from 26 to 30 years; more or less the peak age for footballers.
Socceroos from that age group should be the leaders of our national team, but the talent just is not there. A quick glance at regular Socceroos players in that age bracket and you come across names like Adam Federici, David Carney, Brett Holman, Mile Jedinak, Nikita Rukavytsya, Dario Vidosic, Matt McKay, Mark Milligan, Carl Valeri, Josh Kennedy and Alex Brosque.
The current squad is a far cry from 2006 when they had names like Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Brett Emerton, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell and more from the Premier League. Vince Grella and Mark Bresciano from Serie A, John Aloisi from La Liga and a few others from the same age bracket made the cut.
Squad is also a far cry from those who may well fit the age bracket for the World Cup 2018.
Holger Osiek has taken a lot of criticism for persevering with the old-timers and failing to significantly revamp the Socceroos squad during his tenure. When you consider the absence of quality in the key age-group for his squad, however, you start to understand why he would rather keep the experienced heads on board rather than send a virtual youth team out on the park.
In the grand scheme of things it seems a logical path for Osiek to follow. The fact that he has pushed Robby Kruse, Tom Rogic and Tommy Oar into key roles around the team could be considered as a reasonable injection of youth.
Australia’s last coach, Pim Verbeek, faced a similar dilemma when fans were begging him to pick more youngsters. Reality that he probably knew better than the pundits was that the talent just wasn’t there. If the objective was to win games and qualify for tournaments, the best players available to him were the veterans of 2006.
Until the current crop of youngsters reach their peak, no one will know for sure whether the 2006 crop was an unusually good group of Australian footballers, or whether the lost generation, that grew up in the last days of Soccer Australia and the NSL, is the true aberration.
On current evidence, however, many Aussie fans would do well to acknowledge the realities of Australia’s current talent pool before they decide that Osiek has not achieved his brief as Socceroos coach.
It is also worth holding back on criticism of the new football curriculum and youth development pathways until the fans get a chance to see the first fruits ripen.
Michael Bovell
Roar Rookie
Far from arguing that the problems only started in the late 90s, my point is only that it is that period of time that directly impacts the current generation of players. Even if the issues were there 30 years ago, I don't think your Zelic, Viduka, Okon, Farina, Mitchell, Durakovic, Ivanovic or Vidmar faced the same bleak prospects that a Kennedy, Ognenovski, Thwaite, Valeri, Beauchamp or North did. I don't profess to identify issues with the NSL in the 80s or early 90s as I myself have only really followed football since 1994 and only followed the NSL since Perth Glory was introduced in 1996. What I saw between 1996 and 2004 was a constant decline in both status and quality of teams that visited Perth Oval before the inevitable end of the NSL era (for any problems in 1996 it was still a reasonably vibrant league with a lot of quality players and regular coverage on SBS). As for the new ('new') curriculum and coaching methods, I would argue that rather than reinventing the way to play the game... the real benefit is to provide a unified style to developing young Australian players. In days gone by, a percentage of players might've been coached in the cynical Italian style of the 80s (1-0 win is a perfect game), others might've been coached in a Watford-esque long ball style, and others still in a more continental passing Eastern European method..... heaven help the national coach trying to get them to play together. A national playing style might help overcome this side-effect on football of multicultural Australia. And as for how long it takes to improve a footballer... I think it doesn't take very long at all, but a national footballing philosophy can't be implemented on players playing at clubs that don't teach it (it's not Osiek's job to teach his players the fundamentals). Step one is to get the HAL and NYL teams up to a sufficient standard of coaching, and step two is to teach kids before they reach this level or head overseas. That for me is the real challenge and it'll only be when your current teenagers start breaking into the team that we'll see if things are working.
Michael Bovell
Roar Rookie
My personal opinion is that... now that we're qualified... FFA should bite the bullet and tell Osiek they don't care if we lose every game at the 2014 World Cup, as long as we play a youthful team. We know (on the assumptions of my premise in the main article) that the 26-30 year-olds aren't good enough. But rather than relying on the 31-35 year-olds in their place as we did in qualifiers, we should just send the youngsters as an experience-building exercise to improve our prospects in 2015 and 2018. I wouldn't ditch Cahill, Bresciano and Schwarzer who deserve the honour of playing in a 3rd World Cup, but let's get Rogic, Kruse, Sainsbury, Oar, Williams, Herd and Leckie as much experience as possible because they're a potentially very talented future generation.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Guest
An intersting topic as it is something we were discussing back in the mid naughties; most were predicting this dilema. It is a pity The Roar was not around then as it would make for some interesting retrospection.
Griffo
Roar Guru
In general at youth level there are a lot of countries that are improving and competing at a level where their national team are not up there at an equivalent level. For one thing, looking at ourselves in isolation over the recent past and not considering the above isn't seeing a larger picture - the world is surging forward in development at an ever increasing rate while we are still sorting ourselves out. For another, we are implementing a national curriculum but it seems a slow, methodical process that may be years before complete. The worry is we don't seem to be measuring progress and adjusting as we go as other countries are doing. It's either a "she'll be right, mate" attitude, or the plan is there and the blinkers are on until it's done before checking how it's working. Of course it is not going to happen overnight, but it's too late to check when a whole generation has passed through and you suddenly at FFA realise 'oh crap! Something is missing from these guys. What is it?'. If a young player is good enough, they should be in the Socceroos; same for older players. Osieck looked early on but the young players we have now were either not old enough (Rogić) or ready (Kruse, Oar, Sarota et al) while some were tried but either not impressed or warming the pine overseas (Vidosić and Triosi). Timing hasn't been right for Osieck, but also the campaign nearly went off the rails and both he and the older players have to take responsibility for that. Blaming the youth was not helpful for their development and was just arse-covering IMO. Unfortunately for NT transition, the Asia Cup 2015 is both at home and too close after the World Cup, and probably seen as the job of the next coach (if Osieck leaves). We have about a 12-18 month window before WCQ2018 starts to transition. Using the 2006 generation isn't going to wash post-2014, and the possibility of a mini-dark age while we wait for some critical mass of talent to emerge is all too real.
fadida
Guest
In a nutshell ;)
Ballymore
Guest
Many thanks Fuss. Hopefully there will be a Kruse-esque recovery.
j binnie
Guest
Michael -You didn't mention 1977- 2005, I did ,& the reason I did was that was the complete life span of the NSL. As one who was there at the start I have a pretty broad knowledge of the workings of that august body & ,as I suggested, I tend to agree with the first 7 paragraphs of your article.Where we apparently disagree is that you seem to think the "problems " in the NSL began in 1999,I attempted to point out to you that it was actually much earlier than that & pointed out that the man who was ultimately approached "cap in hand" to resurrect the charred remains, had actually walked away from the game in 1985. You don't appear to wonder why?????. "Soccer" was not "dying", but the administraton of "soccer" was doing a very good of trying to kill it off from within,of that there can be no doubt. You go on to have a sly dig at coaching in those days & yet it can be proved small sided games were introduced into coaching around 1974 & the much praised Dutch 4-3-3 is a total fabrication, for the 1974 Socceroos were playing 4-3-3 in Germany in the World Cup. So the two main parts of our "new" curriculum (2005 to 2008) plan are actually "old hat".Your assertion about more money in the game today is spot-on but I ,unlike you, are not so sure we are getting value for money,after all how long does it take to improve a footballer, a year? 5 years, or 10 years. If you believe the latter then Lord help us for if you think the Japanese,Chinese,Koreans &Thais are going to wait until we catch up then you are not the "thinker" I believe you are. The HAL has not retarded the development of our youth.You have to look elsewhere to find that flaw & as I said to you some fans,& readers are already citing where they think the flaws may lie. Are they right or wrong?????jb
eric1
Guest
I don't think it's just Osiek's failure to regenerate the Socceroo's that many people have a problem with.It's his tactical ineptitude that is also a concern.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Ballymore Given Theo's background at youth level - signed by La Liga giants, Valencia at 15 for their youth team, where h scored regularly, then moved to Vicenza in Serie B - the lad obviously has talent. But, the final building block to the professional footballer is "psychological/mental strength" ... i.e. how badly does the lad want to have a professional career. Will he work hard? Will he take criticism to improve? From what I've heard, Ange was not impressed by Markelis's attitude - just as Ange wasn't happy with Julius Davies's attitude. I've not heard much about Davies at Brisbane, but Mulvey has proven he's got the Midas touch with handling young players. I hope Markelis realises he has talent & grabs a 2nd chance.
Ballymore
Guest
Off topic - forgive me. Fuss, thoughts on Theo Markelis' exit from MV? Worthwhile pick up for another HAL team?
Michael Bovell
Roar Rookie
Have a look at where Bresciano, Grella, Culina, Cahill, Neill, Aloisi, Chipperfield, Skoko, Popovic, Covic, and Wilkshire were in their careers in, for example, 2001 (5 years before the 2006 World Cup). Compare it to where the likes of Oar, Rogic, Holland, Herd, Babalj, Behich, Davidson, Ryan, Sarota, Zullo and Kruse are today... there's not that much difference. Ognenovski still gets a run because Michael Thwaite and Jade North aren't good enough to take his place, not because Trent Sainsbury and Connor Chapman aren't.
Michael Bovell
Roar Rookie
Who said anything about 1977 to 2005? I was talking about basically 1999-2005. And I would say that, apart from a current dip in form in our national team between basically 2007 and today, the standard of the Socceroos has not changed much. My argument is that rather than blame the current coach, or the HAL, or the new development pathways and football curriculum... perhaps it would be fairer to acknowledge that "soccer" was dying under the old Soccer Australia for the specific period of time that our current prime players were at a critical development phase. That is why we have to rely on the over-30s today, and that is why I believe we will emerge perhaps stronger than ever in 5-10 years time (not stronger because we got rid of the NSL, but stronger because of increased money in the game, stronger broad support within our country and because we've moved to the AFC). Rather than the steady decline of talent that some comments have implied Australia has gone into, I would say it is a wave of mediocrity produced during the 2000-2005 period that has only now reached its greatest impact on the national team (because those youngsters are now in the peak 25-30 age-group). Basically, it is way too early to say that the HAL has negatively impacted on youth development because those youngsters who are genuine products of the HAL era haven't developed yet!!!
j binnie
Guest
Michael - You get into extremely dangerous ground in this article for the fact is you are attempting to cover 30 years of football with one "picture". It is simply not possible.Your opening 7 paragraphs attempt to cover football from1977 to 2005 & does get near the truth on many of the assertions, but, & it's a big but,you do not pry into why the "shambles" was indeed a shambles that was affecting the whole of the NSL,whether it was the standard of football being played,the type of coaching that was in place for younger players,the make up of the league itself ,the various administrations,league &club, oh, I could go on, but you'll get the message. . By 1985 (after only 8 years of NSL) anyone with half a football brain could see the writing was on the wall & it should be mentioned that it was at this time "the messiah" who was to re-appear in 2005, F Lowy, actually walked away from the game & remained away for 20 years. Most of the contributors have attempted to dissect your article by taking an excerpt & building their thoughts around what you have said. This cannot be realistically done for, as some have said, there has been improvements in the nature of our top league,crowds are on the way up,we are getting better media attention,but underneath all the good things there are still underlying arguments that can be put as to how,why,where & who has contributed to these "improvements" or contrary to that ,how,why, where, & who have failed to impress over these last 13 years. You see as one who lived in the game during these traumatic times I can see that with government aid over the last 13 years tremendous strides have been made in the amount of capital being poured into the game ,especially at a coaching level (we are talking millions of dollars) & it is perfectly natural for many fans of the game to ask why is this expendture not reflected in results on the field????? It is a probing question that automatically earns responses from fans who,as fans do,argue the different points with great gusto. But one inescapable fact that has emerged over the last five years is the inability of our "select" youngsters to get results,not necessarily "goal "results, but to equal or surpass our opponents in the basic skills of playing football. That alone is an intensly worrying problem for it is not going to be solved easily,but cannot be ignored if betterment is what is being sought all across the game. jb
Michael Bovell
Roar Rookie
I do agree with this... and my argument is that Holger has built a purposeful and cohesive unit. Part of doing this job is to ensure you have some older bodies and experience in the team... if you can't get that from your 25-30-year-olds because they're not good enough, it makes complete sense to keep turning to the Neills, Ognenovskis, Cahills and Brescianos to lead the way. A lot of the time, I feel like fans give it the "A-player is better than B-player for his club, therefore should be in the team" without giving enough consideration to exactly what you talk about - a team culture and ability to combine as a unit. If Thwaite was better than Ognenovski, I suspect Thwaite would be in the team. But Sainsbury being better than Ognenovski isn't such an easy assessment regardless of talent because of his relative youth and inexperience. I agree that it's been a poor transition, but I don't agree that the coach is at fault... I'd rather a team with a bunch of mid-30s players who can lead by example, rather than late-20s players who simply don't have the talent. As I pointed out, it's not so much a comment on particular players or decisions as it is about the relative abilities of the 'generations' of players.
vinnie
Guest
Since the aleague in 2005 whats happened to the production line? why are we gradually declining instead of improving? i mean this at all levels. U/17 joeys U/20's , olympics, and even the recent asian qualifiers we just scrapped through, come on guys pull the wool from over your eyes we have had enough wake up calls. if ognenovski started with 2000 with melbourne knights then how is it possible that in 8 league seasons no one is of his standard enough to take his place?
vinnie
Guest
All the good and half decent players youngsters from the NSL went and played overseas and we had half a dozen in the EPL and a few in Itally Spain Germany. Thus improving our national team this is now non existent, yes there is Kruse and Oar playing regulary for half decent european clubs but the rest or most are squad players/bench warmers. I guess from your point of view, and i do see it, what you see happening now is the younger players have a viable league to stay and play in, and we have a well organised product to match the NRL and AFL. but thats it,
Michael Bovell
Roar Rookie
Ognenovski - professional debut in 2000, playing 2 season at the Melbourne Knights in the NSL. Wouldn't he be the perfect example of someone whose career started in the darkest days of football in Australia? The fact that there are no better players in their late 20s to lead our defence would surely be proof of the argument I put forward?
Michael Bovell
Roar Rookie
You really need to be careful assuming the NSL of the late 90s and early 2000s is equivalent to the NSL in its entirity. While many, many great NSL players and teams existed... as a Glory fan the quality of teams coming from over east in those days was generally very poor. There were a handful of good players, but definitely not a large number. And there were a number of teams (Canberra, West Adelaide, certain Brisbane Strikers teams immediately spring to mind) who would probably not have had a single player of genuine national league quality today (or even back then based on their league positions). I often have to laugh at those who champion the NSL (even the 2000s version) and slander the A-League... the vast majority of A-League players started their careers and certainly spent their youth development days in the days of the NSL. Therefore, wouldn't the quality of players in the A-League be directly reflective of the state of the game in 2000-2004? It's an undeniable fact that the top 10-20 Australian players who started their career in the last days of the NSL are not as good as the 10-20 players who started their career in the early-to-mid-90s. Any objective observer would surely admit that the 'next generation' coming through is going to be better than the current 26-30-year-olds although time will ultimately tell. Is it really such a massive stretch to then associate the weaker generation with not so much the quality of the NSL even, but rather the general state of the game at the time they were deciding whether to dedicate themselves to football?
saw
Guest
I think you're off the mark a bit Vinnie. you mention the quality of the a-league is all down to the imports... where do you think Kruse, Rogic and Oar all plied their trade prior to overseas moves. There are also many younger players with plenty of potential (eg. Corey Gameiro) who have come back from o/seas to get more game time here. I doubt this would happen if the development of the a-league wasn't on the improve.
pete4
Guest
2 words - Guus Hiddink