A bit of perspective is required for the Socceroos

Cheers, I hope I'm right too. And yes, I think the curriculum is based on the Dutch one. Han Berger, the former technical director, is the one who put the it together and he's Dutch.

Brilliant and education response thank you "The Magnificent11". Hope you're right about the national curriculum and “skills acquisition program" bearing fruit. Is this curriculum based on the Dutch system with all our Dutch Technical Directors plus Hiddink, Verbeek and co?

Dead right Qantas ... possession is wonderful but if you don't create real chances, you will eventually lose the game. Our play in the last third is and has been for as long as I recall our true weakness. The final pass and the one touch control and goal scoring skills were pretty obvious. For some reason we produce world class keepers, reasonable defensive midfielders, some solid defenders, strong and quick wingers/fullbacks but true playmakers who can retain possession in the last third and see and make through balls have been few and far between. Theories I've heard - because our kids play competitive games from a young age rather than focusing on skill development, futsal, Anglo style coaching, the loss of NSL and their youth team development academies (A League teams don't have youth teams?). Do our kids have too many choices and not focus 100% on football like kids in football countries like those in Sth America and Europe?

Mid - As Chopper infers below there were attempts at Brisbane Lions in the NSL to bring on their own young players. This was not a haphazard effort but an extremely well planned long term effort that involved the employment of 3 hand picked coaches at colts level,youth level & reserve team level.Young talented youth players were encouraged to the club and they went hrough a pre-planned curriculum that saw only disciplined, hard working kids progressing. for there was also an unwritten law in the system that stated the first team in the NSL had to have at least 3 local kids take the field.This system lasted for 4 -5 years and saw many players graduate to the first team in their own right and even become established Socceroos both senior and under age after being allowed to move South. Alan Hunter,Danny Wright,Steven Jackson, and Calvin Daunt all picked for the country and many more playing for Lions for more than a few years. To make room for new inductees players were sold to Old State League teams with the proviso,if they continued to improve they could be bought back for what was no more than the nominal fee charged. This system worked very well for 4 or 5 years and then a change in the club's management structure saw it all fall apart and as happens in systems like that the 'progress chain' was severed. That was the main source of problem in the NSL -----not the clubs but the management of the same.To get supply lines like that to work you need men of vision and dedication. Your mate jb .

Cameron I think your blog was great in stirring the pot but I would like to add that my perspective that certainly in Brisbane we had NSL clubs Lions (Hollandia) Brisbane City (Azzuri) then we had Strikers. The first two had a huge youth setup that taught and brought the kids up through the juniors to senior football. The Strikers were a conglomerate of the Queensland Soccer Federation and were created to give Queensland a spot in the NSL. At that time they did nothing to ensure the junior development of the game in fact because of the propensity to shove reasonable players into the Q.A.S. then sign them to the Strikers they put a lot of development clubs offside. In effect there was to be no back up to the "golden generation" from Queensland. Local politics within "soccer" saw to that and perhaps because the NSL itself was destroying the clubs financially, shortcuts were made in an attempt to stay afloat. This culminated in a full year without a national competition and then when it restarted ten years ago as the A League all the new clubs were franchises without junior setups. Still today most teams in the A League do not have a full junior coaching setup. Some clubs have still not endeared themselves to the local development clubs. Is it any wonder that we have a shortfall in quality players coming through. CCM have the right approach and I am sure that Man City will create something similar in Melbourne. At the Roar the Bakries talk a lot then come up with taking over the graveyard of Queensland Football and without a full junior club they will have to pick through the remnants that more progressive clubs leave. To realize the growth of football talent and how hard it is to unearth the gems Aussie football requires we should look to the professional ranks in Europe or South America where a club that has thousands of kids at their disposal may, only get a competent professional through the ranks per year and a real gem every three to five years. Even then you cannot guarantee it will be a striker. And really if Australia had one or two real predators (putting the ball in the onion bag), everything else would be irrelevant.

Yeah, I believe there is far too much doom and gloom talk about the national teams at the moment. I especially take offence when Bozza says that Australian teams aren't competitive because they are not placing a high enough emphasis on results in youth football. This is a load of rubbish because this is precisely what a lot of the top nations do. Kids will be competitive whether you hand out winners medals or not. The point about not emphasising results is to ensure the coaches coach properly; it has very little to do with the mentality of the players.

The goal was corner. It wasn't a ball played from Japanese midfield in behind the Australian defence for a Japanese wide player to run onto, cross and have a Japanese attacker finish. Many of the goals the Socceroos have conceded have been like this. In most cases, the player at fault was Jason Davidson (and the Australian midfield for allowing the time and space for the ball to be played). Yes. Matt Ryan made saves. However, what pleased me was that in most of those cases the Japanese earned those chances, they weren't the result of simple errors or concentration lapses.

Cameron ' Is Australia just a mess of pro sports where nobody is really good at anything Internationally, we’ll never know how great we are domestically … " My point being there , Do kids nowadays play all sports though really master none. Also the domestic angle being with AFL we can't gauge ourselves as Australians Internationally off it so there is no gauge Internationally only domestic glory, annually ..

Mag 11 - I can think of at least 2 occasions when the Japanese got the ball behind our defensive line,both times being headers,one a goal and one over the bar. Add to that the number of good saves Ryan made and I'm quite sure there could have been more.But that is not the real problem,The query has to be are we being allowed to play the first half of games by cagier opponents who appear to up the ante after the break and proceed to give us lessons in modern football? jb

Fuss - And conceded 4 goals in that second half !!!!! We're back to what originated this discussion,what is happening after half time,does our performance drop or do the opposition improve? Easily posed question,not so easily answered. Your mate jb

Cameron Decent article and deserves IMO research to answer... let me add to the many comments above.. Our media and via articles the fans demand style and results. I think many in Football or new to Football totally under estimate the work put in at junior level by the former NSL clubs.. further the overseas scouting connections many of the NSL clubs enjoyed... while we point to the poor nay hopeless management structure we easily forget the NSL and the district associations built a player base a pathways from the player base to the NSL and overseas... Tis fair to say clubs like Sydney United, Melbourne Knights, Marconi, Olympic etc had via a huge volunteer base coaching and connections that has never been matched by A-League teams aside from the Mariners ..this needs to change urgently...

In terms of last night, we are missing key players to fill certain roles. 1. Striker It's the one everybody is talking about, we desperately need 2-3 players who can play this role. Ange tried James Troisi last night, the match before Tim Cahill couldn't score against Qatar and Bernie Ibini before that against UAE. In fact the only time we have scored in 5 matches since the World Cup in open play has been from the head of Tim Cahill. Jedinak and Wright being the other goal scorers which were goals that resulted from set pieces. We need to find a striker and we need it now. 2. Full backs We are still struggling to find quality FB's. Our struggles at LB are well know and RB is only marginally better. Ange's system requires the FB's to be very mobile, pushing up quickly when we have the ball to support the Midfield while dropping back as soon as we lose it. Franic and Behich fit this mould but they lack the quality to execute it on a international stage. At the moment I cannot see anybody coming through to fill these positions that would be international level (maybe Galloway?) To execute the tactics that he wants Ange will have to continue to look for answers here. The rest of the positions aren't in bad shape imo between Kruse, Oar, Leckie, Triosi we have some decent AMs and a couple of potential players coming through Amini, Rogic, DeSilva . Jedinak, Milligan, Holland in CM and potentially Antonis coming through. CB's are also ok, though we need them fit. And I believe Langerak and Ryan are good enough. In terms of Viduka's comments, I think it's a red herring to point to the NSL clubs and say they did it better. Yes the development of youth back in late 70's, 80s was better but I do not accept it was due to better youth development at NSL clubs. For me the issue relates to the erosion of the ethnic generations here in Aus as well as widening of the youth sport base. 99% of all kids playing sport these days are playing multiple sports, very few kids see football as the be all and end all. When you add this to the strong enthic communities of Greek, Italian, Serbian & Croatian immigrants eroding due to the generational shift there just isn't the community support to develop the quality players. This is not going to be reversed so we need to replace it with a new way. More football in primary schools, better coaching, more players and stronger elite leagues at a younger age (ie NPL) will help but will it successfully replace what we had (only time will tell).

Well it seems to be there are a lot of questions here. Is the current crop of Socceroos as good as the ones we have from 2000-2010? If not, why not and will it continue to be like this moving forward? Is the criticism of the Socceroos warranted? And the other questions mentioned in the blog. Is the current crop of Socceroos as good as the ones we have from 2000-2010? Of course not. The "golden generation" produced players that played at Champions League clubs e.g. Viduka, Kewell, Cullina and the a lot of the rest were playing in major European leagues. I don't think anyone would argue with me on this one. So, why aren't these Socceroos as good? For precisely the reason that Viduka pointed out; the golden generation were produced by the NSL and the coaches at those clubs were mainly migrants who developed their children. The current crop of Socceroos didn't have access to the same coaches at youth level (as many would have retired from coaching) and also because there was no NSL and there was no national youth league at the time they were in there teenage years. Will this trend continue? I don't believe it will. This season I went and watched a couple of games that the younger brother of one of my friends played in. He plays U13 for an NPL club in Queensland. This kid was around 10 or 11 even the national curriculum came into being and was immediately selected for the "skills acquisition program" in his area. His age groups is the first to have the benefit of such structured coaching and you can see the benefit when you watch the kids in his age group play. They keep possession extremely well and can do it in tight areas. The style of football is better than the football you will see any first grade men's teams playing in the NPL (and better than anything is saw from the NPL clubs in the FFA Cup). My point is that the national curriculum being taught at NPL clubs is bearing fruit. Recently, the Joeys did very well at the U16 Asian Cup. So I think in 5-10 years time you will see another golden generation; players who have experienced good coaching and had the benefit of the NYL and A-League for their development. So, is the criticism of the current Socceroos warranted? Well, that depends on how ignorant you are. Ange stated several times that he is experimenting with players. Last night, the team put together a much better performance (very fluid in possession and less defensive mistakes), which I believe is the result of a full 7 days of training and less experimentation. Ange will get two mini-camps in December with players who have finished their club seasons (those in Asian leagues and Tim Cahill) and will have his entire squad together for almost 2 full weeks leading into the tournament. And, he'll have time to work with them throughout the tournament. So, he will get more and more of his message across. Furthermore, the Socceroos didn't concede any goals last night that were the result of getting in behind our fullbacks (several have been conceded where the opposition have got in behind Jason Davidson in the Ange reign). Nor did they concede from a sloppy defensive line allowing an opposition player to escape the offside. The majority of goals conceded under Ange have come from these two scenarios. So Ange is getting his message across when he has the training time with players and he's going to get plenty leading-in and during the Asian Cup. So no, the criticism of the Socceroos was not warranted in my opinion. The problem is that ignorant analysts like Mark Bosnich jump to conclusions without asking why things are the way they are. The rest of the media then jump on the bandwagon. The criticism would have been far more measured if the so-called "experts" actually did some analysis for a change. Will Ange be able able to get the Socceroos to play to the standard of the class of 2006? Not likely, he doesn't have the same calibre of talent. Will they be competitive and quality for another World Cup? Probably. Ange has proven that he knows what he is doing. The current downturn at the moment is a mainly due to Pim and Holger not giving youth a go in friendly matches (and defensive-minded coaching). Ange has had to experiment because Pim and Holger didn't experiment at all.

"do you really feel we have advanced all that much" We've advanced a huge amount from the recent matches in the Middle East & the match against Belgium. But, we've still not captured the opening half against Ecuador, which was absolutely 1st class. That day we had ---------------------Ryan Franjic---Spiranovic---Good---Davidson ---------Milligan-----Jedinak ------------------Rogic Leckie-------Timmy----Oar We were 3 nil up after 30 minutes & played delightful football - possession, penetration & finishing! From that team we were missing: Spiranovic, Good, Rogic, Oar

With youth development in Australia are we concerned in modern times about hurting a kids feelings if they're not that good and giving them a gold stamp on the hand and blue ribbon for effort regardless of how they play the game ? . Are technical directors being listened too ? Are those technical directors good enough to teach youth ? . Do the youth and parents really understand what it means to be a pro footballer and the sacrifice or do they just assume they'll play at Old Trafford somehow one day ? .. Are kids playing enough football before during and after school or instead are they playing the TV sports of aussie rules, cricket and rugby league during those time frames ? .. Can parents expect to have a child turn pro by training twice a week " if they feel like it " and playing of a Sunday morning with no form of street or park football in the meantime to hone those skills ? .. Is Australia just a mess of pro sports where nobody is really good at anything Internationally, we'll never know how great we are domestically ...