Academies and World Cups

Our education department schools are churning out school-leavers who can't read, write or 'rith, because lessons are fronted by education faculty graduates who are not taught their classroom subjects and who don't get any training in classroom and other professionals skills. And our national soccer 'experts' are going to be better than that?

Freddie - Get with it. Rob Baan started work on the Curriculum in 2007 and worked on it through 2008. Han Berger started work for the FFA in January 2009 and the web site you have supplied us was published in May 2009 ,so in effect what you want us to believe is that the man arrived in Australia,got all his info re. the state of coaching in OZ, what was needed for improvement, sat down, and formulated the whole shebang in 4 months. You would have to be joking are you not?. You did say you "don't know what Rob Baan was hired to write" and yet go on to say I was "wrong". How do you know I was wrong if you don't know what Rob Baan did for 2 years By the way I should ask your opinion on the Curriculum . After 10 years and countless dollars do you think it has been a great success and accomplished all those things laid out in your favoured web site, words mostly spoken by Buckley and Berger ,both of whom have departed the FFA scene, leaving us to battle on. Cheers jb..

jbinnie - Wrong. I don't know if Rob Baan was "hired" to write it or not, but it was Han Berger who developed the thing, confirmed here on the Socceroos own website in 2009, which states that Baan did the preliminary work only. https://www.socceroos.com.au/news/ffa-launches-blueprint-international-success

A good lesson for australia, if you dont invest in youth you wont get the rewards! Its been neglected for too long and have the paid the price in recent AFC youth cups. The FFA, the state federations, the a-league and the NPL clubs need to come together again once all of this congress mess is done to create a plan for australia to produce world class players like it once did before 2006. The curriculum also needs evolving too with the current trends in world football, the game is always moving!

And now have missed out the last euro's were they could not qualify with the expanded format, and now they miss out on the world cup. Dutch football has reached a dead end!

Freddie - back to the drawing board. The man hired to write the "Curriculum" was one Rob Baan who worked on the project for 2 years (2007 and 8) giving us a plan of action that utilised coaching information from the early 1970's. He retired ,no doubt advising that his place should be taken by someone who "understood " what was required . Han Berger got the job After a couple of years Han B went public declaring the "curriculum" was perhaps too hard for Australia and he proceeded to re-write Phase 2 of the same document ,released with great gusto.. Just before his 5 year contract with the FFA concluded he again went public saying he had doubts if the curriculum would ever be accepted and invited two people visiting Australia,the top men from America's Coerver method,Charlie Cooke and Albert Galutsian. This in fact was like asking your opposition what you were doing wrong., After a country wide tour with these men it came as no surprise to some when Han declared he would not be continuing in his FFA role and proceeded to join Sydney FC ,firstly as a director, and then as Technical Director. He is still involved in that role although it has been recently announced he will also be filling a similar role in Holland in an attempt to revive their former glories. Let us hope he has more success in that role than we have had from "his" curriculum. Cheers jb ps The man who "retired" after writing the original "curriculum" in 2008, Rob Baan, is now employed by the Indian Football Authority to establish their plan for the future.He worked at that job for at least 3 years when he was aged 71 in 2014. jb.

Netherlands? Yeah shocking. The Men have been the best performing nation over the previous 2 Men's Fifa World Cups - made the Finale in 2010 & were a Iker Cassilas toenail away from the title. And lost the semi-final 4 years later to Messi's Argentina after losing penalty shootout. Also, Netherlands are currently European Champions in the Women's Game. Shocking.

we have a dutch system and look how well the dutch are doing in international football.

No, the man who wrote it (Han Berger), is now the Technical Director of the KNVB in the Netherlands.

Good on ya Waz, how old are you? im guessing early 20's? Pre FFA we were qualifying for youth world cups using no official ciriculum and just good old fashioned ethnic coaching, we made it to the semi's and one final too. now since FFA we've spent 100 mil on youth and we are either not qualifying or not making it out of our group. its a wake up call, not a lesson from England, why do people keep refering to other countries as lessons to australia, we are not on training wheels, we've just gone backwards, not forward.

Jeff - Academies on their own are no guarantee of success,in fact they are like the clubs/franchises themselves, they reflect the knowledge, thoughts, and actions of the people at the helm of each identity. Glasgow Rangers are a classic example. Having at their "helm" the renowned Dutch coach Advocaat, he advised them to build an "academy", and probably one of the finest examples was built just outside Glasgow at a reported cost of over $30 million AUD. quite a sum back in the year 2000, To date ,to the best of my knowledge there has been 3 players who have progressed from that "academy system" to EPL standard in 17 years. Is this a good return on investment? As I said ,academies are an excellent idea,but------ to get success great care has to be taken in manning such establishments. Cheers jb. ps The man who wrote Australia's much vaunted "curriculum" is now doing the same job for the India ruling body ???.jb

England holds good lessons for Australia - youth development was neglected for decades at great cost to the national team

India is the best footballing country on the sub-continent.