What does Josep Gombau's signing mean for the rest of Australian football?

Yesterday, Josep Gombau was announced as Western Sydney’s new manager, taking over from caretaker Hayden Foxe, who had been keeping the post warm since Tony Popovic left in September.

The A-League’s last monogamous club has now embraced a second official gaffer, and Gombau’s removal from the various managerial rumour carousels has prompted talk of a mass exchange occurring.

The idea of playing manager-musical-chairs isn’t odd in the A-League; Ernie Merrick and Graham Arnold are the two managers who started this season having been stewards of other A-League clubs at some point. Ange Postecoglou, John Kosmina, Frank Farina and Miron Bleiberg have all coached multiple A-League teams over the lifespan of the competition.

Football management more generally is an incredibly incestuous practice, with managers hopping from club to club within the same league, often multiple times per season; Sam Allardyce has managed six different Premier League teams, as well as finding time to oversee the shortest ever and – no small feat here – most embarrassing England reign in history in between club gigs.

Gombau’s appointment removes him from the running to replace managers currently suffering through a number of other hypothetical sack races; Kevin Muscat and John Aloisi are under heavy pressure at the moment, with their teams still winless after four rounds and visibly struggling on the pitch.

Gombau is now also removed from Socceroos contention, having been an assistant to Ange Postecoglou, and in charge of the Olyroos, enjoying considerable recent success with the under-23s. Gombau would have been a front-runner for all these jobs, were they to have become vacant; his experience and success in the A-League with Adelaide, as well as with the national set-up, places him as an attractive option.

(AAP Image/David Moir)

His schooling as a manager in the Barcelona youth system, his penchant for stylish, possession-based football, and the generally high regard in which he’s held around the league make him more handsome still. He seems an ideal choice for the Wanderers, who have made a good start to the season, and who have a fine set of players – including three Spaniards, two of which are marquees – who would be willing and able to take up his style of play.

So, what knock-on effects might this appointment have? Well, someone will have to fill the under-23s head coach role, and mutterings have identified Aloisi as a potential option to do just that. It would not be surprising to find that Aloisi – who has done extremely well to, until this season, keep Brisbane competitive under the turbulent reign of the Bakries ownership group – might be keen to escape his current professional surrounds.

The under-23s have already qualified for the 2018 AFC U-23 Championships, which will be held in China, earning entry by finishing top of their group with a perfect record. Gombau was nurturing through a very talented group of players, including A-League stars Bruce Kamau and Stephen Mauk, as well as European-based starlets Riley McGree and Milislav Popovic.

Success in next year’s championships would be a sparkling addition to Aloisi’s resume, and it’s not as if Aurelio Vidmar’s failure to emerge from the group stages as under-23s coach in the last two AFC U-23 Championships garnered all the much negative attention when he was the side’s manager. A win-win, or as close to it, perhaps?

The Socceroos post is another potential vacancy Gombau is now ineligible for. Postecoglou has relished toying with the media over the last few weeks, coyly shrugging off questions as to his intentions beyond these next two matches against Honduras. He seems determined to frustrate those who think that some clarity over his future is needed, not further smug half-answers or circular double-talk.

(AAP Image/Matt Roberts)

Regardless of whether Postecoglou takes us to the World Cup – should we make it – he won’t be manager for the next qualification campaign, so the process to identify a successor should begin as soon as possible.

Should it be an Australian manager? If so, the candidates are fairly small in number, with Popovic, Arnold or Muscat the leading figures, based on a mixture of recent success and experience. Harry Kewell, by the way, managing in League Two with Crawley Town, has a current win rate a touch over 21 per cent.

If an international candidate is preferred, then a vast array of options open up; Bert van Marwijk, who took the Dutch to the World Cup final and was most recently seen succeeding in the Asian Confederation as manager of Saudi Arabia, would be an interesting choice.

We’ve had notable success with Dutch managers in the past, and his experience in Asia would be an asset too, although his style – perhaps best exemplified by this image from the 2010 World Cup final – would likely signal a return to the thud-and-blunder that Postecoglou has worked hard to drag the Roos away from.

Of course, if Aloisi was to move, the post at Brisbane would need filling, and the same goes for Muscat at Melbourne. This is all purely speculative, of course, and no one reading this should set in stone any of the predictions made here.

But was has been made concrete is Gombau’s tenure at Western Sydney, and a very exciting era it should be too. The Wanderers have never known life other than under Popovic, an existence that was filled with many joyous peaks. Having been wracked with icy trepidation and anxiety before the season began, Wanderers fans are now ensconced in a warm blanket of comfort, with their team still yet to lose and a likeable, proven A-League manager now at the helm. 

Whatever manager inherits the national team position, and whoever finishes the season in charge of the Roar or the Victory, what’s certain is that Gombau’s return to the A-League, as manager of one of its biggest clubs, is something everyone should welcome.