Terrific Toivonen highlights A-League striker struggles

Well OK, there are popular individual sports, just like surfing is here, but for the working class Swede, football is still the most popular sport..

“If Australia had Sweden’s sporting landscape, the likes of Buddy Franklin, Greg Inglis, Israel Folau, Dustin Martin, Jarryd Hayne would’ve been”...skiers.

Would it not be sensible for the FFA (wait...my apologies, the FFA know nothing about football), ok let us image that we have a governing body that is conversant in the ways of football, and they were smart enough to say...the national squad is begging for strikers therefore no international strikers can be recruited. Internationals in other positions yes but we need you to develop strikers and as time goes pn recruitment is managed in accordance with the national status quo.

Toivonen is also a natural athlete, and one who was able to combine physique and technique into a successful football career. If he were Australian, odds are he would've likely been tempted to play a different code. And if Australia had Sweden's sporting landscape, the likes of Buddy Franklin, Greg Inglis, Israel Folau, Dustin Martin, Jarryd Hayne would've been soccer players. And our league wouldn't need the likes of Toivonen. Purists like to argue that our game is unique and skills don't translate, but it ignores the dedication that these players have to honing their craft. If the other sports weren't competing, their one goal would be to play soccer, and they would still be natural athletes.

Brendo, good point you make about coaching in specialist positions. Be it striker, playmakers or wingers, the main issue is time and resources. Coaches get their teams 2-3 times a week for 90-120mins each session. There just isn't the time to devote to specialist position coaching. Well not as much time as is required to get these players to the level you speak of. Its an opportunity cost at times. Do we shape the team or do we shape an individual? Some clubs have specialist coaches but the sheer volumes of players limits this approach to a few clubs at best.

Yep that’s a good way of summing it up. Yet I spend considerable time encouraging kids to juggle, balance, do tricks and show off their skills - even in games when the ball is not in a dangerous spot I should add.

Buddy - Great care has to be taken when "coaching " kids in the age groups you mention. When the initial investigation into "junior coaching" was introduced to Australia in 1975 it was stressed that the years 6 -12 be spent ensuring a kid got as many touches of the ball as possible and to aid this it was suggested these age groups should play in small sided games on small pitches, thereby guaranteeing more touches would be forthcoming. At the time it was also suggested that players younger than this should ,on training nights,only play in groups 2v2, 3,v3,,4v4. 5,5,with fun as the main ingredient and the only "coaching" should be done by having a break in proceedings and using that time to instruct the kids on how to execute the 5 basic skills. All this information was forthcoming from a psychological examination into Junior sport, not football ,but sport in general, and how best to prepare coaches for the job at hand.As you may or may not know ,this great leap forward was bastardised by the football heads at the time who refused point blank to finance this methodology all across Australia.Many of the GG have admitted to having played small sided games on small pitches in their early junior years. The hugely expensive National Curriculum of 2009 was still light years away. So as a simple guide 4 - 8, basic skills and how to improve them. 8-12 concentrated on introducing full sided games in practice but still keep the fun factor very much alive,12-15 the early introduction to tactical formation and how it aids a "team" to develop "shape" across a full sized pitch.15 onwards, introduction to full time training and what it hopes to achieve. Hope this is of some help. Cheers jb.

<Waz - Can I suggest something to you. Have you ever questioned why at 15 year level you are still getting a vast majority of players who are "midfielders". Could it be that that is where most of the action is and the 15 year old's inherent desire is still based on the psychological motivation of a 6-8 years old ,who,because of lack of what we could term "street football in his younger days, is still desirous of getting a kick at the ball,hence play "where the action is". After all this was the original purpose behind the introduction back in 1975 of small sided games on small pitches for 6-11 year olds,the necessity of giving a kid a much better chance of coming in contact with the ball during general play. Keep up the good work. We need more like you. Cheers jb.

Very good article and an interesting discussion from the posters. Thanks gents.

Further to your comments, I've noticed on more than one occasion, coaches that will take a youth player who has been a no.9 and see that he has great all round technical ability and move the player into No.10 or deeper into midfield and move quicker or stronger (but much less technical) player into the 9. It annoys me greatly because those players go on to identify as a midfielder (or sometimes as a winger if they are moved there, which I have also seen) and the lesser skilled players generally get found out as they get older.

Just looking at the FFA NC it does encourage to develop players in 3 lines (4 lines if you include goal keeper), but especially looking at position profiles in developing the 'match winners' as they mention which are the No.10, 9, 7 and 11 positions, it doesn't miss a beat on this as a focus. https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/store.ffa.football/Play+Football+PDF+Documents+DEC+2017/FFA+National+Curriculum.pdf pg.45 No.10: Must have the ability to make a killer pass, have proficient dribbling skills, and ability to score goals. Wingers (7 and 11): Must stretch opponents, good attacking 1v1 skills, able to deliver good crosses as well as score goals No.9: Primary task is to score goals, must have a good shot and good feet and header of the ball, must have keen spatial awareness and excellent timing, and also being able to hold the ball up and link up play. With the No.9 profile, there is a lot that needs to work on given the skill set. So the question are the coaches coaching the kids with the FFA NC formula using these attributes to developing the next generation attackers properly? Right now i can say no given the lack of opportunities but the ones that are there they don't possess these skills especially looking at the FFA NC No.9 Thoughts Waz? Anyone?

I'm not sure it's solely a fear of stuffing up. Australians (at least those of British/Irish stock) seem to have a deeply ingrained fear of standing out. Fancy skills are regarded with suspicion and generally something to be avoided. Hence our lack of technically gifted players and flamboyant strikers. We don't mind outrageously gifted sportspeople, as long they are suitably modest and treat their gifts as some kind of accident, certainly not as something they worked hard and deliberately to acquire. As long as that attitude pervades there will be no Ronaldos here.

I’d be inclined to change the focus when it comes to young players. “Want to become a better striker?” Or “want to learn how to score more goals?” Not necessarily just for children that see themselves as strikers, it needs a broader approach and maybe then you get players that grow in confidence and begin to see themselves as strikers rather than as a support act. At higher levels and SAP definitely spend more time specialising.

Last para is spot on Brendo. I agree entirely but...Toivonen's skills are not purely striker skills - Castro and Ninkovic do the same without being strikers. Australia's problem is more complex than lacking strikers - we also lack players who can consistently put their strikers in genuine scoring positions. And we also lack players who know how and when to run into space to prompt an attacking pass. But it's more than individuals we lack. For the last few years (under 3 different coaches) the Socceroos seem unable to work in unison to create scoring opportunities. Players make runs and get ignored (Grant throughout Asian Cup), or, players look for runners and nobody is moving (Mooy suffers this a lot), or, the receiver and the passer telegraph their intent and the opposition easily closes the space or intercepts the pass. I know I'm using an impossibly high benchmark but goals 1 and 4 from the recent Man City vs Burnley match illustrate how teamwork can create a goal out of the kinds of static positions Aus often runs into. In particular, for goal 4 the team pulls the defence left, de Bruyne sprints from deep into the resulting space on the right, and the pass to him is perfectly weighted and accurate. It's all wonderful to behold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XH6awvPuT0

Yes to a degree. I would like to see likely types undergoing specialised coaching similar to what goal keepers receive at a lot of clubs. At the very least the NC could be updated with a specialised coaching section to tackle some objectives that coaches and clubs could try and achieve with their strikers. Smarter minds than me could surely come up with 4-5 basic strikers skills that could be embedded in the NC.

Great post Waz. Part of any process is review and adjustment. I can only imagine at the reviews of youth development but from observation of those coming out of SAP the general skill and dribbling is good/ok but non-positional. Passing range not that great at times, either. Even with regions there seems to be a specific goalkeeping course for players but a good highlight there from you: there is non-specifically for strikers, or at least 'goal scoring skill training for attacking midfielders'. Different times but my youth development was not only about strength on the ball, but the mechanics of striking and shooting with different parts of the feet (outside, inside, instep), ball flight mechanics and control (no joke) etc. but also awareness around choosing the best option (shooting vs passing : a team goal is still a goal), drawing defenders and making space... At a national level this niche seems bare, or at least possibly covered by private academies ad hoc, but something that wouldn't hurt supplimenting the curriculum, if not taken up by clubs as you put 'in response to a (identified) shortage'.

Brown paper bags. Those Uber Eats bags coming and going around AAMI always looked suspicious to me :)

The way forward is possibly "percentage of" cuts until the player is sold to a foreign club. For example Kruse moves from BR to MV for free but BR get 10% of his transfer fee when he's sold to the German club. (not actually sure if or what the fee was)

We'll need to introduce transfer fees too, if we want clubs to pursue development of junior players. The club academies, A League, NPL and other academies, need to be rewarded for their investment.

For Waz, and Buddy and Brendo51. Are you saying that we should specialise our striker training from a young age, as we do goal keepers? I've never played or coached (kids cricket coaching only) but certainly in rugby and league, and cricket for that matter, kids do specialise from an early age (or they used to, not aware of current practice). I'm surprised that we don't have specialist striker coaches (or academies).