'Look in our own backyard to develop the future': Leading TD calls for local hire as FA's 'disruptor'

I think the new disrupter has already joined the FFA because they have managed to start selling tickets for Glasgow Rangers games against Celtic and WSW and Rangers have just announced they won’t be coming. Presumably a contract was signed between Rangers and an Australian party here for them to sell tickets? Ah silly me it was an FFA organised event!

Craig Johnson is the obvious choice here. He paid his own way to England, forced to train by himself after getting kicked out by Jack Charlton, devised his own skills program and ended up winning it all with Liverpool. I'd like to know who is better qualified? What the FA will do is get someone who has got political connections and might have played for a state league club and done some BS course.

I think his point remains a good one. He is essentially saying that kids aren't out there in any available space playing with a round ball 24/7. I've often said this as well. It's got absolutely nothing to do with fields, coaches, equipment, academies, whatever. It's a cultural thing. A Brazilian kid from the favelas may not see a blade of grass until his mid-teens, may not even have a pair of shoes, may not even own a ball, but he has been playing football 24/7 the whole of his life. That's the difference.

The talk was there back after the second world war, with the influx of Europeans. The again in the 1960's under the 10 pound poms programme. Again didn't happen. Even now with thousands of immigrants from Asia not happening. Plenty of Asians are playing AFL

Had 40,000 people jumped the fence in an A League game there would of been fighting amongst supporters on the ground. Players would of been attacked. And the poor ref, well heaven help him. Come to thing of it, would not happen at an A-League match. Never get anywhere near 40,000

What a good article and so many truly good thoughts, and for those ideas we need strong and visionary people . There is only hope!

So the likes of England, Spain, Germany dont have handhelds too? This is an naive take. You can say this as a generational thing around the world but unlike Australia they have had figured out we have not.

We now have a generation of couch potatoes.

JB - sorry for lateness but I only just came across this article and needed some time to chew it over. I was having an argument with someone over the weekend as they took offence to me giving a serve to someone from the FFA High Performance Unit - which I'd argue that on the evidence before me could almost be considered an Oxymoron. My beef is exactly what you pointed out - the problems have been around for decades and due to a variety of reasons, not least that there is money to be made, we do not have a genuine will to fix the problems of youth football. In NSW the High Performance division argued (and won) a decade ago that we need more players playing at a higher level, more opportunities mean more kids tipped through the funnel and therefore it follows we will find more talent as they drip out the other end. I cried "BS" to the suggestion as I don't believe we have enough well credentialed coaches with enough technical know how to make it work. In addition, so many clubs involved in this process just pick players and teach them how to win games as that is the most important thing to the club - ie we must be good because our sides are winning. There are huge development chunks missing and technical skills sit at or close to top of the list. The thousands of dollars spent by parents with dreams of being the parent of the next superstar are totally wasted at so many places and besides, where does the money go? - not in developing top quality coaches - it still goes towards playing part time first graders a match fee when in truth, they should either be playing amateur football or should be paid in accordance with what the club can raise by the fact they have a first grade side. There are just so many clubs and individuals who appear to have a vested interest in thing remaining the same that I despair for any change in my lifetime. Therefore I stick with grassroots kids, play small sided games constantly except for about 10 and no more than 15 minutes at training at the end of a session and we focus on ball skills, on how many ways to beat an opponent, how to control the ball with different parts of the anatomy etc. The most frustrating thing is hearing the number of times kids say "I can't do that so I'm not going to bother trying". I'd just love parents to teach their children the basics of how we get good at something - and its practice, practice practice and repetition. I'm learning the piano after a break of 50 years and believe me, it is hard going and my wife asks why I play the same piece over and over again but she got it when she came home from work over the weekend and could hear it being played without obvious mistakes! :happy:

I also Like Lescano. He is a very different type of striker to what we have seen in the A League, especially at the Roar. Bes took players on, JMac is a poacher, but Lescano is almost something between a target man and false 9. I like what he brings, and is now finding the net. I hoestly think we really need a solid No.6. No one shields the defenders or controls the forward movement (I miss Brattan). O'shea is definitely not too old to be our 10, Ninkovic is still doing it. In fact he may do better there if he has less defending and tracking back requirements. Plus he is really our only creative outlet going forward. Akbari has really shone in the No8 in recent games. I think we simply have too many young development players and not enough veterans that will just get the job done. Plenty of opportunity for a young fella to come off the bench each week with 5 available subs.

I also think Olsen is a bit underdone. Potential yes, starting 11 no. Brindel-South is not flashy but he delivers a solid performance every game.

"The top footballers in history did not develop with a Curriculum". This is absolutely true, however by studying these Top players a curriculum is designed to identify what that top 1% do to get so good and then replicate it amongst the masses. That is in essence what a curriculum is. Observe the best, write it down, then teach it to our kids.

He was dogmatic..... Yes, I agree. He was a disruptor. The only difference was he knew the local landscape and had the passion. I'd say he was far more effective than Rob Baan or Han Berger.

That's about 8 times more than when Gold Coast had an A-League club in that area. Is that factual enough for you champ? What crowds does the NRL Gold Coast outfit get? No better. If you want a soccer culture country, you need to look at moving. It ain't happening here, just enjoy what we have. They have been talking about this 'awakening giant' nonsense since the 1970s when we originally qualified. Just enjoy what we have and stop trying to have your revolution. It won't ever happen, even if we won the world cup.

The reality is this in Australia. Our kids do not go out to the parks and play from a young age like they do in the better soccer nations like Germany, England, Spain, Argentina or Brazil. All the coaching systems and 'development' nonsense they can come up with won't change the fact kids are inside most of the time and playing with their handhelds. If you have to have 'organised' participation to get kids outside then you are screwed. No point in sugar coating it. The last 20 odd years have never seen the availability of top class soccer, coaching, equipment and fields and yet our teams get steadily worse. It's all down to kids not going out there are playing.

Too true. Jokes aside though, that debacle exposes the deeper issue. Ange, genius that he is, could not play that way consistently with the cattle at his disposel and his number one job was qualification. What did the French manager say? Something like Australia is a good team, don't take them lightly. They can play out of the back, but their weakness is that they don't know when not to play out from the back. Ange was mostly right, but he was also dogmatic, and that created problems you don;t have in a club side that you can build to your specific plans and train with week in week out. What I'd love to see is a person like Ange take over the youth development side of things, stick with him for 20 years, see where that takes us.

:laughing: *won the Asian Cup

Disruptor? I remember a guy, local guy, well he was born overseas but basically a local guy. Anyway, he said he was working towards Australia winning the world cup, he said if you're not here to win the world cup, there is no point participating. Anyway, he had some pretty forthright views. Felt there was a cultural cringe in this country and that we shouldn't be intimidated by Europe or South America, he didn't have a heap to work with but he wont the Asian cup His philosophy on football was pretty hardline: - Retain possession - Everyone should be able to pass the ball - Pass and move - Retain possession He even expected the goalkeeper use his passing ability, pretty much played him like a sweeper. His views were polarising, he upset a few people and had televised arguments with top footballing pundits. He was passionate about football in this country What happened to him? Seems to me like he was the perfect disruptor.

I’m quite happy with Lescano jb - he does exactly what a holding 9 should do (most of the time). Assuming Moon is recruiting to a 3-5-2 or 4-2-3-1 set up then he has most of his wide players in place, just needs a high-impact 10 to play off Lescano. The Holding Mids should be O’Shea (now to old to be pushed forward), Stienmann (although I think he’ll leave in the winter) and Daly. Then all he has to sort out is his “zonal marking” system which is rubbish, and he’ll compete.

I don't see any lack of drive - in fact, yesterday their drive was very obvious. I think it's been impossible to have a settled team this year JB, and I have said this many times to you, because of Covid and fitness across the squad. Of course they'd love to play as often as possible but if they're not fully fit, they can't, not without risk. I watched the Academy NPL match earlier tonight, a couple of them (Mlinaric, Lofthouse, Adams) played.