The Sun-Herald

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Product Not In Stock

The A-League is back on sale. Does it provide the goods?

It's a question that, first, requires a bit of reflection.

It was not so long ago (just 2001, in fact) that then Soccer Australia chairman Tony Labbozzetta fronted a press conference and, with a straight face, declared that the accounting firm "Ernest and Young" (I was in the room and, yes, he actually said that) had returned its findings on the restructure of the National Soccer League.

With a straight face, Labbozzetta declared that the solution to that lame league was for Brisbane Strikers and Canberra Cosmos to be culled while Sydney would still boast, and I use the term as loosely as possible, Marconi "Stallions", Sydney "United", Sydney "Olympic Sharks" (or whatever they were called that week), and Northern Spirit.

This was a decision so bizarre that history would have to judge it complete genius or complete and utter comedy.

Of course, we now know that the decision was so politically motivated that it puts some of Prime Minister John Howard's maneuvers to shame.

The difference, however, is that Howard and his team are smarter than Labbozzetta and his cronies could ever dream to be (who would have thought it?!), even with a little help from Ernest and Young.

This week, the third season of the A-League kicks off. Frank Lowy will go down in history as a man of many talents but his great skill is getting the job done. The A-League was no work of genius. It was the simplest and most basic idea for a competition you could have. Lowy was simply the executioner, the man who could raze a league and rebuild it. Hmm. Just like a shopping centre.

How many major urban areas are there in Australia? How many teams per region? Then let's have a one-team per city league, throw in a mob from New Zealand, and, let's do the numbers... bingo! An eight-team league. Let's go.

Sure, there have birth pains, growing pains, and before we even reach adolescence, pimples, rebellion, a few curfews broken, and failed exams. But you get that.

There's also been plenty of entertainment, drama, excitement, controversy, and even football. Some of it has been good. I'm beginning to think that the appointment of Terry Butcher may have even have been an evil plot to teach Sydney crowds that beauty and art should never be taken for granted.

One thing we all know is that the standard of football is nowhere near Europe. The size of population, economics, and the fact international recruitment is driven on lifestyle rather than salaries mean that is just the way it is and will be for the foreseeable future.

But there's no shame in that right now, so long as the league continues to develop players who can go on to greater things.

While sport is about performance, it is also about history. The A-League is slowly building that. Importantly, much of what is being built is organic. This is the key.

The Cove, like Melbourne's fanatical support (who would have guessed?), is constructed solely by the passion of the fans. Football Federation Australia can market the game how they choose but it is how the public responds that matters.

For the most part, the A-League 's brain trust has got it right and realised that the future of the game is not necessarily you and I but today's younger teenagers. They are the ones now attending with parents who in ten years time will be paying their own way in, recalling stories of David Zdrilic misses, Clint Bolton goal kicks, and that guy called Juninho.

Like much in Australia's past since European settlement, history is being written as we live it. There's a lot of chatter about expansion and second clubs being established in major cities. Talk is healthy but ">FFA boss Ben Buckley is totally right to put the coolers on new clubs unless it is really and truly sustainable. Which is why they pay him the big bucks.

Meanwhile, sit back and watch this season answer a few questions that need answering:

1. Is Ross Aloisi really as big a meathead as he was made out to be after last season's Grand Final?
2. Can Frank Farina really coach?
3. Can Branko Culina really coach?
4. Can Hayden Foxe get through a season without an injury (oh, hang on...)?
5. Should Sydney have signed John Aloisi?
6. Will a team from New Zealand ever be any good?
7. Are Melbourne Victory one season wonders?
8. How long until Kevin Muscat and Ljubo Milicevic come to blows on the pitch?
9. Will John Kosmina get a job as a sideline reporter with Fox Sports?
10. Will we ever hear of David Carney again?

• by Matthew Hall at 06:24 AM
• Comments (26)

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Is Advocaat Really Our Top Banana?

Dutchman Dick Advocaat is sealed as Socceroo coach. Or is he?

According to almost everyone - except, notably, Football Federation Australia and the man himself - he's everything but delivered.

Unsurprisingly, there's been much hand-wringing over his possible appointment.

Fairly or not, before he's even stepped on Australian soil, Advocaat has been painted as Guus Hiddink Lite (and we're not talking physical weight here), dour, cranky, and generally uninspiring.

As John Duerden points out over here, Advocaat isn't keen on the media, something he'll have to work on in a developing market like Australia that demands shiny smiles and PR friendliness.

(But, then again, what would Duerden know? He was the guy who apparently got Graham Arnold's words mixed up in an interview before the Asian Cup. Except, contrary to Arnold's denial, Duerden's original story was 100 per cent correct).

One thing is for sure. Advocaat is not Hiddink and that's not a bad thing. Perhaps luckily for him, we wouldn't compare Hiddink and Advocaat the same way Koreans have. Would we?

But here's the question, outside of Advocaat, who else is a serious candidate for the job?

Gerard Houllier must be out of the question. His health would not permit the rigour of what's now realised will be a tough World Cup qualifying campaign.

Former FFA CEO John O'Neill believed he'd nailed the former Liverpool coach to succeed Hiddink during a trip to Lyon in early 2006 but, despite the flirtation, the overtures didn't blossom into anything serious.

Jorvan Vieira, the Moroccan-based Brazilian who sensationally led Iraq to the Asian Cup title, has interesting credentials.

Almost unheard of in Australia before the Asian Cup, I met Vieira in Marrakech in 2005 and he spoke knowingly of Australian football.

Studious, his success in uniting a team from broken homes and turning them into a winning machine (with no help from a dysfunctional federation) was no accident.

There's no doubt Vieira knows what it takes to win in Asia but does he have the heavyweight profile that the FFA seem obsessed with?

Other candidates do exist. Former Real Madrid coach Fabio Capello is sitting on an island off Italy possibly contemplating a future that may see his career take a radical change of direction away from Europe.

Graham Arnold's failure in Asia, for whatever reason, has probably set back the cause of local coaches for at least a decade.

Of the A-League coaches, Branko Culina and Aurelio Vidmar could be future candidates if they build all-winning dynasties over the next few years that include bagging the Asian Champions League.

Whoever is officially unveiled, the role is more complicated than what Hiddink's job description detailed.

Qualifying for 2010 is a priority and part of that mission is shuffling out some deadwood, on and off the pitch, and turning players that could-be into will-be Socceroo heroes.

Frank Lowy's next move is important. The honeymoon is over. The period of temporary solutions is gone. This is business.

• by Matthew Hall at 03:20 AM
• Comments (11)

Saturday, August 11, 2007

King of Kings

Rooney, Ronaldo, Drogba, or, erm, Kewell. Who's the best player in the Premier League?

"There's always next season" is a line that many of us can roll out when our favourite team underachieves (yet again). Thankfully, that time is upon us again as England's Premier League kicks off this weekend.

Leagues across Europe will soon follow suit and the A-League kick-offs again in a matter of weeks.

So hurrah to all that.

So, this week's blog could be a rambling self-important view of which team will win the league (it's out of Man United and Chelsea, or maybe Liverpool if those two suffer some uncalculated catastrophe) but I'll spare you that pain.

Anyway, you have your own passion and prejudices and I certainly won't be able to change them. Nor want to.

Instead, let's break team spirit, dump all-for-one and one-for-all and sing the praises of individuals. For, as Arse fans are about to discover, you are nothing without Thierry Henry.

(By the way, I seriously think that Thierry cries in this clip).

So, here's the question: who's the best player currently doing the rounds in the Premier League?

Once upon a time, we could have hoped that an Australian might be soon considered the top man.

Harry Kewell collected the Young Player of the Year award in 2000, voted for by his fellow players. We all know that injuries have since weighed down Kewell's once soaring career but he remains uniquely talented.

Hopefully, now fit again, this season he can prove a key figure as Liverpool aim to end their 17-year title drought (note: last time Liverpool were the best team in England the Premier League did not exist!).

The other Australian who perhaps had potential to claim the crown was our old pal Mark Viduka. Unfortunately, Viduka's choice of clubs throughout his career has meant that we'll never know just how good he could have been.

A little known piece of history is that when Harry Kewell left Leeds for Liverpool, Anfield bosses were very, very, interested in making a dual swoop for his Socceroo teammate. Some behind-the-scenes research led them to change their minds and, instead of Anfield, Viduka spent what should have been his best years at Middlesbrough instead.

As this clip shows, maybe his best years were actually at Melbourne Knights.

He quit the Riverside this season for Newcastle United, a team in major transition that, despite the hope of passionate fans, will not challenge for the title this season and can only hope of playing in Europe in 2008, if things go exceptionally well.

But anyway, I digress.

The best player in the Premier League this season will come down to two candidates.

One, a certain Carlos Tevez, whose arrival at West Ham last season exploded into a controversial soap opera on, and off, the pitch.

One thing is for sure: he delivers drama and will regularly do so again this season now that he's wearing Man United colours.

A few years ago, I watched Manchester United beat Liverpool 2-1 at Old Trafford. Most attention at the game was on Rio Ferdinand's return to football after a ban for missing a drugs test.

But a young United player called Cristiano Ronaldo upstaged Ferdinand's comeback. The winger put in a display that was pure entertainment, the sort of performance you are happy to pay money to watch.

The guy is going to be a star, I mumbled to myself. The person next to me nodded in agreement. No one else heard me.

Apologies to Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba, Steven Gerrard, and even up-and-comer Cesc Fabregas.

Since that night in 2004, Cristiano Ronaldo has paid back those thoughts a few times over. No one currently comes close to his level of skill and entertainment.

This season he can not only demonstrate he's the best in England, but maybe Europe. And, just maybe, the world.

So, now, stand by for a barrage of wildly conflicting opinion...

• by Matthew Hall at 01:55 AM
• Comments (50)