Matthew Hall
Verbeek Versus Viduka
Forget China, the Socceroos coach now has to climb a bigger wall.
Pim Verbeek has shown both smarts and shrewdness in handling complicated scenarios surrounding the first two games of Australia's 2010 World Cup campaign.
Back in November, when the 2008 Socceroo schedule was presented to most of the squad, I sat with players in a hotel in London.
The sentiment was unanimous.
Club demands would make it impossible to make the games against Qatar and China.
There was no chance of any Euroroos turning up for the 2010 kick off.
This was the dying days of Australia's flirtation with Dick Advocaat and a month before Verbeek and his powers of pretty persuasion were employed.
But the new coach has shown he can think out of the box when required as ably demonstrated by his strategy against Qatar and radical rejig against China.
Verbeek has also demonstrated candid communication skills that delicate egos of football players can appreciate.
He's told A-League players they're not good enough for the national team while simultaneously giving them unprecedented opportunity to prove themselves with his use of preliminary squads made up of local players.
The result? Rather than exiling A-Leaguers, Jade North has developed into a realistic defensive option alongside Lucas Neill while Bruce Djite would likely have started against China had he not been injured.
Circumstances may have forced Verbeek to improvise but he's not making it up as he goes along.
A good coach doesn't show his worth when he can field a first-choice 11 in perfect conditions.
It is when everything is not going to plan and difficult decisions have to be made that a coach earns his money.
Undefeated on the pitch, Verbeek's next big match-up is against Mark Viduka this week in Newcastle, England.
While Harry Kewell is desperate for game time with Australia - game time with anybody - Viduka is wavering on his commitment to the national team.
Viduka quit the Socceroos last year just before the Asian Cup.
Graham Arnold, working magic, convinced him to play on.
Arnold's intervention was so late that a press conference to formally announce Viduka's retirement was cancelled at the last minute.
Guus Hiddink, ever the psychologist, knew how to bring the best out of the often temperamental striker.
Commitment issues? Let's get married, Hiddink suggested, giving Viduka the symbolic responsibility of captaincy.
The move worked. Like a kid, Viduka couldn't shake World Cup fever.
One Premier League player told me how during a game against Middlesbrough before the World Cup, Viduka jogged over and asked: "Are you going to the World Cup? It's going to be great!"
Look out, Mark. Here comes the ball.
Viduka has long been enigmatic and blown with the wind and his own impulsiveness.
At Celtic, he infamously refused to play a second-half as the Scottish giants imploded in a Cup game against Inverness Caledonian Thistle (Who? Exactly).
He shone, briefly, at Leeds United. His form, especially in the Yorkshire team's now legendary Champions League run of 2001.
Barcelona, Deportivo La Coruna, and Roma were all interested in his signature.
But instead of playing for top teams in Europe, Viduka was part of the Leeds side that was relegated and ended up at ultimate under-achievers Middlesbrough.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Next stop? Comedy club Newcastle United, a team that pays players exceptionally well but never ever live up to the expectations of fans nor the talent at the club's disposal.
Instead of playing in - or even challenging for - European competition, Viduka is now embroiled in a relegation battle.
That's when he's fit.
While Viduka was considering other options as his Middlesbrough contract wound down, the hot ticket was a possible move to Italy.
Juventus, Milan, Inter?
No. Genoa, a club promoted to Serie A last season with modest ambition.
Viduka is undoubtedly a big talent and raises Socceroo quality when he pulls on a gold shirt - even if his 11 goals in 43 games suggest otherwise.
So Verbeek will arrive for his date in north-east England this week to see where Viduka's heart truly lies with the Socceroos.
Faced with confronting his future face-to-face, bets are on Viduka calling it quits.
That would be another disappointment in a career that promised so much but, ultimately, failed to deliver.
What's our greatest memory of Viduka in a Socceroo shirt?
Missing a penalty in the 2005 shoot-out against Uruguay?
Missing a header four years earlier in Montevideo that would have changed that game?
Being only one of two players to captain Australia at the World Cup Finals?
Viduka has more to give.
The challenge for Pim Verbeek is explaining that in simple terms to a complicated talent.
- by Matthew Hall at 04:39 AM
- Comments (26)
Australia's Bid for 2011
Football in Asia is all about politics, whether we're ready or not.
We're about to learn this over the next few days as Australia prepares a sudden and dramatic move to host the 2011 Asian Cup and plays China in a World Cup qualifier on Wednesday.
The machinations behind the Asian Cup bid are intriguing especially as Qatar was announced as the next host only last July.
The oil-rich emirate, home to Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hamman, was also the only bidder.
But something is up at AFC's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur and the tournament's organising committee meets on Monday to make a few decisions.
A Qatari pull out is considered so likely that, prudently, AFC has already placed Australia on a stand-by list of alternative hosts.
The situation is so advanced that several Australian state governments - Queensland, NSW, and Victoria - have already agreed in principle to fund guarantees of up to $30 million.
One reason that Australia is so eager to pick up the slack is that hosting the 2011 Asian Cup will be a catapult for its 2018 World Cup bid.
The 2018 host will be announced late in 2011 and if the Asian Cup were to be held in Australia that same year it will take place in January.
That opens a window for FFA to show FIFA executives just what a World Cup in Australia would be like.
These latest developments provide a wrap-around to Australia's upcoming historic World Cup qualifier against China on Wednesday.
Politics is inescapable in sport, even if many prefer to ignore the intricate and complex relationship.
Deposed Thai dictator Thaksin Shinawatra recently returned from exile in the UK to face justice in Thailand.
Somewhat perversely, he was accompanied home by some Manchester City players, employees of the football club he owns in England.
"Thaksin is a good bloke," one player suggested to Thai media.
Forget allegations by an organisation like Human Rights Watch that suggest Shinawatra was a "human rights abuser of the worst kind". If a Manchester City fringe player says his boss is alright then it must be true.
So the Socceroos travel to Kunming at a time when China is hogging headlines over how it deals with unrest in Tibet rather than how its football team will cater for a resurgent Harry Kewell.
Throw in the weapons that China sells to Sudan that are then used for genocide in Darfur - as well as Chinese investment in Sudan's oil industry - and it's fair to say our Wednesday rivals have something of an image problem.
These issues are serious enough to have provoked debate over the merits or otherwise of a boycott of this year's Beijing Olympics although the Australian Olympic Committee and athletes like swimmer Grant Hackett are not entertaining the idea.
Hackett may, unwittingly, have a point in saying a boycott is a waste of time.
While the Chinese government expels pesky foreign journalists from Tibet and America's FBI investigates alleged cyber sabotage against websites attempting to publicise the Chinese government's crackdown in Tibet, sports events like World Cup qualifiers and the Olympics help draw attention to broader, more serious, and complex issues.
Multinational and multimillion dollar sponsors are now forced to recognise that controversial politics and sport do mix and it's not always a pleasant cocktail.
Olympic sponsors like Coca-Cola and McDonalds believe an oppressive Chinese government is an issue for government not corporations but apparel giant Adidas recently released a statement that it was concerned about violence in Tibet and would continue to monitor news on Darfur.
That means very little in reality but the radar is turned on even if a commercial boycott of the Olympics is not on the agenda.
"We should, however, not lose sight of the fact that the Olympics is being held to celebrate sports," added the Adidas statement.
That may well be true but games like Australia's World Cup qualifier against China also has wider context than whether Harry Kewell will get 90 minutes or Michael Beauchamp will start alongside Lucas Neill.
It's part of being involved in the so-called "world game" and why football will play a key role in Australia's international business and political interests, now and for a long time into the future.
More information:
Dream For Darfur (not suitable for the Chinese government)
Save Darfur
(Alleged target of Chinese cyber sabotage)
Think of panda bears when you read about Tibet...
- by Matthew Hall at 04:58 AM
- Comments (13)
Are The English The Best?
Numbers, apparently, don't lie.
The draw for the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League tossed four teams from England into the bowl.
That means four of Europe's best eight teams are English, or at least play in the English Premier League, or perhaps, have their training and corporate headquarters in England.
The multi-cultural, pan-European, globalised, nature of the top Premier League clubs makes it difficult to define just what an "English" club is in 2008.
You could successfully argue, to a certain point, that Wigan is an English club.
They are owned by a very successful English businessman, are managed by Englishman Steve Bruce, and are located in a quintessential English town.
But then things get confusing when their teamsheets list players from Honduras, Ecuador, Holland, and Morocco.
But England's proud representatives in the Champions League are even more complicated jigsaw puzzles.
Liverpool is a club owned by Americans, coached by a Spaniard, whose best player comes from Madrid. Iconic club talisman and captain Steven Gerrard is a local. So the Kop can celebrate that.
Manchester United is owned by an American, managed by a Scot, and its best player is from Portugal.
The team's spine - Rio Ferdinand, Owen Hargreaves, and Wayne Rooney - includes several starters for the England national team. Although Hargreaves was born and raised in Canada and spent his adult life in Germany.
Chelsea are owned by a Russian, managed by an Israeli, and include players from the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Germany in its favoured line up.
A pattern is developing here - Chelsea's captain is not only English but from West London.
Arsenal is a public company owned by shares but regularly linked with an international buy-out. Its manager is French. So are many of its players. So many, in fact, that an English player is rarely seen on its pitch in a stadium named after an airline from Dubai.
None of this is necessarily a bad thing. It is reflective of modern day Europe where the European Community has broken down borders, promoted trade, and as in all fields, a highly-paid, highly-skilled, workforce comes form all corners of the world.
Look around the offices of the world's top companies and whether they are located in Dubbo or Delhi, it will be staffed by the best people available, whether they're locals or not.
But with an international make-up, and foreign coaches, do these teams play an English style?
Is there an "English" style anyway?
Is it cliched tough kick-and-rush? Watching the so-called Championship, England's second division where English coaches and player are more prominent, the answer would be yes.
But does Liverpool, coached by a Spaniard, play an English style? No.
Does Manchester United, coached by Scot Alex Ferguson? No.
Is it even an English style? No.
Is the current Chelsea team, raised by a Portuguese genius and under development from an Israeli, playing an English style?
Arsenal? They play a French style, right?
Does it even matter?
The point is (and there is one), while national teams do retain characteristics of their national identity (which is an entirely different subject), club football is very different.
Yes, four English sides are among the top eight football clubs in Europe but England's domestic league is a very different place to what it was 20, 10, even five years ago.
Just like your own your street is located in your own city and in your own suburb.
But it's the people who live in its houses, with their own stories, experiences, and way of doing things, that give it character, individuality, and make it what it is.
And that is what makes it interesting. English or not.
Champions League quarter-final draw for those who are interested:
Arsenal v Liverpool (France v Spain)
Manchester United v Roma (Scotland, Portugal, Argentina, and England v Rome)
Chelsea v Fenerbahce (Israel v Turkey, or it is Brazil?)
Barcelona v Schalke (Catalonia v Germany!)
- by Matthew Hall at 02:31 AM
- Comments (32)
Is Sydney Ripe For a Second A-League Team?
How deep is your love?
That was a question Bee Gee Barry Gibb asked back in 1977, a song on the soundtrack to that year's big movie, Saturday Night Fever.
The iconic disco film starred John Travolta, an occasional Socceroo fan, or at least a guy who gets access to the dressing room whenever Australia qualifies for a World Cup.
(Bear with me, here. I promise I'm going somewhere with this).
For those that missed it, 1977 was the year of punk rock and Fleetwood Mac, Jimmy Carter was US President, Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister, John Howard was Treasurer (aged 38), and the Centenary cricket Test between Australia and England filled the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Elvis died, the first Commodore computer was sold, someone thought something called an 'internet' might actually work, Shakira and Kanye West were born and so too was Thierry Henry.
It was also the first year of the National Soccer League, Australia's first-ever national football competition.
(Yes, that includes Australian rules, rugby league, and rugby union).
The competition was a somewhat exotic-sounding mish-mash of teams from Australia's south and east.
Let's roll them out...
Canberra City (coached by Johnny Warren).
West Adelaide (with John Kosmina up front).
St George.
Footscray JUST (the 'Just' had something to do with Serbia, I forget what).
Sydney Olympic.
South Melbourne.
Adelaide City.
Brisbane Lions.
Brisbane City.
Marconi-Fairfield.
Western Suburbs (with former Socceroo captain Peter Wilson in defence).
Fitzroy United.
Eastern Suburbs Hakoah.
Mooroolbark
Basic maths shows us the fledgling league had two teams from Brisbane, two from Adelaide, one from Canberra, four from Melbourne and FIVE from Sydney.
Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Far North did not exist.
It was an inspired idea, a competition that reflected its time and, in retrospect, totally unworkable.
Official records show 1000 people showed up to the Sydney Sports Ground to see Western Suburbs smash Mooroolbark 5-0.
The biggest crowd on opening weekend was the neatly rounded 7460 that turned up at Olympic Park in Melbourne as Frank Lowy's beloved Hakoah beat Fitzroy 3-1.
Despite cosmetic changes the make-up of the NSL had not changed too much for its final season back in 2004.
Sydney still had five teams in the league. Stand up Marconi, Sydney United, Parramatta Power, Northern Spirit, and Sydney Olympic.
During that final sleepy season, crowds struggled to top 3000.
But, again, in the inspired modern era of the one-team, one-city, very popular A-League the one feature of the old competition that stands out is that Sydney had five teams.
Three of them west of Parramatta.
Type that again: five teams.
None of which, it should be remembered, were able to reach out beyond their grass roots community with the very brief exception of Northern Spirit, a gorgeous model that quickly revealed itself as vacuously based on nothing at all of substance.
She was hot. Then she spoke. And was gone.
More recently, A-League expansion plans have seen Townsville and the Gold Coast mooted as the likely location for new teams, although the intriguing withdrawal last week of the North Queensland club's major financial backer seems to have pressed the pause button on that idea.
The financial details of the Townsville bid were leaked last week and circulated among local football insiders over the past few days.
The business model explained that, with expenditure projected at over $7 million per season, Townsville planned to lose $2 million in its first year and only hit a small profit by Year Five of its existence.
Player salaries sucked up close to half its operating budget but, importantly, the model also did not figure on any income from potentially lucrative player transfers.
Note to A-League clubs: develop young players and sell them for profit.
In somewhat disheartening news for journalists, only $6000 for the entire season was allocated for media catering and not a single dollar would be spent on media functions.
Note to Townsville: Stop this madness NOW.
Establishing regional franchises is one area where the A-League has to be very smart, especially in a country where vast geography and limited local economics play havoc with expansion plans.
Central Coast has been a slow success, even if it can be argued that the team will one day be representing the northern reaches of Sydney (that is probably the point).
At the A-League's inception, the one team-one city concept was genius and common sense but as the competition develops organically can Sydney sustain a second team?
That is one question that is bouncing around the walls of the A-League - and Frank Lowy's - headquarters.
The supposed glitz and glamour of Sydney FC's first season has well and truly worn off but does the club, by virtue of its location, maintain an eastern suburbs aura and all the baggage, deserved or not, that carries?
Football support is based on tribalism and one question that has yet to be asked as the A-League grows is whether single city teams reach out and connect with everyone.
Do people west of Parramatta feel an emotional connection with the boys in blue?
Would sponsors back a second team?
Would Sydney lose fans or is the West, South, or even North ripe for new ones?
Can Sydney ever be a global football city like Madrid, London, Milan, Rome, or Rio de Janeiro?
Today, Barry Gibb and the Bee Gees might seem like dinosaurs from another universe but what happened back then does have relevance to today.
The days of five Sydney teams in a national competition are implausible today but would cross-town rivalry show that football in Australia has truly come of age?
- by Matthew Hall at 05:41 AM
- Comments (32)
Theory and Reality
Danny did a bad, bad, thing.
There can be no argument that Danny Vukovic was wrong - very wrong - to high five, slap, strike, assault, whatever, referee Mark Shield in the dying seconds of last weekend's Grand Final.
There's also no argument that Vukovic is a great talent with, potentially, a big future ahead of him.
Perceived injustice on the football field is a very emotive experience.
My old futsal teammates enjoy perverse pleasure in reminiscing about the time I combined two ineloquent words and hurled them toward a referee.
Mix in some frustration (our team was probably getting smashed) and we had a volatile cocktail.
Privately, I stand by my description of the ref's character and performance to this day. But that's the point. My thoughts should have stayed private.
All that matters in public is that I swore at a referee and copped an eight-week ban.
Eight weeks?!
@#^&$)**&@!!!!
That incident occurred in front of about 15 spectators deep within echoing halls of Sydney University.
I can only imagine what it would be like to be involved in a similar situation in front of a packed Sydney Football Stadium (with the Prime Minister in attendance) and a huge television audience.
But here's the deal. The referee, whether or not he or she is a total $#@&, is working a very difficult job under intense pressure and scrutiny.
In late breaking news, they are human and make errors.
But in the Football 101 course that most of us took, touching a referee, never mind striking one, should never, ever, happen.
Everything that occurred during 18 seconds of madness in the Grand Final is now indisputable.
Tom Pondeljak took a corner.
The ball hit James Holland's arm.
Mark Shield missed it.
Mariners players appealed.
Shield checked with his assistant, who also didn't see it.
Players, Vukovic and Sasha Petrovski among them, surrounded Shield.
Vukovic smacked Shield.
Shield showed Vukovic a red card.
The goalkeeper, it can be argued, got what he deserved and the subsequent nine month ban, plus six months probation is in line with similar offences.
Isn't it?
This is where it gets interesting.
That's frustrated Newcastle Jets star Joel Griffiths smacking an assistant referee in the knackers just last October. In a match against (you couldn't make it up) Central Coast Mariners.
Was that incident worse than Vukovic's blow up?
Probably.
Griffiths absurdly (even he would admit) received a yellow card. That was it. Nothing more.
As recent history shows, SuperJoel went on to lead the Jets to the A-League title and, last week, was voted A-League Player of the Year.
There are several very red faces at Football Federation Australia over that.
The issue is that referee Mark Shield dealt with Vukovic appropriately.
Matthew Breeze, in charge of the Griffiths game, did not.
And so we go around in circles.
Who would have guessed that Griffithgate would slap FFA in the face just four months later? Actually, a lot of people. Especially referees.
For an organisation that's usually forensic in anticipating all potential outcomes of a situation, the flip and flop between Griffiths and Vukovic is very uncomfortable.
Here's a quick quiz.
Was Vukovic's action any worse than these incidents?
Dynamo Moscow goalkeeper Sergei Ovchinnikov loses it in the Moscow derby.
Ionel Ganea, of Politehnica Timosoara goes loco in Romania (22 match suspension!).
Paolo Di Canio, in one of the Premier League's most infamous incidents.
The answer is no. But it was no better, either.
In theory, Griffiths should have been banned (he wasn't because it was claimed the incident was dealt with during the match, however inadequately).
Reality was very different.
In theory, Vukovic should be dealt with as equally as Griffiths.
Reality will be very different.
While FFA figures how to play this out, here's advice for everyone.
Referees make mistakes.
Injustice happens.
Yes, people in authority can be total %$#@s.
Things don't always go to plan nor the way you want them to.
You can't always get what you want.
Reality, and life, is like that.
Welcome to the world.
- by Matthew Hall at 04:45 AM
- Comments (31)
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