The Sun-Herald

Friday, February 27, 2009

25 Random Things About A-League Season Four

The past season in review, Facebook style.

1. One thing we know for sure: Craig Moore has big balls after beating cancer and then pulling on the boots a few weeks - nay, days - after an operation.

2. Moore is the only Socceroo returnee to really prosper on his return to Australia from Europe. Oddly, many of the rest have floundered.

3. But Moore was lucky - very lucky - to not cop a greater punishment for shoulda-known-better betting on A-League matches.

4. John Aloisi could not hit a barn door all season unless, maybe, Sydney chairman Andrew Kemeny or coach John Kosmina were lined up in front of it.

5. Kemeny and Kosmina were both keen to push Aloisi out of Sydney. Ironically, or maybe not, it's those two who are now history - Aloisi is staying.

6. Kemeny was named and shamed by player agent Leo Karis, who called out the Sydney boss for his misleading comments on Sydney's recruitment strategy.

7. All this happened on Frank Lowy's watch but - he too - quit the club, selling out to Russian David Traktovenko - in turn prompting celebrity investor Anthony LaPaglia to buy back in. Are you reading soap opera scriptwriters?

8. Does anyone know what Traktovenko looks like?

9. Traktovenko's first decisive move was to fire Kosmina and hire Czech coach Vitezslav Lavicka - he will be the club's fifth in as many seasons.

10. Lavicka has zero profile in Australia. This is probably a good thing. No one noticed when he flew into Sydney, watched a game at the SFS, signed a deal, and had a promotional photo snapped at the SFS - all weeks before Kosmina was fired.

11. You've got to admit - that's amusing.

12. Meanwhile, up the F1, Newcastle Jets went from best to worst in 21 weeks. That must be some sort of record.

13. Perhaps in tribute to ancient Rome, Jets owner Con Constantine entertained the masses by threatening to throw fans protesting the team's decline off the balcony of his private box during a match.

14. And got away with it!

15. Central Coast Mariners. So close. So far. Sigh. Again!

16. Mark Bosnich made his professional comeback after years of personal problems. Who would have guessed his return to the "top" would be at a park by the sea in Gosford?

17. Australia's qualification campaign for the 2011 Asian Cup will be undertaken entirely by A-league players - which is great for the local league.

18. Except for the small point that Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek doesn't rate the local league at all

19. Does that say more about the Asian Cup, the A-League, or Pim Verbeek?

20. A South Coast bid for an A-league team hitched its wagon to Socceroo Tim Cahill.

21. Cahill's good friend Lucas Neill hitched himself to a rival Western Sydney bid.

22. Adelaide United are officially the second-best team in Asia. Even after losing 100-0 to Gamba Osaka in the Final. And 163-0 to Melbourne Victory in the A-League play-off.

23. We did learn, however, that Adelaide is a "pissant town", according to United coach Aurelio Vidmar.

24. The A-League trophy still looks like a toilet seat. Sorry. But it does.

25. And we'll do all this again later this year.

• by Matthew Hall at 10:08 AM
• Comments (4)

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Much Ado About Nothing

Pim Verbeek's words have exposed Australia's insecurity.

Which is kind of ironic when you consider that on the pitch, the Socceroos coach has built a seemingly impenetrable defensive wall to set up qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

But Verbeek's opinion that the A-League is not up to a standard required to incubate the best players for a competitive national team has not go down well.

The latest chapter in Verbeek's straight-talk stance was written after he attended a coaching conference last week to suggest Jason Culina's return to Australia is not the greatest move for the player's international ambition.

Verbeek later repeated his comments to media outside the conference, after which his assistant Graham Arnold quietly told him that he "shouldn't have said that about the A-League."

Arnold knows Australian football, the Australian media, and Australian fans like no other. So he knew that Verbeek had just made life a little difficult for himself.

True to form, the meat pie cheer squad was up in arms. To the tune of Waltzing Matilda and fading strains of (God help us) Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!, everyone from club owners to journalists to posters on internet discussion boards were outraged that Verbeek is not a propagandist for the A-League.

Guess what? Verbeek is right.

The standard in Australia is not as good as good as in Europe. Tick.

A player benefits his international chances by playing in an elite European league. Tick.

Jason Culina faces big, but not insurmountable, mental and physical challenges if he wants to maintain elite level while playing in the A-League. Tick.

I know this because I've seen it first hand. I've attended PSV training sessions and watched the intensity that players, competing for a place on a team sheet, must reach while performing even mundane drills.

One player at a specific training session was way off the pace, however. His name? Archie Thompson, who had just recently burned up the A-League as one of Australia's best home-based players at the time.

Thompson never got a look in at PSV even though he was the A-League's best. What do you know? Even Thompson is now considering returning to Europe to better improve his chances to be included for South Africa next year.

Supporters of home-based Aussie talent point to warhorse Craig Moore as an example of an A-League success story. They stubbornly overlook a few reasons Moore still gets the call.

Ignoring that these days it would be tough for Moore to command a first team place with a top European club, quite simply there are no other defensive options for Verbeek to consider.

So selecting an older, wily, defender against Asian opponents is one thing. Putting him into a 2010 World Cup cauldron in South Africa might be another.

Late last year, Verbeek sat down with FFA Chairman Frank Lowy and Chief Executive Ben Buckley. Verbeek was asked to turn down his A-League blowtorch. Interestingly, that hasn't happened.

Maybe more tellingly, in a week when FFA's Truth Police fined Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar for telling it like it is about his home city and club, Verbeek's A-League comments go unsanctioned.

But telling Verbeek to shut up won't help football's local development. It is not going to turn A-League players into seasoned internationals.

Australian football shouldn't be afraid to face reality. Australian football shouldn't think that it's better than it really is.

Remember the last time that happened? The Asian Cup in 2007. And we all know what happened then.

Pim Verbeek got hired.

• by Matthew Hall at 02:07 AM
• Comments (32)

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Pim Verbeek: Radical Conservative

I had a dream. Unfortunately, it was not very Martin Luther King-ish.

I awoke the day of last week's Australia-Japan World Cup qualifier in a confused state (that's not the unusual part) having dreamed of Pim Verbeek (that's not the most disturbing part).

What was slightly more alarming was that I had also dreamed of Zeljko Kalac, the gangling former occasional Socceroo goalkeeper who is now the occasional AC Milan goalkeeper.

Verbeek, in my dream, had selected Kalac to play against Japan. But not in goal. He had recalled the now internationally-retired Kalac to play alone up front as a striker.

In my dream, Verbeek's reasoning was sound. Kalac stands at over two metres tall. He knows what a ball is. He knows where a goal is (most of the time).

The selection and presence of a giant semi-retired goalkeeper running around as a makeshift sole striker would shock, baffle, and confuse the opposition.

Australia would not lose, South Africa here we come.

Thankfully, I quickly realised this was just a dream. But, as it turned out, this was a dream that was part prophecy.

Forget Total Football as a tactic, Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek may have invented Radical Conservatism.

Total Football was invented and best executed by Dutch teams in the early 1970s. The idea is that versatility is the key, every player must play every nominal position, and the machine comes before the man.

The basic idea was, and is, used by Guus Hiddink and we saw Australia employ an adaptation of it at the 2006 World Cup where athleticism and adaptability was favoured in team selection (see Brett Emerton used at times a central defender and Luke Wilkshire played at any position that required filling).

Verbeek has grabbed Total Football by the neck and squeeezed it tight to take Australia another step.

His priority during the current World Cup campaign is that Australia does not lose a match. It's simple: within a traditional mini-league system, if Australia does not lose then it will qualify (this is unlike 1997 when Australia did not lose a qualifying match but still did not qualify because of play-offs and away goals).

Caution comes first. Extreme caution. Absolute extreme caution.

Radical absolute extreme caution demonstrated by not playing a recognised striker last year against China (it worked, even if that required a last-minute penalty save) and against Japan where Cahill, traditionally a box-to-box midfielder, is used as a lone striker.

Every player is a defender, first and foremost.

Verbeek ignores traditional football thinking to avoid defeat.

Radical? Absolutely.

Conservative? Definitely.

Successful? Australia is in a position to be the first team to qualify for 2010.

Who can argue?

Hello?

Hello?

• by Matthew Hall at 03:28 AM
• Comments (18)

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Beckham: For The Good of the Game?

The circus has left town.

That's certainly one way to look at the end of David Beckham's affair with Los Angeles Galaxy.

"The main thing for me is to improve the soccer, to improve the standard, and to be part of history really, because I think soccer can be a lot bigger in the US."

Those were Beckham's inspirational words in January, 2007, as he signed a contract with the American club for US$25 million a season.

Two years later, after things didn't go so well, the shine is off, and the marketing buzz an empty vacuum of silence, Beckham is in the arms of another.

"My intention is to stay in Milan, and I hope that can happen," Beckham said last week.

What about improving soccer, David?

What about being part of history?

What about improving the standard and profile of the sport in the United States?

And who will think of the children?! (I'm joking here - sort of).

But don't worry - Beckham's "people" - his vast machine of managers, lawyers, and PR spinners - are sorting all that out. We know this because David told us so himself that this was now "out of his hands" and someone or other was talking to somebody else in Los Angeles.

As it turned out, Beckham's stint in the US was a disaster for everything except his bank balance and a few cheap thrills. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Beckham signed a five-year contract with the Galaxy in 2007 that pays him $6.5 million a year. The rest of his reported $25 million a year deal is made up in endorsements and this is where the Milan move has become complicated.

He's at Milan "on loan" during the US off-season. Under terms of the agreement, he is due to return to Los Angeles on March 9. But he won't go back.

This is maybe not a bad thing for the American team. During Beckham's time in Los Angeles, Galaxy went from a team challenging for the Major League Soccer title to the worst team in the country - in 24 months. Oh, and went through three coaches, too.

In his first season with the club he made just two starts and his return from injury was hyped as a television event (possibly more popular than his wife's attempt at a US reality TV series).

No one begrudges Beckham's move to Milan. Who wouldn't perform circus tricks to play at such a club? Many of us would perform circus tricks to join any club.

Just don't lie to us.

In July, 2007, when he arrived in Los Angeles, Beckham said: "Ever since I signed for the Galaxy, people have questioned why I have come to America but every move I've made in my career has been about football for me.

"It's also about being an ambassador for the game here and, hopefully, it is going to encourage other players to come to the States and be part of this because soccer in America can become much bigger.

"That's why I'm here. I want to be part of the growth of the game in the States."

But as the Los Angeles Time suggested: "So what did he accomplish in 18 months? Thirty games played for the Galaxy. Five goals scored. A lot of squealing female fans. A lot of Galaxy jerseys sold. A few more fans in seats. A bit of media buzz."

Off the pitch, according to some observers, the Beckhams (that's He and Her) flopped too.

"Nobody gives a s*** about them in the US," Frank Griffin, of the paparazzi agency Bauer-Griffin, told The Guardian. "It's just a big yawn, quite honestly. I think the reason he came to America was that she [Victoria] wanted to become a personality here but she was never going to make it. And he'll never make it. He could never be a success on the talk shows because of his voice."

The LA Times also mooted that Galaxy should play hardball with Milan. If the Italian club wants Beckham they can send something in return as well as money.

Maybe under-used Andriy Shevchenko. Or how about Ronaldinho?

Or maybe a performing seal.

• by Matthew Hall at 01:57 AM
• Comments (30)