John Davidson@johnnyddavidsonThursday 18 May 2017 06.00 AESTLast modified on Thursday 18 May 2017 09.12 AESTF


In the fourth part of Guardian Australia’s post-season series, John Davidson finds that with the passing of the ‘golden generation’ Australian football’s production line is struggling to keep pace with the success of the past.
Football is, according to the old commentator’s cliché, a game of two halves. Considering the state of football in Australia at the moment, this seems particularly apt: on the one hand, the game appears to be flying – the Socceroos are reigning Asian champions, more people are playing the sport than ever before at grassroots level and the A-League’s future is assured thanks to a new TV deal – but scratch beneath the surface, and it’s clear Football Federation Australia faces myriad problems.One of those, a deep issue underpinning many others, is the question of where all the great players have gone. Where will the next Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka come from? Australia’s pipeline of quality football talent has begun to dry up.Many have started to ask questions as a perfect storm develops over just how young players are developed in this country. Failures at youth international level, where Australia used to excel, are causing alarm.

The Olyroos have not qualified for an Olympics since 2008 and the Joeys and Young Socceroos both failed to qualify for their respective World Cups this year.Few exciting youngsters are emerging in an A-League dominated by veterans and foreigners. Australians plying their trade regularly in the best European leagues are now rare. Ange Postecoglou might have taken the Socceroos to bold new heights under his tenure, but he has largely done it with a pool of players inferior to those enjoyed by his predecessors.Capping it off is the controversial decision by FFA to close down Canberra’s Centre of Excellence (COE), formerly the AIS’s football program. This was the program that helped produce Viduka, Ned Zelic, Craig Moore and many of Australia’s finest footballers. For more than three decades it was the finishing school for the best and brightest 16, 17 and 18-year olds in the land.

The decision sparked anger from within the football community. Ron Smith spent 14 years with the program, as assistant and then head coach, and to him FFA’s reasons for the closure – to put A-League, W-League and National Premier League clubs at the heart of player development and better use its resources – are valid.“Times have changed, the program is not what it used to be,” believes Smith, who now runs his own football consultancy. “Also a number of kids these days choose not to go there. When you look at the cold hard facts you can understand why the decision was made. The whole horizon has changed and the interesting thing for me is what’s going to be put in its place.”Opponents of the closure argue that A-League clubs are not yet ready to take up the slack. Not all have their own academies and those that do are some time away from replicating the standards of the COE. They continue to bleed money and their focus, understandably, is on financial survival and first-team results as opposed to youth development.

Part of the problem remains that Australian kids do not play or train enough year round compared to their peers in other parts of the world. “The ‘golden generation’ will tell you they spent so many hours practicing on their own or with a mate, or whatever they did was football-based,” Smith says. “They didn’t have iPads, tablets, the internet. They’re recent innovations that now kids have to decide, ‘what do I do?’ There’s a major competition for time and interest in developing players.”

Smith pinpoints the end of the NSL in 2004 and the introduction of the A-League as the turning point in the crippling of Australia’s production line. The dismantling of the National Youth League, which was re-introduced in a limited form in 2008, and the disenfranchising of NSL clubs meant less opportunity for youngsters.

“We’ll never be competitive at a serious level with people that only train and play six months of the year, we’ve got to change that,” the 67-year old says. “If you think from 1989 to 2005 when we qualified for the World Cup and that generation of players, it was after introducing summer football and opportunity for kids to train and play all year around. And then we took it away and we haven’t replaced it.”

Australia is now paying the price for this colossal change. Ignoring player development for so long has left us in a situation where players like Tom Rogic and Aaron Mooy are rare diamonds. Another factor has been the alienation of many successful coaches from the old school – those from the NSL days who didn’t fit into FFA’s breakaway of “new football”. They include Steve O’Connor, Les Scheinflug and Raul Blanco, with many years of vital experience thrown away.

Former A-League player Zenon Caravella, who now runs his own academy in north Queenlsand, believes skill acquisition in Australia starts at too late an age, as good habits needed to installed as early as possible. “It starts younger than what most people think,” he says. “It’s very difficult to change at 12. At 13, 14 if you’re still doing things that aren’t right technically, then you’re behind the eight-ball. It’s very difficult to change at that age.”The introduction of the national curriculum and its impact is another thorny talking point. The curriculum was only introduced in 2009, with a second edition released in 2013. The jury is still out on what influence it has had. Perhaps the bigger problem with the curriculum is the way in which some coaches rely on it as the be-all and end-all of football.Smith believes many junior coaches take the curriculum too literally. “The danger is you teach players a system rather than teach players how to play football,” he says. “Experienced people will able to say, ‘OK I understand all the rationale of playing a 4-3-3’, but we still have to teach people how to play football. To some degree that has been missed by a lot of coaches who don’t have that much experience so they’ve come system-based, as opposed to player-based.”Caravella agrees, and points to what he has seen in regional areas. “For the people with no experience in the game that look at it and say this is what it says, so this is what I have to do. The only view they have is this book. When these people read it they regurgitate it exactly as it is in the textbook. In reality it’s just a template.“But these people take it so literally. For me that’s not right. I think it can become dangerous when you produce a player that’s not free-thinking. It hampers the player’s ability to find other solutions or different scenarios in a game that they can adapt to.”There is no straight-forward solution to Australia’s development dilemma, no magic switch to start churning out the next generation of Kewells and Cahills. Problems such as the amount of training and competitive football being played, and the move away from serious to “fun” games for juniors, along with the process of talent identification, parent education and the grassroots interpretation of the national curriculum all need fixing.

But some issues are not easily resolved. Australia has unique challenges when it comes to its geography and population spread. What works in Holland, Germany, Uruguay or Italy won’t necessarily work here. Solving the infrastructure puzzle is a huge part of the predicament. At the end of the day young players need opportunity to develop and thrive.

“The problem is we have a massive country and you don’t know where the talent is going to pop up,” Smith says. “You can’t just say it’s OK to do this overseas when you can fit some of these countries into Australia 50 times. That’s the reality. Small sometimes is great when it comes to providing opportunity and seeing things and getting things done at minimum cost. In this country it’s a massive cost. Without opportunity, people just don’t get better.”

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/may/18/where-are-all-the-great-players-australia-paying-price-for-ignoring-development

Another great piece from the Guardian and from the author.

Although some of the comments below are daft to say at least.

Key point missing from the analysis is that NSL teams were actual clubs with proper junior set-ups with kids from 5 through to U18s part of the club so pathways were much clearer and development and promotion of juniors was inherent. Unfortunately HAL Teams are franchise businesses focused on profit (or more commonly minimizing losses) and results and hence why youth are not given a chance. 

Case in point, Victory (who is most profitable of all HAL Teams) and City (who has the deepest pockets) still don't have Junior Academy set ups in Melbourne. Rumor has it both will enter only 3 teams into the 2018 Vic NPL comp (U14, U16 & U18) just so they can meet minimum ACL requirements. 

Little wonder that youth development has stalled with HAL.

We still view juniors as a cost rather than an investment. It is particular so when we don't allow for a proper transfer fee system in Australia, then of course it will be a cost. We used to have a transfer system in Australia once before and we can do it again. If clubs really want to buy a contracted player they will, that includes well developed junior players. 

yep Barca, another good rounded article.
Not daft much imo - pretty much agree on most what he said.
Especially on this " Perhaps the bigger problem with the curriculum is the way in which some coaches rely on it as the be-all and end-all of football.Smith believes many junior coaches take the curriculum too literally. “The danger is you teach players a system rather than teach players how to play football,” he says. “Experienced people will able to say, ‘OK I understand all the rationale of playing a 4-3-3’, but we still have to teach people how to play football. To some degree that has been missed by a lot of coaches who don’t have that much experience so they’ve come system-based, as opposed to player-based."

I see the above first hand the last 5yrs. A coach I observe is so committed to the cause that he's choking his sqauds "real" capabilities week in week out.
It sickens me.

How many more threads are we going to keep seeing similar, its sad.

Agree it's frustrating we still talking about our woes in youth development I wonder how long it will keep continuing to go. Where are the FFA plans apart from their beloved curriculum and getting rid of its COE???  To think they are relying on that for us to produce top class players again is delusional at best.
The silence at Whitlam Square is deafening it's time they acted.

In Germany they hit a point where they weren't seeing top class produced anymore and for them, they realised they had a problem and acted in 2001 with DFB and the Bundesliga clubs came together to create a plan to become a world leader again which we know the end result in them winning the world cup in 2014.
When will our moment come for something like this to happen? It's time the FFA worked together with its stakeholders and create a plan for us to invest and eventually produce the next Kewell's, Vikduka's....

All the parts of this article that relate to the standard of coaching is aimed fair square at your decentric types.

Closed minded, zealot, book learnt teachers with next to no experience at any decent level.

As the article says the curriculum is a starting point not a template.

Look, funnily I did have Decentric in mind whilst doing my post above.
The way I look at it without knowing anyone here but having the common passion for our Football at grass roots to NT level etc he's doing his job and the directive given just as the countless other Coaches around the country and as the one I talked of BUT its not their fault entirely unless they are in HIGH position to question.
People like D have to toe the line its the Fish's Head's that is the main cause right.

There has been a number of these articles in the Guardian this week and while there are a lot of words, I don't think there has been any information I don't already know. I've felt like I'm reading FFT threads turned into essay format.

We need to play more football simple. 6 months a year is silly and completly inadequate. Kids in the SAP may play more but we need deeper talent pools so more people playing it more times in the year is what is required. This comes down to affordability.

Sure but these are articles on a mainstream news website, can you imagine the Daily Telegraph or SMH printing them?

There is something I've seen recently is that we are starting to get the kids training year round, the only problem I see some people believe it's turned into a cash cow where almost every NPL now has a SAP licence and almost every kid no matter how talented he is if he has the cash can play in the SAP team when i remember it used to be 1 per state called Skillaroos which was Han Berger's plan, but then the skeptics called it too elite and now they think it's diluting the quality by how everyone has a SAP licence? Talk about double standards....

I remember when indoor was the summer soccer sport as a child

If we want to get better we simply need more people playing over a longer season. Reduce the participation costs and watch the professionalplayer base grow. That is real investment.

If we had froeign investment that invested in youth the vosts wont matter as if the investor is a big company thats rivh
Look at rb lepzeig
A-league expansion of teams and fixtures, its way to short and theres only 10 teams limiting the opportunity of youth
The salary cap must go with transfer restrictions to stop teams from going under as a result of overspending (if your stupid enough to do so)
Lower prices for attendences
Build our own actual football stadiums so we stop relying on nfl/afl stadiums (less prioirty)
Set up youth academies

Because money is not a finite resource all clubs and government don't have to worry about.

I agree that Australia can learn a lot from the Germans. And Australia can produce those highly gifted footballers akin to those from Japan and South Korea, whose highlights you linked on another thread. There's not really the environment for it to happen consistently. But if Australia flukes a few such brilliant footballers and then has some success in football, then that culture may develop.

But it's a bit tricky to think of the German situation as quite analogous to Australia's (although I realise you're not quite saying that). In Germany, football is the most popular sport by a country mile. Germany had already won multiple World Cups. Football is part of the fabric of German society. In Australia, it's nowhere near as popular. Germany rejigging its football system a decade and a half or so ago is more akin to Australia having massive problems in cricket and overhauling the system and becoming the best in the world again.

Primary school age kids should be playing 40-50 games of futsal on top of the 30-40 outdoor games for a few years and that will produce the players.
As for Ron Knee from AIS , seen him coach twice in Brisbane and he comes across in his sessions as a  hapless buffoon.

@hames
Melbourne city are technically backed by a billionare
We are Australia, the home of sport with spectacular stadiums, places, and we are a top country. I'm sure some mega rich people could be intrested

The point that I use with the Germany example is at least with them it something triggered them to realise they had a problem i.e for them was Euro 2000 disaster where they finished dead last in their group containing England and Portugal(i think) and in 2001 they came together and took action.

Which got me thinking what will need to happen here in Oz for something to trigger change also? Who knows what could it be there must be a time for once all stakeholders in the game from the FFA, State feds, a-league and NPL clubs to wake up and realise we are in trouble if we don't get our act as a collective.
Which is why everyone needs to come to the table and create a plan where the goal is to produce top class players again.

The problem is whatever the FFA do to try and fix the whole problem there is resistance to change when we need everyone working together and working towards a common goal and yes its helps a lot when football is the number one sport like in Germany but it's a similar theme something needs to trigger something for us to because right now with the bickering that is happening at Oz football at all levels we are going backwards again.

I'll make one more comment because this is off-topic, what happens on all the other weeks where's no sport being played? You think revenue from 13 home games is enough to cover annual stadium costs?

Just because there might be some mega rich people doesn't mean they would want to embark on something like a black hole.

What do u mean what happens on all the other weeks where's no sport being played? You think revenue from 13 home games is enough to cover annual stadium costs?
If theres an a-league game being played im sure it will be more than the crowd fees if its not their stadium

Exactly.
I feel like missing out on a world cup might be enough to get an inquest started, but that's a level of pain I hope we don't have to reach to get to that point.

What bemuses me the most about our youth development situation is that having an actual quality youth development system is one of the things that is conducive in the long run for the FFA's goals, yet for some reason we haven't got it right yet.
The FFA want to make football as a sport on the same level as Rugby/Aussie Rules/Cricket, and also want to have the A-League be a competition full of flashy star-studded players, yet they're ignoring an obvious route to that goal: produce our own exceptional players that can start their careers in Australia and then return at a later age as a superstar (ala Tim Cahill). Who needs over-the-hill foreign marquees when we can bring back Aussie superstars like the next Kewell or next Cahill? That's a better path to aspire to. And the other bonus of strong youth development is that the clubs can yield immense profits from farming young talent (like Ajax) and finance themselves with a sustainable system instead of relying on corporate shareholders or handouts from the administrative bodies (a problem that plagues nearly all pro sports teams in this country).

To do all this, we just need to accept that the A-League can't (and SHOULDN'T) ever be some NRL/AFL/NFL/MLB closed franchise conglomerate with a monopoly on the entire sport. We're part of a piece of an interconnected puzzle, one of the gears in a massive machine, the silk of a larger web, a small fish in a big pond, etc. Our role in world football is to have a decent open engaging league that specializes in youth development and makes decent money and a good reputation producing players that can compete at the highest level in the best leagues in Europe where the superstars are, and always will be. We can't attract incredible superstar players, but we do have a shot at producing them.  

Great article
Some major knowledge being dropped by Caravella who talked about how coaches are teaching players a system

How has this happened?
Another factor has been the alienation of many successful coaches from the old school – those from the NSL days who didn’t fit into FFA’s breakaway of “new football”.

Smh... the arguement put forward is that world class players cant be bred for a formulaic system... prob with this is the 2 most successful clubs in the world at youth development (barca and ajax) both follow extremely formulaic systems of youth development. Systems that we are now attempting to replicate. 

I've coached in different roles at times.

1. I operated a soccer school for a few years, where developing individual skill was paramount. The onus was on the development of the individual. Players often had 1500 to 2000 touches in these sessions.

2. When coaching under the auspices of FFA the onus was playing a style within a system to achieve that aim. Nevertheless, a component of those sessions was taken up with skill acquisition, usually taking about 15 - 20 minutes where players had a lot of touches. Some coaches under FFA jurisdiction didn't prioritise these as much as I did.

3. When operating as a club TD both these objectives were the aim.  In younger age groups the onus was on developing the individual's skill.

One thing that has occurred is that a system has been devised  for football development under the auspices of  FFA because Australian players have been considered  inadequate.

The GG has not been considered a world class generation.

The premise for the FFA NC is to develop players who are.

You make some great points here, the way we see it I don't think we will capable of landing big name marquees when our niche or opportunity in marketing sense should be to develop our own stars in that way we have a strong national team but most importantly a strong national league with our own products rather than already made expensive ones from overseas.
The problem i see it is the FFA don't see it that way either thinking it can still sign marquees which are they even left a marquee fund....they think it can do both on its own when that itself is impossible they need to realise there a bigger opportunities in developing their own players whom can be our own stars our fans can relate too and it requires a lot of time and resources to make it happen but it can be a collective from the other stakeholders too.

Maybe we need football people in charge.oh wait the FFA are scared to go back to the old sokkah route :sigh: 

I completely agree. And in particular, the points in bold are what the FFA needs to realise in order to get us where we need to be in the world of football.
Everything the FFA has done over the past few years suggests that they want the A-League to be football's version of the NRL/AFL/BBL. That's not what it should be. Sure there's some excitement in a famous foreign marquee like Del Piero or David Silva coming to our league, but it's not a sustainable future. Having the same number of teams play in a closed system where a roof is put over success eventually becomes tiresome (and that's me speaking personally as an NRL supporter who has been watching for more than 20 years now - and the past 11 years have been preserving the status quo) and right now the FFA aren't utilizing the aspects of international football that can really differentiate themselves from the rest of the sporting market in Australia.

Since the A-League has become so stagnant recently, the thing I actually have the most genuine excitement about is seeing an emerging Australian player show great potential (like Caletti, McGree, etc.) or really put themselves head-and-shoulders above the rest (like Mooy last year). It's great excitement to think that they're moving up to the elite international level in major European leagues, and great to speculate on the prospects for the national team whenever a young player shows good potential. With solid youth development systems in place, this aspect could be enlarged to be a selling point for the A-League. 

Yes well said i think the a-league will benefit a lot more if focuses more on developing young players rather than imposing older players from overseas, it seems like the FFA want to do both but they still don't realise we are disadvantaged by the money from overseas.
Prefer the McGrees, Caletti's over someone like Matt Simon and Marc Warren every time.