Matthew Spiranovic at Hangzhou Greentown, china ...

Even if the A-league improves to be as good as the holy trinity, moves to these leagues will still be important and popular because they expose our players to more clubs, leagues and a better stepping stone to top 5 leagues.

Our aim, I think, should be to saturate these "2nd tier" European leagues and increase the likelihood that some will kick on to a big league.

Yep that'd be good. Still have a long way to go and a 12/14 team league would help us achieve that.

The championship seems so hard to predict which of our guys can get promotion ? Anyone following the league in detail wanna shed some light on this…..

so, lets kill off A-league, and go back to old days where we have 100 Aussie playing lower leagues of Europe

fuck Europe 2nd tier leagues

I'm not sure if you get it. I'm a massive A-league fan. I think the league is underrated.

I'm a bigger socceroos fan. We won't be a major power (if ever) unless we have our players playing in the big 5 leagues. This is more likely to occur if we have more players, developed through the A-league, move to the second tier in Europe, not because those leagues are better, but because they open doors to better leagues. Also, even if the a-league is as good as second tier European leagues, they have more competitions, more matches and more chances at getting into a better league either by being noticed by scouts, getting promoted, or playing well in a cup comp against a team from a higher division.

In time, the A-league's reputation will grow in Europe SLOWLY, so that eventually, players can move from the A-league directly to a top 5 league. But that is way off. Also when a player like Rostyn Griffiths, or Aaron Mooy move to Europe, they open up a precious salary capped spot to another young aussie to take their place.

The A-league is also important for the national team as it provides young players a second chance to rejuvenate their careers.

Check thread title.

check the contents of the discussion...

Aussies Abroad.

what Australia need, is for the A-league to become better then the dutch league, and for all 22 to 24 year old Aussies players who play 50 to 100 A-league games. to move to top 50 euro teams...

if Australia go back to needing it's players to play 3 year in lower table teams of Holland and Belgium, then Australia will never be the best in the world

no country can become top in football, by having weak domestic League, even Brazil and Argentinian League are better then Holland



Edited by adrtho: 26/7/2015 04:49:58 PM

Brillante's getting plenty of preseason minutes but judging by the team lineups it'll probably be another season of working to become useful from the bench.

I agree with you. But even if the a league was better than the Dutch league, European scouts aren't gonna poach a league players for top 50 euro teams for the reasons I've discussed above. Our reputation needs to build slowly. And with guys like jedinak and Ryan making it to the top it will. But in the meantime I'm happy with where we are. Our league is only 10 years old.

So the big five are England, Spain, Germany, Italy and who? France? We really need to start invading france and spain.

Wales produced Bale without a quality league

Yes France is the 5th.

The major reason why there are few Australians in Spain & France is that majority of the clubs in those two leagues look locally first before searching beyond their borders. When I say local, I really mean from their municipality.

For example, Athletic Club Bilbao have a "Basque Only" policy. Olympique Lyonnais source the majority of their players within a 100km radius of Lyon.

The next issue is the language barrier, where teams in France will tend to source internationals from North Africa and Switzerland before most other countries. Spain will look at Sth/Central America & Portugal before other countries.

However, Mat Ryan is a great example of the type of modern player Spanish clubs really appreciate and I could see ball playing centre-backs, attacking wing-backs and dynamic central midfielders really being looked at.

Postecoglu's Socceroo's is doing a great job of changing the reputation that Australian players are only physical & lack the ability to play the 'modern' way.

I think adrtho with his poor english is trying to say that no country can have a top national team with a weak domestic competition. Otherwise there are countless examples such as Wales, and then you have Croatia and Serbia who have horse shit domestic leagues but consistently produce world class footballers. Uruguay have a poor domestic competition but have performed well in the past 5 years. Wales, Croatia, Serbia are not top nations, even though I would kill for the Socceroos to have a squad such as the Croats or Serbs.


Edited by jonomv: 26/7/2015 05:39:52 PM

i know that, but it doesn't mean you rip up your league because the idiots don't see the value , the idiots never see the value 1st...the truth is, Australia reputation will never be good enough in Europe football

Australia need a strong A-league, and the A-league is strong, but i can see A-league slipping back this year big time

and yes we need a strong HAL agree.

if every aussie player in a second teir euro league was in the a league the a league would be as strpng as a second teir euro league and we could export players straight to the big five

Started at Southampton when he was 10. :lol:

I suspect that the production of quality talent from a country has more to do with the country's general interest in the sport rather than the quality of their domestic competition. For example, Wales and Scotland both produce lots of quality players despite not having strong domestic leagues, because their best players develops through England rather than domestically.

This shouldn't stop us from having a good domestic league though as this helps the sport is many ways in Australia. Its also not that easy for young Aussies just to go to England to develop.

It would help but I don't think that's true. The second tier as I see it is Russia, Turkey, Portugal, Holland and Belguim. Maybe throw in Greece and Switzerland as well. Maybe a dozen quality players coming in but even with them we still wouldn't be as strong as Russia or anywhere near the top teams in the above leagues we would be more on par with the lower to mid table teams at best imo.

I don't think so to be honest. Every season there are new young starlets that come through owing to ever improving NC.

Guys like Gersbach, Galloway, Geria, Mabil, Clut etc had breakout seasons last year.

There are always new exciting kids that come through and I think they are getting better every year and I bet there will be a new bunch next season.

i hope you're right

Adrtho, our league can't have any sort of reputation if products of our league don't move on the other comps and have impacts there.

Yep.

I've played a lot of 'representative' football with international Futsal players who are incredible in tight spaces, but don't quite have the impact in open space. Rogic is best in and around the box because his ability to beat a player, draw another and then lay the ball off is as good as nearly any player in the world.

That's the point.

Adrtho believes the link between domestic football and national teams is much stronger than it is. Wales and Uruguay are both currently high ranking nations, but both have shocking domestic leagues. Same with Romania.

National team winning should do that

But there is no solid correlation.... The EPL being the best league in the world doesn't make Englnd the best in the world.

Wales and Romania are both in the top 10 right now....

I see your point here, and to a certain extent agree. However I wouldn't say Wales and Scotland produce lots of quality players. Wales have made 1 major tournament (1958 WC) and the last time Scotland made a major tournament was in 1998. Outside of Wales' recent 2/3 players they along with Scotland haven't really been producing quality players, average players at best with the occasional quality player every 5 or 10 years.