LUONGO MENTOR SAYS RISING STAR CAN BE FIRST OF MANY
David Magrone – the man who honed the talent of Socceroos sensation Massimo Luongo – believes by overhauling its player development systems Australia could produce “four or five Luongos every year”.
The head of recruitment at English Premier League side Queens Park Rangers, Magrone, 41, spotted Luongo playing for St George U-14s in southern Sydney and worked with him, and a small group of other youngsters, five days a week for three years, before helping him secure a contract at Tottenham Hotspur back in 2009.
Magrone reckons the talent pathways in Australia are flawed and the highly technical Luongo - Australia’s breakout performer in the AFC Asian Cup routs of Kuwait and Oman - is living proof of an alternative route to the top for the nation’s next generation.
The former Sydneysider, who ran his own academy as well as coaching youth teams at St George and Apia Leichhardt, explained: "It’s all about spending vast amounts of time with players.
"With Mass, I made it very focused. We went to extreme lengths to get the contact time to make sure we produced something at the end of it.
"You could be producing four or five [players like Luongo] a year. But the way the system operates in Australia right now there's no chance. We'll stumble across another one of Mass's calibre if we are lucky.
"The problem in Australia is they are trying to combine player development with winning, or doing well in tournaments. They are two separate things"If you want to produce a player, focus on a player within a team. If you want to produce a team, focus on the team and then the players. It’s hard to get both. The approach is too broad."
Swindon Town midfielder Luongo, 22, has been greeted by some as an overnight sensation, but the player himself insists that is not the case.
"With me, it was really all down to those years working with David Magrone on all aspects of my game before I even thought about trying to go overseas," Luongo said.
"It takes years but you have to be ready because when you go to a club like Tottenham the jump in quality is massive."
Magrone added: “You have to mimic what happens in Europe to produce more players of Mass's quality. There’s no way the A-League Youth League will ever produce international quality players because the level of competition is just not high enough.
"At Tottenham, Mass was the captain of the Under-21s playing alongside Harry Kane, Ryan Mason, Andros Townsend and Nabil Bentaleb [now all first-teamers at Spurs]."
Magrone knew the moment he set eyes on Luongo as a 13-year-old that he had uncovered an uncut diamond, even though he was not quite the athletic specimen he is today.
"When I first saw Mass he looked a little bit lumpy and was probably a little bit overweight … but he had this knack of running in a straight line and still beating people," he said.
"He had unbelievable balance – something I’d rarely seen in a player before. But his first touch and his passing were only average.
"I knew he could hit the top. But there were a couple of others who were maybe even better back then. One Serbian kid could have been anything but he didn’t train often enough and another succumbed to some bad injuries.
"Mass’s mentality was head and shoulders above. He was humble, a great listener and learner ... just like he is now."
Asked if he would like to be brought into the development system by FFA, Magrone replied: "Of course I would because I am confident I could help lift the level of players we produce."
Magrone, who spent three years at Spurs as chief European scout and was then in charge of analysing the Premier League opposition for former manager Tim Sherwood, added: "After a couple of years working with Mass I was fending off approaches from the AIS and the Australian Under-17s.
"He was a bit of a star back then at youth level with St George and then Sydney Olympic. I took my academy team on tours interstate and also to Europe in 2009.
"We played seven games against the likes of AZ Alkmaar, Club Brugge, Groningen and PSV – and we were tearing teams apart.
"It culminated when we beat Club Brugge 4-2 and Mass scored two frighteningly good goals. After that there was PSV, Ajax and Groningen on the phone saying, 'Who is your No.10? He has the ball on a string’.
"But I had contacts with Tim Sherwood at Tottenham and we decided England was the best place for him."
Magrone, who spent several months with Queens Park Rangers and Wolverhampton as a would-be professional himself without ever winning a contract, says he learned from his own failures in knowing what is required for others to make it.
"I didn't crack it for a couple of reasons and one of them was the lack of grounding – I didn’t have anybody like myself helping me before I left Australia,” he said.
Magrone believes that the AIS should return to the days of sending touring teams overseas for extended periods, explaining: “That’s a big factor. The AIS produced players like Mark Viduka by constantly travelling to play quality opposition in Europe and South America, that helped ready those players for the bigger stage.”http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2015/01/15/luongo-mentor-says-rising-star-can-be-first-many