Agree, and using an example from MV (and maybe my obsevravtion here is way off) but galloway - at 17 looked like an amazing prospect, plays now so rigid it's like he's on tram tracks

This is arguably the most important point in the washup of this result to lowly ranked Myanmar.

The trouble is there are only 9 pro clubs in Australia at the minute, which is why many of us have been calling for expansion at the very least, if not, the implementation of a second division.

"Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win." - Gary Lineker

^ love it

In light of Portugal's successful Euro 2016 win, it might be a good idea to understand how a country with a population of 10mil+ are able to have 42 professional clubs across 2 divisions and develop the kind of players that they do.

Enough of the excuse making, we will go nowhere as a football nation with 9 professional clubs.

In Australia's defence, we do have at least 48 professional clubs in the country - the only problem is that 39 of them are other sports (18 AFL + 16 NRL + 5 Rugby Union). This is not even beginning to scratch the surface with other professional sports such as basketball etc etc. That's where most of the funding goes to in this country sadly.

I think we can do more clubs, absolutely, and I want it to happen - but we're still pushing shit up hill at the moment by not being the dominant player in the marketplace.

Score line (more so the implications of the score) doesn't suggest it but the boys actually played a great game and should have won based on possession, shots, talent etc. IMO, the game should have been over in the first half. We had some real great chances in the 1st half but were unable to find the back of net and that came back to haunt us in the 2nd half.

Hopefully, its only wins from here!

No Aussie Rules or Rugby in Portugal.

In Portugal, a country less than half the population of Australia, they have 42 pro football clubs, 10 pro Rugby Union Clubs, 12 pro Handball Clubs, 14 pro Futsal Clubs.

I'm not including Basketball, Roller Hockey, Volleyball & Beach Soccer all of which contain professional leagues too.

To put it simply, there are no excuses.

Campeonato Português de Rugby is a professional Rugby Union league of 10 teams.

There are professional sports such as handball & futsal that do not exist in a similar format here.

How many of those, in particular handball and futsal clubs, are extensions of existing football clubs though? Riding on the coattails of football's success and money?

Well for starters, not one of Portugal's professional football clubs are included in Deloitte's Football Money League 2016 report. http://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-business-group/articles/deloitte-football-money-league.html

Portuguese clubs generate most of their revenue from on-selling the players they develop.

The highest revenue earned from TV-rights was SL Benfica who received €10m.

The only 3 sporting clubs that exist in handball & futsal are Porto, Benfica & Sporting.

I wonder if finishing is a problem. I saw some improvement in finishing at the last aff tournament hopefully this trend continues
its hard to tell where we are at without watching because any minnow can get a fit and organized team to park the bus and play on the counter and nick the occasional result.

Hopefully we get to see the next few matches and can make informed judgements

football in australia is very divided and you also have a very spread out country which means less away supporters to prop up attendance numbers
we also have a lot of huge stadiums or tiny stadiums but not enough in between

The team has some great finishers but just couldn't make it happen yesterday. Not looking to make excuses for the lads but the pitch was bloody atrocious, had bouncy balls going everywhere. None the less great experience for the players in terms of learning to adapt and should come in handy v Vietnam which is played in the stadium.

The moment Myanmar took the lead, they parked the bus completely which the boys couldn't break down.

Tuesdays game v Vietnam which is the most important one IMO (ensure progression to knockouts, inspect new players for AFC, gauge where Aus as a nation is) most likely won't be streamed or covered which is terrible but the 3 after should be.

Welcome to the forum, Zugzwang.:)

Only 5 teams in the Primeira Liga have attendance above 10K. The rest are lucky to crack 5k.

Some of the expansion criteria set out by the FFA are purely based on gut-feeling with very little evidence to back up their claims.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :oops:

In terms of achieving sustained international success, the boffins from FFA state there is. Only 8 teams have had sustained success using 3 criteria of what defines success. Hence, acquiring the title of football powerhouse.

I'd also add that Portugal, and Croatia are now very close to also being defined as having sustained success. They also play the same way as 7 of the other powerhouses.

Teams that 'nick results' rarely win international titles in Europe, South America or World Cups.

After being in Europe a few weeks ago, this is my greatest concern in Oz ATM.

9 professional clubs is just too few.

I'm desperate to see South Melb installed immediately as a readymade HAL club, with a different type of sustainable model. I think they also have a readymade, sequential program for underage players to follow a pathway to senior level.

I'm not sure if there are one or two other pre-existing, readymade NPL clubs who could also start in the HAL, but we just need more professional club scenarios ASAP.

One high level FFA coach told me recently that a young adult who has gone from a well known NPL set up, has taken a whole season just to get used to the rigours of daily professional club training at HAL level. Basically, the step up from part-time NPL football to daily HAL training, has killed him. I think we need about 20 pro clubs - all with pathways from under 10s to senior level.

At this year's National FFA Regional Conference the whole thrust of FFA ( Abrams' inspired) is that FFA TDs now go out and work with the NPL clubs - not like previously with the onus on clubs contacting FFA for assistance.




Edited by Decentric: 11/7/2016 01:32:42 PM

Great contribution =d>

From the Whole of Football Plan, the FFA notes the following regarding expanding the professional club base:



Sounds like something drawn up by a marketing guru than someone with actual football knowledge, particularly the last sentence. "Strategic Market Placement", wtf is that? 8-[



What does the size of the population have anything to do with the viability of a football club. When has this been relevant, anywhere, in the history of professional football clubs?

Based on this, population centres such as ACT, TAS, Illawarra, Gold Coast, FNQ, Nth NSW etc. are ruled out. In fact, existing markets such as the Central Coast & Newcastle/Lake Macquarie would effectively be excluded as well.

Lol paulc trying to stay relevant. What a wanker.

This bit is a worry. Why can't the ACT of Townsville or Darwin for that matter play out of a little boutique stadium like Man City academy plays out that holds 7 or 8 thousand punters.



I understand what the FFA are trying to do but they need to loosen up the entry criteria a bit.

10 teams is not enough. 12 and 14 are a problem though too. What do they do? Play each other twice (not enough) or 3 times (too many).

Definitely don't want to see an AFL type draw eventuate.

I reckon they need to look at their own operations.

Too few clubs leads to lack of game time and obviously that stunts development. We have players between 22-25 that are still considered young here and played about 50 professional games. You have many players in Europe who have played about 150-200 games by the time they are 23

Number of games played by Big-5 club players up to the age of 23:
Goalkeepers: 77
Full Backs: 103
Centre Backs: 101
Central Midfielders: 109
Forwards: 120
http://www.football-observatory.com/-Ratings-eng-

We could dream of players like that. Griezman, I see he had played 179 games for Real Sociadad by the time he was 23! Scored 46 goals too. Others like goetze 120 odd bundelsiga games and a world cup winning goal by 22, reus almost 150 games by the same age too. Obviously these guys are elite. but shows what you need to get there. Even look at lukaku - 23 and around 200 professional club games.

Yes & of course there will be the usual detractors on here saying, but it's France & Germany...their population is so much greater than ours, of course they have more players to choose from and can form bigger leagues.

Or we could look at a country like Portugal with half the population of Australia, a third of the GDP and geographically positioned in one of the worst performing continental economies in recent memory.

All of their players meet the big-5 averages despite not being a big-5 country nor having the equivalent facilities to call on from.

There is total agreement on this issue in Australia.

Welcome zugzwang52 sounds like your there watching. If so please keep us up to date.