Presenters including:

Eric Abrams (FFA National Technical Director)

Sean Douglas (National Coach Education Manager)

Plus National Team Staff



Conference topics to include:

Review of FIFA World Cup 2014 & 2015 Asian Cup – Lessons learned

Keynote speech by a member of the National Teams staff

Update on MF operations”



Above is the outline of this year's state conference with FFA.

I'm going this Saturday. Has anyone else attended one yet?

I'll update this after Saturday.





Edited by Decentric: 27/1/2016 10:37:13 AM

I went to one late last year at FNSW where they also had a review of the Women's WC. Ante Milicic had some interesting information about what the Socceroos did in preparation and also during the WC and Asian Cup. E.g. scouting apps, stats, training, etc. It was worth it.

You've condensed a lot of eye opening football analysis and info into a paragraph, mate.

I'll be in a remote area of Oz for the rest of the week. When I get back I'll go into a lot more detail.

Must admit, for any coach from Grass Roots upwards, the FFA Conferences are better than coaching courses. Some illuminating info and current tends tend to be discussed.

Are you still going to provide some summary notes?

Heaps of them.

I'm not sure where to start, there are so many compared to other conferences.

A massive change, evan a metamorhposis has occurred with FFA.

In Tasmania, a pilot program for FFA this year, the club is now the epicentre of football. Football Fed Tas will send the state TD and other FFT staff coaches under his jurisdiction out to the clubs to work with TDs, and mentors ( new concept) to assist coaching.

The National Training Centres ( NTC) witll become National Development Centres (NDC).

The NDC program will be part time, instead of full time in the old NTC. Instead of being in a full time programs away from clubs the young rep players selected by Football Fed Tas will have two weekly sessions with the NDC and two with the club. They will play a weekly game with the club.

Some of the former state coaches and rep coaches are concerned that in practice they won't have regular, rostered weekly games like they used to.

One solution I advocated to them, and I used to do it as Football Fed Tas rep coach, was to play a lot of friendlies against older club sides, and other rep sides like the SAP. Everybody was happy except for the FFT head of boys program at the time.

I thought it was good PR for the FFT rep sides getting out and about to clubs and being able to have drinks in an informal setting in club bars, meeting parents and other stakeholders in an informal getting away from FFT HQ. I'm sure it was good PR for FFT where the atmosphere can be a little too serious at times.

Contrary to what has been written in the media, the NC version 3, fine tunes version 2. It does not not replace it.

One significant comment that one presenter made was that Erik Abrams said the FFA NC must have had a Dutch person as its progenitor.:lol:

I'm not sure if there is historical tension between Belgium and Holland, like there has been a historical enmity between Germany and Holland.:lol:

Belgium looked to Holland to rewrite its curriculum in circa 2000. The irony is that Holland is now probably looking to Germany ( also revamped its curriculum based on Holland), Belgium and Spain ( where a hefty Dutch influence has occurred).

The other issue is that the naysayers of the recent results by Australian underage national teams, seem to claim some mysterious ad hoc curriculum was better than what we have now. Many coaches were angry about the recent results, but the presenters were keen to diffuse the discussion.

There is so much to cover from this year's conference. I'll add info on a regular basis. There has also been major input from Ange into the curriculum.

My difficulty is the dichotomy between Ange's role as a results based national team coach, and, his quasi TD role, where he is looking at long term national curriculum and strategic planning. A bad result against Jordan, or an early Socceroo exit from the WC qualifiers and he could be sacked.





Edited by Decentric: 10/2/2016 09:35:05 AM

Hey D, you should read this article what Eric Abrams had to say about the state of youth development in Australia i'm not sure he mentioned these things at the coaching conference but its quite apparent to what we think is lacking with our players he actually mentions, i.e creativity and improvement needed in decision making the need to train more elite player etc.

Check it out while you can.

http://www.insideworldfootball.com/world-football/asia/18778-olyroos-work-to-keep-the-faith-despite-crashing-out-of-afc-2016-qualifiers

Thanks for posting the link

KFC winterslag, is a bit harsh on the old girlfriend.

Olyroos work to keep the faith despite crashing out of AFC 2016 qualifiers

Published on Tuesday, 02 February 2016 11:01
OlyroosBy Samindra Kunti
February 2 - Earlier this month the Olympic dream of the Olyroos, Australia's U23 team, faded in Doha as they made a backdoor exit from the Asian Cup, collecting a meagre 2-0 victory against Vietnam in group D alongside the UAE and Jordan. Neither the elimination nor the absence of European-based players caused disgruntlement, only the manner of capitulation did.

"After the Socceroos's success at the 2015 Asian Cup, the big disappointment stemmed from the fact that the Olyroos - the team and the staff - didn't manage to completely introduce the vision and style of play of the Socceroos in their group," said the technical director of Football Federation Australia [FFA] Eric Abrams, who attended Australia's three group matches in Qatar.

"Our head coach Ange Postecoglou wants proactive football, high pressing with a good build-up from the back," explained Abrams. "The intention to press high up existed at times, but it didn't always come off and the physical inferior quality of our players was invoked a little too often as an excuse not to do it, but that's not the Australian mentality, i.e. the press received the result quite negatively and there were a lot of emotional reactions in the sense of - What are we doing? Is this the new generation of Socceroos?"

Abrams was appointed the FFA's new technical director to oversee elite youth player development and coach education strategies in Australia after the 2014 Brazil World Cup, wherein the Socceroos's valiant performance in the tournament's proclaimed group of death won much acclaim. Abrams enjoyed a modest playing career with KFC Winterslag in the Belgian top-flight before heading KRC Genk's youth academy in the late 90's and coaching Belgium's U15 and U17 teams from 2001 to 2013. He also managed Belgium's top sports school from 2011 to 2013. Abrams nurtured and honed Belgian's golden generation in their formative years, including Manchester City's Kevin De Bruyne and Chelsea's Thibaut Courtois.

"My main job is to convince the leading personnel in the FFA and the States to adopt the same vision and pass it on to all their coaches in the football landscape wherein they operate," said Abrams. "In the role of technical director it's very important to benchmark your ideas and projects against the football landscape and the several different States: where are you right now and what is feasible for you within this project or process and how are we going to do together?"

At the FFA Abrams succeeded the long-serving Han Berger, thus ending the Dutch prevalence in the organization's higher echelons. Guis Hiddink, who guided Australia to the knockout phase of the 2006 Germany World Cup, Rob Haan and Pim Verbeeck presided as coaches over an orange-tinted era in Australian football. Together with their back room staff they implemented a Dutch football philosophy.

"My predecessors emphasised technical and footballing abilities a lot, good passing," said Abrams. "The only problem in the Dutch curriculum, developed over a number of years and whereon they based their philosophy, is that there is never any mention of turnovers and defending. They assume that they will always have possession and be dominant."

"It's very important to not forget what the basic ingredients of Australia's sports culture are when you introduce a new vision and philosophy," stressed Abrams. "We are in a phase where we are trying to find a right balance between proper coaching of players and maintaining sight of the values of Australian sports."

After his appointment Abrams embarked on a 100-day fact-finding mission in Australia to immerse himself in the local game, discover local structures and map out possible frailties and deficiencies. He visited Australia's nine States and Territories and travelled to remote areas in both Tasmania and Northern Territory. Abrams encountered a panoply of problems.

"In the current model, virtually every state is approached in the same way at technical level," observed Abrams. "In New South Wales, where you have 220,000 registered players, there is a fulltime Centre of Excellence for 18 players [for each age group] and the same goes for Tasmania, where you only have 13,000 registered players. I can ascertain that in some States we don't unearth all our talent, while in others we have players in our programmes who are good, but not per se talented."

"A second major lacuna is that none of the nine professional Australian clubs, and one from New Zealand, [in the A-league] have a youth academy," said Abrams. "There is only a senior team and a U20 team, which also serves as a reserve team. Below that age group, there are no categories in the structure. We are going to work at it this year and by 2017 the target is that each professional club has a semiprofessional or professional youth academy."

Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers, Central Coast Mariners, Perth Glory and the Newcastle Jets are all setting up youth academies, but the development of the grassroots level, both elite youth player development and coach education, remains the achilleas heel of Australian football, blighting any further progress and professionalization.

A player's path to the domestic game's elite is mired in difficulties: the FFA and the States tolerate a post-formation gap as they only provide quality programs until the U15-16 age groups for a limited pool of players, who subsequently encounter either a no-man's-land or the National Premier League, Australia's equivalent of The Championship and a distinctly unattractive proposition. At coach education level accessibility and cost is a threshold.

"The approach for talent development and coach development is similar," said Abrams. "If you want to develop better players, you need better coaches."

"The coach education is too centralised," elaborated Adams. "The course [at C-level] was instructed in a 10-day crash form. The candidates had to fly in, book hotels, take 10 days off work and fork out money. They returned home and they picked up their old habits if they weren't mentored and monitored, So, the course had little effect."

"It's the intention to decentralize the professional programs we have in the different States so that we can reach more players and [have] FFA-appointed coaches assist them twice a week, let them return to their clubs for two training sessions a week and a match in the weekend," said Abrams.

Following his rigorous exploration of the Australian football landscape Abrams made another five recommendations, apart from the aforementioned youth player and coach education sensitivities, to his board in a confidential report: a more holistic national football curriculum, a revision of designated league and competition structures, widespread talent identification programs at domestic and national level, systemic integration of schools and the need for better ( and accessible) facilities.

In many ways Abrams is extracting key elements from the Belgian model - individual player development, coach education and general harmonization - and transplanting them, where applicable, to Australia. In the Asian Football Confederation Belgian technical directors have become prized assets with Saudi Arabia and Singapore employing Jan Van Winckel and Michel Sablon respectively, almost as if the idiosyncratic architects of FIFA's number-one-newbies can guarantee a fast-tracked ascension to the top of world football.

"There is proof that the Belgian method paid off, that's the reason why Sablon, Van Winckel and myself were appointed at our respective FA's," said Abrams. "Everyone in Singapore, Sablon foremost, must realize that within 20 years they will not be among the world's best. For Saudi Arabia, having lived in that culture myself [coach of Al-Ahli U15 in the 2013/14 season], it's a huge challenge for Van Winckel: long-term thinking isn't a part of Arabian sports and the acquisition of quality staff is incontestably equated with the delivery of immediate results. I have a feeling one realizes in Australia that it's a long-haul process and that you can't build a football power in a jiffy."

Last May the FFA delivered their vision for the next 20 years with 'The Whole Football Plan,' another textbook grand plan - so ubiquitous in contemporary football - with headline-grabbing aspirations and lofty projections. By 2035 the FFA envisage a 15-million strong football community with a boom in elite junior players and elite coaches, reduced fees for football education, nationwide school competitions, and the government must facilitate this. The document oscillates between a wish list and a strategic plan, but underlines the FFA's desire for long-term development.

"It would give great satisfaction if throughout Australia the entire football landscape would accept the vision and philosophy that we are preaching - that parents stand behind the structure and vision and support their children, that coaches adhere to it," confirmed Abrams.

The Olyroos's elimination in Qatar kick-started much scrutiny and self-reflection within Australian football about its possible future destination, but adjustments to Abrams's vision were scarcely contemplated. Rather, Abrams believes that the Olyroos's ill fate points towards a broader evolution in the global game - that one-dimensional players, the likes of Tony Popovic and Brett Emerton, will soon be anachronism in a world of all-rounders in every field position.

"My Dutch predecessors developed a training model with the different facets of warm-up, passing, a game form and a match form," said Abrams. "In all the training programs I have attended live, I observed that that [model] was adhered to very rigidly, perhaps too rigidly. There is little room for creativity, too much is based on passing, but what I miss in particular in the training programs is the lack of real game simulation, when a player must be creative, when he is allowed to take decisions and when he can make mistakes. Too many coaches think they educate players and give too little responsibility to a player and still underestimate the player's intelligence and football knowledge to solve problems in a match."

"Our training is a bit 'manufactured', it's something that has come to the fore after the elimination of the Olyroos," continued Abrams. "A number of people said 'We feel that we are making robots.' That is something I want to go against. Australia have few players who make decisions. We have players with defensive qualities, players with passing qualities, but no real decision-makers. We are moving towards football in which each and every player is going to be a decision-maker, not just an offensive midfielder or a playmaker. Player profiles will evolve into [for example] a central defender, who not only defends and recovers possession to pass, but who also needs to provide attacking impetus to the team. You can see this with attackers, at international level, they are expected to pressure high up the pitch - they are the first defenders."

If Abrams and the FFA can produce those players, a generation of super athletes, Australia might well become a football powerhouse.








This is the article put up by Barca with Abrams' points.

At the last minute he cancelled his appearance in the Tassie FFA conference. He was replaced by Matildas' assistant coach Ante Juric to deliver the same content.

Thanks. I didn't go to the WA one last year as it was on the only free day I had amongst C licence and lvl 1 GK course days and cost $100.

I did get a copy of the USB that was provided to attendees though. Having looked at it, I was disappointed I missed the presentation on the Socceroos preparation.

From what I heard of our conference it sounds like the discussion on what was occurring at the local level was a bit more open at yours.

that is not the case some are saying the coach was not up to the job
and

Until someone else says it it does not count.

Presenters Shaun Douglas, Ante Juric, Mike Palmer and Mike Edwards conducted pretty interactive sessions appearing to want audience participation with questions and feedback. There was considerable audience participation in this conference, more than any other I've been to.

Han Berger appears to dislike genuine dialogue with an audience , as does Dean May, who hates it. Thankfully neither of them presented at this conference, although Berger's sessions are usually very informative and May delivers good lectures and demonstration exercises.

Mind you both could be failed if their training sessions with players are appraised using the FFA assessment criteria evaluating the methodology they try to impart.:lol:





Edited by Decentric: 11/2/2016 07:22:57 PM

It seems like a lot of442 members are currently undertaking, or have completed the C Licence recently. This is good.

However, if one did the older generic C Licence, which didn't specialise in Youth or Senior coaching, I learnt almost as much in a two day FFA course for rep coaches straight after the C Licence.

It seems as though it was similar to the current Skills Certificate ( previously called a Junior Licence), which is the second lowest level course for coaches available. It really helps coaches to focus on the four Core Skills.

19 of the guys that did the C Licence with me, out of a total of 24, haven't learnt new information about explicit technique through formal coach education since, even if undertaking the generic FFA B Licence. Some of the old ad hoc ways are still utilised by them.

I learnt a lot in a KNVB specialist youth course, which was also Advanced Coach education. There was some general stuff about technique, and it was very good for defensive structure. The current FFA Skills Certificate, puts technique neatly into four compartments.

Abrams' scepticism about explicit defending in the FFA NC is partially true concerning the recent Olyroos. However, they learnt the bulk of their technical work through an older style of coaching.

Mark Birighitti was one of the first intake with Jan Versleijen, but before that his cohort were a product of the old system, or the ad hoc one that existed then.

Anyone who has a current C Licence, or even B Licence, including NPL coaches, should seriously consider undertaking the FFA Skills Certificate. It should only take a weekend. It puts what I learnt from the KNVB in a more explicit and segmented way.

When I talk to some of the NPL senior coaches and assistants , they are still nebulous about thinking of technique in terms of four Core skills. They sometimes don't have the analytical background to break down players skill set into four component parts. This is useful.

If senior coaches don't have the skill set to analyse technique compartment ally, and given roughly equal weighting, they are relying on coaches below them in junior and youth development to do the bulk of the technical education. Players constantly need feedback about where they need to improve at any level including professional.

Whe Tim Cahill was young he did a lot of technical work in a small group with a coach called Johnny Doyle. It was very useful for honing his shooting at goal. I'd doubt that Doyle would've broken technique into component parts though. I f he had, Timmy should be a better ball carrier and 1v1 attacking exponent on the deck than he is.





The other point about the C Licence is that FFA staff coaches, certainly in Tasmania this year, will be conducting C Licence courses at NPL club venues. Coach education is becoming decentralised. FFA will be going out to the clubs, rather than coaches from clubs going to FFA HQ.

The cost of C Licences should be reduced from an average of the current $1 000 in the regions down to $500.

ATM there is a deal where any NPL club who can provide a minimum of 5 coaches, will be offered C Licence training for all five coaches for a total of $3 200. This amounts to $640 for each coach.






Edited by Decentric: 12/2/2016 09:13:50 AM

One change in the curriculum is that with the Berger constructed FFA NC technique was the paramount criterion for rep and pro football.

When we selected FFA rep teams in the Berger era, they were evaluated with technique being paramount and football conditioning ( athleticism) not being a criterion for selection at all.

Now there is a change on emphasis. It gives approximately equal weighting to athleticism and technique. It is not one or the other. Before Berger's era, a lot of the time rep team selection was based on athleticism. Australia tended to produce football athletes, not technicians.

Abrams is a pretty significant someone else.

It would be good for Football Lover or another attendees to add some points they took away from the same Conference in other states .

I still have heaps of content to come, I think.

Look the coach was not up to the job and many out there are the same but there positions are protected and the players/system/volunteers get the blame.
Failure is failure and the coach must carry the blame and not be protected or else we are training quality players for nothing.
Dont sacrifice a coach for losing a game but for failing to achieve his mandate, then he must go and not be protected my the machine.
PS he is not significant to me

Edited by krones3: 11/2/2016 08:00:22 PM

I went to the first decentralised C Licence (youth and senior) in NSW in 2013 and the point you make about coaches not changing their ways was very apparent. I think the problem was that these guys keep getting reward for what they are doing so they aren't willing to change their ways. One coach was going on about how he was coaching the u20's at a former NSL club and that sometimes they had to knock it long, etc. Always questioning (not to his face) the presenter Oscar and the FFA model.

I loved it and I can see the massive difference in my coaching since I started coaching 4 years ago. The massive step I took between my first season (I had a community Senior Licence) and my second season after the C Licence was unbelievable. By providing a better learning environment, the development of the individuals and the team were very different from season 1 and 2. Best thing I did and I hope I learn just as much when I do the B Licence in March/June.

I think the presentation just echoed certain things I learnt in the C Licence. The importance of analysing opponents and analysing performances by filming games helped the players learn how to adapt and play against different styles and visually see what they are doing well/wrong. Sometimes players need to see it to believe it.

Also, the B Licence is costing me about $2400 at Football NSW so the price hasn't gone down. It has gone up.

Edited by theFOOTBALLlover: 11/2/2016 09:23:30 PM

He was stupid what the smart ones do is nod in agreement and then go away and either cant or wont teach it and then blame the quality of players. all the time saying i'm following the curriculum.

These are some images from the conference late last year.

This is the problem though. Most clubs will keep these guys because they know them or have a record of 'success'. The only way our development will change for the better is through time AND by failing people on courses. They'll either retire because they are too old or quit because they can't get the qualifications.

now you are talking
Its not about the curriculum it about the coaches attitude to development and whether he/she can coach it. I see many good coaches in this country who are not coaching at the high level they could be and many bad ones who are over their head.

The one thing we have to remember is that Vidmar took AU to an ACL final with inferior cattle compared to the opposition. As a results based coach he has succeeded at a very high level playing Reactive football.

As a development coach imparting the supposed national paying style and dominating games, he hasn't succeeded playing Proactive football FFA wants. To some extend it is based on club scenarios and stifled development of some his preferred cattle. I'm surprised he stuck with a team that had played together through the underage ranks as opposed to selecting form players of recent times.

The opposition often had month long training camps.

Ante Juric, Shaun Douglas and at the top, Erik Abrams, have given a lot of info about refining the national playing style based on trends in world football in the UEFA CL and the last World Cup, given recent national team performances at underage level.

The FFA NC has been fine tuned. The essential paradigm of training modules into three component parts, at junior level, and four component parts at senior level is essentially sound.

One point that differs from the FFA NC, and the KNVB, is that the Germans, have pushed hard for free play. In other words street football to replace some highly organised coaching sessions. This has been a break from the Dutch. This free play, street football, is now being advocated by FFA as integral for developing creative players.

This is a digression from the older FFA NC. I've known many kids to knock back NTC participation, because they were not allowed to play futsal.

Because of the devolution of NTC to the NDC, players can choose what they like when not involved in NDC. There were differing attitudes by FFA staff coaches to futsal as a useful development tool. Some embraced it, others didn't.


Another big issue is that FFA realise that they were perceived as separate and sometimes aloof from the general football milieu.

I realised when I was with FFA at the bottom of the system, that when I approached club coaches there was hostility. A senior FFA staff coach said, "Welcome to being perceived as the enemy."

FFA are also busting a gut to train more coaches at Advanced level and make them courses more accessible and affordable. Some of the former aloof and petty empire entities have been given marching orders from FFA. This is a welcome change.

Berger was the archetypal import with this attitude. He basically thought local coaches knew nothing and that he was going to change practices in Australia no matter what. Baan thought it was all too hard. Thankfully we had a guy with Berger's arrogance and tenacity to push the naysayers out of their comfort zone.

Now the curriculum is being fine tuned by a TD from a different country , Belgium, who have recently overhauled what they did before when they had little success as a football nation.





Edited by Decentric: 16/2/2016 07:56:54 AM

To a point.

In one state they failed nearly the whole course.I've heard of another where they failed all of them.

Later they wanted to run a B Licence in one state, but can't run it because they don't have the participants. They are now bending FFA rules to try and reassess the same coaches they failed probably in order to run a B Licence .

One coach, the second most successful in state history at senior an youth level, who used to run courses under Soccer Australia, has been failed under the new regime.

One regional TD in Australia, has headed off shore to do his assessments because he thinks he is not part of an Old Boys network.


Another example was I think Ian Ferguson failed his A Licence. Yet he coached Glory who were about to play in the FFA Grand Final under his tutelage.

If true, I wonder how he felt being failed by FFA assessors who would have had nothing like his success as a pro coach?

Some coaches who participate have participated on this forum are eternally frustrated, because they have been told by FFA senior echelons they have no hope of progress due to lack of a pro playing football background.

Some former pro players are also frustrated because FFA like individuals who have teacher training to do the development coaching.

Has any body been given information about "peeling off"?

Meaning?

From the article, and this is what Abrams said and his plans for coach education.

I guess he is keen to decentralise the coaching courses even further and make it more effective to see if the coaches are doing the right thing.

/b]

Edited by Barca4life: 12/2/2016 10:40:47 AM

To a degree yes. No one is perfect.

If the FFA only give ex-pro's a chance, I'll have no chance of ever making it. Seeing all the ex-pros getting high up gigs straight away is frustrating.

I don't think being a teacher has helped me get coaching gigs, however, in terms of being able to deal with young players it definitely has. Managing young people is a big part of teaching and coaching.

Did he eventually get one?

I'm not sure if they still have them, like they existed previously, but the FFA rep team programs like teachers as coaches in the regional branches of FFA.

if you want to progress to pro coaching one almost has no chance anyway. There are so few jobs. One of the exceptions to the rule is Arthur Papas not being a former pro.

In this state it is relatively easy getting to NPL senior or assistant senior coach, particularly with a teaching background if one has had a reasonable career playing football too.

Edited by Decentric: 16/2/2016 12:08:16 AM