I only recall Pim thinking/saying our local league was rubbish.

A very good summary Barca typically.
Lets watch what the current U16's and those coming after them regards their state of play.
Have to say even watching current U18's in PL3 some skill and BPO etc is good to watch for they have been watching the current global Fav players for sometime and mimmick them.

I'm sorry for the current Gen of our Roos and we all know they put in their 110% but they just are not good enough barring a few exceptions. The expectations are so high especially when involved in a World Cup - just look at these last few R16 games compared to our current abilities.
Foz and the likes can say all they like BUT we don't have the ability/standard they bark on about - we got to face and accept this not matter the systems they were in.
I don't think it fair to bag the past/NSL or SA etcetc, yes they did it their way and not as a whole focus together in training philosophies etc lets stand back and be fair on it for there wasn't unity.
To bring up 26yrs of never qualifying FFS we were part timers and in a worse position/standing than we are today regards to support/media etcetc....like get real.
There is good and bad then as there is now just as people commenting from the past and those today.
As mentioned there is a couple of good points made by Smith - so because he's from the past he's talking shit, talk about ignorance more so.......
No matter the system there will be constant challengers from outside inside - to counter this most times whats needed ending up being a formidable Squad is that Gen mix of varying qualities combined that "ticks" the box's.
Then it will be quoted what a great system or this or that - NO, its the timing that all these kids were born within a few years of each other that they were born with that "IT" factor more than anything else. 

Not sure if you have read the NC, but 5-9 is "discovery phase" is about kids having fun and not coaching, U9 to U12/13 is skills acquisition so that means the youngest of the first batch is now U17. 

Easiest way to directly compare the NC impact versus previous generations is to look at performance of the Joeys squads and these are easy enough to find, but if the NC was superior to previous methods then surely results should be better, unfortunately they are not. 

There will be boneheads on here that will sprout crap about under age results not mattering, its all about the development, yadda yadda, but that is just BS by politically correct "every ones a winner and gets a ribbon" arm chair experts, but anyone who has any real experience with football with tell you, strong juniors lead to strong seniors. 

The below interview with Matt Crocker who is the English FA’s Head of development is really interesting, particularly in light of their recent success.

 https://www.socceramerica.com/publications/article/74879/england-youth-on-the-rise-the-fas-matt-crocker-o.html

Pim said the the A League was a like a Bundesliga 2nd Division training session.   

Source or is it your normal sauce?

At the same time, we need a new senior FFA TD to refine the curriculum. When I did a lot of coach  education tiki tala was hang great success.

In our case, we desperately need to add some new attacking interplay and shooting ideas.

Many teams concede goals like this if they play a higher defensive line at some stage in the build up.

It is when teams  have to turn a chase and defend facing their own goal, it is harder to defend.

Pim coached Socceroo teams comprised of all Aussie domestic HAL players in some qualifiers, it may have been Asian Cup, when Euroroos were unavailable, like playing Kuwait at home.

He said it  was difficult because of most of the HAL players lack of tactical knowledge.

Pim  also commented how much the HAL has improved in recent years.

You sprout a lot of garbage.

Of the 23 man squad Guus took to Germany in 2006 there were 3 HAL players (Archie, Miligan & Beauchamp) and none of them played any minutes.

In 2010 Pim only took 2 HAL players, Culina who recently returned from an extended stay in Europe and Galekovich who was called up because Jones's kid was sick. 

With so few HAL players participating not sure how they had any difficulty.

I would also say that we aren't great defending in transition. 5 out of 5 goals we conceded were in transition from possession to defence. Once our defence was set we were difficult to break down

At the 2006 world cup we conceded 3 in transition (including the pen against italy which knocked us out), 1 from a free kick and 2 from goal keeping errors

Unfortunately like Spain also just found out, that 1 criteria is the one that wins matches.

Our current Socceroos, particularly  the older  ones who've played in the HAL in the last five years are a partially  a  product technically of the older system, but definitely structurally and tactically a product of the new system.

The younger Socceroos have learnt most of  their tactical and structural training under the new system.

The imported HAL coaches are finding local players much easier to coach tactically. This is a product of the Dutch, French, German, Spanish amalgam of coaching methodology, which the Belgians also currently adopt. 

The likes of Guus, Pim, Berger, Baan, Versleijen, had great difficultly coaching our players because unless they had played in Italy or Holland, and to a lesser extent, England, because the tactical senior coaching in the NSL and early HAL was abysmal.

In the last five years or so, all Aussie trained coaches, with Arnie, Kenny Lowe, and Merrick structurally, not so much tactically, partially adhering to it, particularly  with the Pim and Guus influence for Arnie, while Farina disregarded a lot of it, the rest have used their new tactical acknowledge from FFA coach education to great effect - Ange, Muscat, the Aloisis, Popa, Okon, Rudan, Miller  and Valkanis.

In the last five years if we have had ACL success,  it  is because of the superior structural   tactical ability of the Aussie coaches, who've  had technically inferior cattle.

This is exactly what I have been saying for ages ....there is so much misinformation about this ...everybody keep blaming the Dutch and the National Curriculum because some "old dinosaurs" Smith , Slater, Zelic, etc   think things were better in the past...quite simply put  ...the facts do not support this .
One of our biggest strengths and also biggest failures is we Aussies want instant success..and instant success at anything rarely lasts.
The NC has not yet been going long enough to see what sort of internationals it produces. We will start to see its results over the next few years . Even then you can't expect instant Socceroos stars . Like any system it is still evolving and in its early years it may or may not produce great players until coaches and adminstrators etc work out how best to implement it and that is basically a case of trial and error.
We, as a nation, are far too impatient for results.
Our professional league and its clubs are all only 13 years old and are still figuring out what works and what doesn't for our unique landscape.
Euro clubs evolved in a time when there were no distractions . You worked and you played or watched football for entertainment.
Now we are trying to grow clubs and a league in an environment when kids have the attention spans of gold fish. They have so many other choices of things to do ...which is good for them ....but not good for football.
We need to be more patient .
Sure ..we do need to address our lack of strikers ... our league set up.... and dozens of other things but gees guys let's just do it calmly and patiently.
We are not going to start winning World Cups in my lifetime so lets just concentrate on getting a little better each year.

Too funny!

The use of satire to ridicule  something silly that Ron said to highlight his agenda, and others are deluded in believing, is very well done!  

Just for an interesting observation the FFA NC got released in mid 2009 and the roll out of the first year of the new system with it would have been in 2010, the kids from 6 or 7 would be 15 or 16 of today.

Those from 18 to 21 would have go through the new system but only the middle to latter stages unlike the 14 to 16 year olds now who have been from the start from u7 playing 5v5 to now which are in the game training phase and soon to be in the performance phase.
These kids are the current Joeys (u16 kids that will be competing in the u16 AFC Championships) later this year, so then we can judge but the lack of preparation for the junior teams of late have been very poor so if they don’t do well I fear the conversation will go back to how the system has let them down when it’s the same story about the poor preparation unlike other countries where it’s fully funded and take care of unlike now with the FFA.

So let’s judge the NC from now with the kids from u16 and when they get older without judging them as robots.

Another different take,

The current Socceroos apart from Arzani have come from the old development system and never been through a skillaroos program or even the odd SSGs which most kids go through now.
The youngest after Arzani with MacLaren was with Football Victoria NTC in 2009 but still never came through new system at all.

So maybe the conversation should have more context instead of people to smashing it down without analysis or discussion about mplementation or the tweaks that could be made from this?

Just giving some perspective here as these are facts, by no means defending the system by the lack of context within the Australian football discussion is quite appalling.

Hands up if you loved missing out on world cups for 32 years??

From my understanding the so called “Dutch System” isn’t actually very Dutch at all. The curriculum is a hybrid of theories from all the most successful football nations around the world.

But hey, we were doing so well in international football prior to 2006 so let’s just throw the baby out with the bath water and go back to playing EPL clubs in “international” friendlies.

Well said, in the past Clubs developed players based on their Club's philosophy in many cases this took the form of their ethnic heritage.

Whats occurred now, everyone is playing to the one philosophy. We've created homogenised football.

In Europe and South America a Clubs Philosophy is their own.

Its another Global Standard thing.

We need to get rid of this useless dutch fetish and forge our own path. 

there are reasonable criticisms of pasquali, arzani, mcgree, caletti, deng, atkinson, warland, folami etc. but not sure if it makes sense to call them robots.....

He may have a point,  but anyone coming out with opinions like this needs to say at the start.. 

"what I'm talking about has nothing to do with the current Socceroos, they mostly weren't brought up in the Dutch system, I am just using the opportunity of national soul searching to talk about something unrelated"

Otherwise it comes across as a bit misleading 

How I knew the system would get smashed I guess this what happens when people are dissatisfied and frustration with the results shown in the last few years FFA...

For all of the skepticism we are seeing more technically gifted young players coming through in the last few years

But I do agree with Smith is the lack of individual quality they have (not individual technique but individual quality in executing the technical things like passing, shooting, 1v1 defending).

So we are seeing technically proficient players but seem to lack in decision making and execution under pressure which is noticeable with the lack of quality forwards, strikers and defenders.

So I get what he’s saying what he means by producing robots, technically and tactically we are producing better players but what’s missing is the individual quality part along with the improved parts.

How to incorporate it is the question for the experts.

Maybe study how the top talent in attacking and defensive players in France, Germany and Belgium are being developed? Is there any special techniques they use? Who knows.

So true.

The way Ned Zelic in particular, and sometimes Bozza and Robbie Slater speak on Fox Sports, one would think we qualified for every WC and progressed out of the group stages at every tournament the way they discuss their era.


They are highly critical of teams and players since 2006 who achieved far more than they did as international players.


it is arguable whether Bozza would replace Ryan as keeper, Zelic would replace any of the  current CBs or DMs, or Slater would get into the current team as a wide player.

There are so many who fatuously criticise a system that is based on European powerhouse methodology.


At the same time we need drastic measures to improve striking. Appointing a senior FFA TD would be a start.

I tend to agree with Nearderthal’s view on this one.

Football was in many ways going backwards in this country, which was before this Dutch philosophy came into the picture.

The NSL structure has its benefits but it also was failing to gain traction, so although there were good news stories around some player development, it just seemed each year to be less and less stable.

The HAL transition was a challenge, which has started to click again now but we needed a rebuild. The benefits of such change can take time to flow through, but overall it is about time we started to see more technical, smart footballers who have composure and can read a game better than we currently have.

Let’s hope we are on the right path but only time can truly tell.

Too many older generation players and coaches who have no knowledge of the new system say this.

None who've undertaken new FFA coach education do. 

The biggest sceptic has been  Frank Farina. He is one of few coaches who has undertaken new FFA  coach education, but ignored a lot of it as a HAL coach.

Being ourselves was nebulous and ad hoc and poor practice. 32 years of failing to qualify for a WC is evidence of it.

Beat me to it.

So if what we were doing pre-Burger was working, why didn't we produce more Mark Vidukas and Harry Kewells?

The revisionism that goes on in this country is unbelievable. If you didn't know better, past players and coaches would make you believe Australia was some sort of footballing powerhouse - regularly winning World Cups and producing Ballon d'Or winners - before the collapse of the NSL.

Reality check: we were just as much a global laughing stock then as we are now.

These old, bitter has-beens and never-weres need to stop shitting on the current model/players and come up with ways to make what we are currently doing work better. But they won't, because there's no financial gain. 

And the blame goes on. Anyone would think Aus football was a world superpower before we hired some Dutch influence. Not saying things are great right now, but all these dinosaurs sticking the knife in aren’t helping. We’ve only ever produced a handful of players you could say are genuinely better than what we have now, hardly compelling evidence of the current failure.

A few points here.

* The tactical nous of our current players and coaches has improved immeasurably since the time when Ron was national TD circa 2003-5. I did  coach education in the old Soccer Australia system and current FFA system. There was little  emphasis on sharing methodology across Australia in the old system under Ron. Everybody did different things. Basically, our coach education was utter rubbish. I learnt more in two hours of Dutch KNVB than five days of previous Soccer Australia coach education

*Ron Smith has some good instructional videos, and has some good ideas. But in his era of national TD, it wasn't shared  across Australia.  

*He also struggled as a coach for Perth Glory in the HAL and was sacked along with Mulvey as assistant at Roar. Ron also presided over a system with 32 years of failure to qualify for senior WCs. A lot of the good stuff Ron did, was never shared with coaches across the country.

* In the recent WC we did well in all three thirds of the pitch in 5 out of 6 criteria. As we all know shooting and finishing was absolutely shocking. Ron is right. ATM there is a dearth of  Oz strikers. There are few playing in the HAL. Wind back to the mid 2000s and we had Agostino, Despotovski, Mori, Mrjda, Allsopp, Archie, Milicic,  Zdrilic, Pretovski, just playing HAL.

* To solve  the striking problem we need a FFA TD again, like Berger, to go to places like Brazil, France and Belgium and have a good long, hard look at what they do for coaching strikers, attacking interplay and shooting training.

Ron is correct players need individual technical training. Nevertheless, he has been nebulous highlighting 1 criteria out of 6, to claim we  are struggling everywhere on the pitch.

Thats perfect. Time to keep Han Berger and his mob away from the FFA. Bloody leeches.

Agree with a lot of what he has to say. He’s clearly very experienced and in the know. BUT, our youth system was broken before Berger and the Dutch system came along.

I don’t like how he’s trying to rewrite history as though it was he Dutch that broke everything.

By the time we started going Dutch, we already had a severe lack of talent coming through.

We can’t blame that on Berger or the Dutch system. Players coming through the Dutch generation are an improvement on the one before it (the Missing generation).