But that's just it- shots and shots on target reflect lack of striking options.Is that the fault of the A-League?

I blame a brilliant French defense. And a solid Danish defense. Peru not as solid but they were damn quick and desperate to defend. 

Looking for a single fault is pointless. There is no one place the finger can be pointed. Is the A-League at fault? Partially. Just like the NPL and below are also at fault. Just like the coaching and curriculum is at fault. Any person, organisation or process that forms a part of Australian football development is likely at fault in some way.

What’s our biggest problem going back to NSL HAL SOCCEROOS MATILDAS AND everything below is lack of capital and investment partners (be that media, sponsors or investors) to provide the results we desire.

AL attendances are good, but not for the cost to deliver those numbers.
The overheads are to high, for example stadia, players wages, backroom staff and License fees.
The ROI doesn’t work.

Its no wonder JJ has identified the transfer market as one area we can do significantly better.

From my perspective one area we have failed in is marketing, I thought Tana at Glory did it well. He committed to a larger budget to marketing than player budgets. At the same time player bonuses were tied to attendances.
Historically budgets are heavily weighted to football departments and operational fixed costs, leaving little to marketing the game. 

I agree but we cannot improve in the T/F market whilst there is a salary cap becuz it forces clubs to only sign plays for 1 year incase they get serious injuries it f**ks them long term. 

We have to remember the aleague was set up without a youth structure underneath for the first 5 years until the NYL came in and eventually when the aleague clubs started to invest in the academy space a few years later after that.

Based on that we were at least 10 years behind, meanwhile the Socceroos squad had around 11 players in top 5 leagues in 2006 unlike Japan where they only around 4 and South Korea had around 2 players, fast forward to 2020 Japan have about 12 players in the top 5 leagues, South Korea have around 6 currently.

These days we only got 3 and one is a regular right now in Many Ryan, unless Hrustic gets into the Frankfurt starting lineup.

It shows if you leave youth development behind you will pay the price for the quality of the national team down the line, this is a failure on the FFA and the set up of the aleague as well.

Milligans career did kind of go no where but that was his fault had the chance to sign for Arsenal or Werder bremen but went to some pub club  in Asia for the money this isnt exclusive to the AL or Australia happens all the time money talks just look at Oscar going from Chelsea to some pub CSL team

Mooy was developed by Bolton but being at City helped his career. 

Jedi, Kruse, Leckie and Ryan are the exports we can be proud of but we need more - we need to be shipping off at least 3-4 players ever year to the top 5 leagues in Europe in the hope at least one of them succeeds


I give the AL a lot of shit but dont get it twisted i want it and Australian football to succeed - we need to accept 60-70% of the players we send to Europe top level will  'fail' but there is always Asia or returning to the AL if that happens ie Yeboah.

The main reason I want a 2nd division and the old NSL teams to be incorporated is it simply gives more opportunities to put players in the shop window. Im a MU Fan i was the PL most weekends i want more Aussies in the competition!

The trouble is that before Daniel Arzani was subbed on, we looked innocuous. Midfield- and attack-wise we were a shadow of the 2006 team (until Arzani came on).

Basically, you aren't going to make it out of the group stage of the WC without at least one Arzani-type player on the pitch for the majority each game (in addition to other types of players). It doesn't matter how much possession you have. None of this is Bert van Marwijk's fault. It's a credit to him that he made our defence shipshape with so few months of prep. He can't be expected to work miracles with mostly mediocre midfielders and attackers.

Arzani has shown phenomenal promise.

He definitely is the exception to the rule with the A-League thus far. He also appears to be a one-off (in terms of style) compared to all the Aussie footballers born in the 90s.

The question is... is Arzani the exception to the rule for players born after that? Let's hope not.

Will footballers developed entirely under the NC have been taught and encouraged to show individual skill and 1 vs 1 ability?

It's a recurring a problem though.

Is it the fault of the A-League? To a point.
Is it the fault of the development system and football coaching as a whole? To a greater extent.

I think that too many footballers have been developed according to some misguided philosophy that:
(a) Sideways passing and winning the possession stats = emulating Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez
(b) Barcelona was an XI of only Xavi- and Iniesta-type footballers
(c) You can win matches by having only these type of footballers. Any individualism, "athletic" football or counter-attacking football is to be discouraged

@ quickflick.

thank you for your well-considered and respectful comments. I agree with much of what you say.

You may dismiss this as simplistic but I believe the difference between the 2006 and 2018 squads is Tim Cahill, 

 BvM erred in not selecting Cahill, even with his lack of game time, and I'll never forgive Warren Joyce for wanting to stamp his philosophy of "hard work and graft" that sidelined Tim and left him not match fit.

The  difference from 2006 is not as big as people think. Put a fit Tim Cahill with a Leckie free header in the box and you can chalk a win against the Danes.

I'm not a coach..but you know what stands out like dogs balls for Australian players?  The generally terrible first touch.  Leckie for example looks like an AFL player trying to control and dribble a round ball.

So my questions to you are:

Do development coaches

1. believe a good first touch is a technique that can actually be taught?  If so how do they teach it, because the outcomes are shit and have been for decades now. 

2. Do development coaches believe that a good first touch is not a technique that can be taught but must be "acquired" by way of repetition from an early age?

FWIW, I think its a technique that can be taught, and it doesn't take 15 years of repetition from the age of 3.  I can pick a player who has a poor first touch just be looking at how he moves his receiving leg and foot even before he touches the ball.  You kno its going to bounce back of as soon as it touches his boot. Many of my 40-something mates who played in the 80's and 90's say the same.  The first touch was much better for players of that era. 

Its not some black magic or genetic defect Australian players have.  Its poor coaching.

I've said this many times.
First, I'll start with a question:  how much in terms of development coaching does your average Brazilian kid get?  I'm guessing for the vast majority, it's next to nothing.
What does this tell us?
That that touch and feel for the game doesn't come from development coaching, it comes from playing, playing, playing, 24/7, until your feet hurt.  All day, most of the night, all week, all year round, never stop playing.
That's what's missing in Australia (and that's probably what the golden generation had in their favour, being children of immigrants, born into the game, and they just grew up playing the game non-stop).

Cheers Enzo Bearzot. Thanks for you kind words.

Leckie for example looks like an AFL player trying to control and dribble a round ball.

As regards Mathew Leckie, it's funny you say that. I may be wrong, but I understand that he only started playing football around the age of 15. Before then he played Aussie Rules. Your description's bang on.

I'll say this for him... how many people who've played in the Bundesliga only started to play football at about the age of 15?

It's a mightily impressive achievement. And it comes down to his athleticism and his being a "niche" kind of footballer. Imagine if he'd played football, football, football from Day 1.

Australia needs more people with Leckie's athleticism (speed, acceleration) playing football constantly (as bettega rightly points out) and with the right coaching (as you rightly point out) from the start.

Didnt Leckie come into football late? I agree he isn't the best technically but he's a great athlete.

I think its different now that there is small sided games, SAP etc that encourages developing better technique and game sense in the right ages, that wasnt there in the past as it was quite add hoc through a different era during the NSL era.

Oddly enough those players are coming through right now are the 2000 born players who were the first to go through this and are now in the aleague and NPL set ups around the country.

But as Arnie pointed the biggest problem is the gap between 17-23 which will determine how many quality players Australia will develop into the future, they have to solve this with more game time, this is the key now.

Shouldn’t it be started focusing on football at 15?

The way it is sometimes described makes it sound like a Disney movie, Jamaican bobsled team or Eddie the Eagle.

May have played most days as a kid at or after school and Aussie rules I assume.

You need at least one bloke in your front half who doesn't mind putting an opposition centre half on his arse.

Don't know. How much did he play? I was (perhaps mistakenly) under the impression that he played Aussie Rules competitively and didn't play football competitively until around the age of 15. By "competitively", I mean in an organised competition, rather than a professional competition.

No idea whether or not Leckie played football after school.

In any case, I understand "focus on", in this context, to mean that they'd already played the sport competitively, along with other sports. Then they ditched the other sports. E.g. Ricky Ponting played both cricket and Aussie Rules (in competitions) up until the age of 14. He could have gone pro in either. Then he decided to focus on cricket and basically stopped playing Aussie Rules.