Moric is one of the strikers that looked good last year?

It would be interesting to know, how much your technical coaching has changed, with the advent of the new FFA coach education system?
I've noted tactical and structural changes with some senior NPL coaches, but little has changed in the practices of some old coachers recalcitrant to change, particularly in relation to technique . This is often at senior level.
FFA was reluctant for a while to create more readily available technical coaching exercises for coaches. To an extent it has now been redressed, but I had to rely on some stuff that was put up by another poster in Performance on Arsenal, Chelsea, Ajax and PSV academies. It was very good and filled in gaps I had. I passed a lot of it onto other coaches.

* In the past eras, although it is acknowledged the development of Australian youth players never amounted to the required quality of senior players, the old system, where the players played in NSL youth comps and had more contact with senior players at club level, in training, and within club milieus in general, it created players who were very well conditioned for competitive youth football.

* Because of the recognition of the club being paramount in importance, the FFA Technical Departments now have to go out to NPL clubs to work alongside NPL club TDs to create improved programs.

Edited by Decentric: 14/7/2016 09:17:52 AM

“Fundamental change is never easy,” says Berger. “New processes do take a while, but I’m not sure we’re moving fast enough. Youth development is still all over the place, and the general level of youth coaching is still very poor.”
Berger admits he himself is partly to blame.
“I assumed certain knowledge levels and understanding when writing the curriculum,”
"The first version was about the philosophical approach, but some haven’t been able to grasp it. Others understand, but aren’t keen to implement it.
“Version two will explain everything I took for granted, and how it relates to version one. It will be more in-depth and practical - exercise sections will be included.

“Last time I presumed that if they understood the philosophies, the coaches themselves would be able to design the drills.”
http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/ffa-technical-director-han-berger-says-australian-football-needs-a-shake-up-writes-fox-sports-simon-hill/story-e6frf423-1226436061947

Better but still not convinced.

Depends on your football perspective or philosophy on how you look at the performance of the Australian footballer and the team as a whole.

Personally I'm not impressed.

In fact its terrible what I am seeing in this game against the Philippines (and a really poor side they are too).

“Generally speaking, there are only a few natural (top) talents! Youth trainers work more often with players of limited talent who are able to learn to become good players in a specific position. These players will from here on be called the ‘work talent’!
Rinus Michels, TeamBuilding, p. 182.

From the framework of this quote I'm not going to blame the player, this is not an acceptable stance. I must blame firstly the coaches and then the football culture of 2016 that they work under.



Not enough technique is being taught, not enough tactical awareness on the possession game and we lack "street smarts" as our best talents are taken away and ISOLATED from the general playing pool were the rough and tumble of league football has been taken away from them.
In Victoria junior NPL is regionalised U12 to U18 has two conferences East and West with 17 teams in them some NTC teams are placed in them as well. No promotion relegation, no graded levels of A or B.
Currently it is not Best vs Best!
Its terrible, they all play a psuedo possession game and are restricted by their coaches by the old school tactics in the attacking half.
The coaches are all AFC C and B accredited and its terrible.
Coaches are more concerned about the reputations based on a win/loss ratio.



The Football Culture of 2016 is the "McDonaldization" Coaching delivery, the FFA and the State Federations do not beleive in their Clubs, they do not beleive in Football Culture. Thats why you have NTC, Skillaroos, COE and a myriad of acronyms that represent todays Football Development Culture.

The development of the Golden Generation was a product of the migrant Football Culture, NSL Clubs had their own Football Cultural Experience, that played a part in player development.

Today it is a product instead of a cultural experience, in the past we had different styles of coaching and club culture, the FFA (and State Federations) are trying to mandate a "McDonaldization" of junior development.

Today MVFC and MCFC take the best U14 to U20 year olds, play them in the NPL1 and NPL2 Seniors and U20's.
They have everything, the best coaches, the best sports science, the best physios, hell they even have a van to carry all the kits and the driver sets everything up for them but they are denied, two important ingredients.
They have no mature players to learn from in a football way and a human way.
Secondly they are developing in an environment lacking strong Football Culture. (As a reference point to Football Culture the closest I have seen lately is the Richmond FC U20 side and congratulations to the coaches and administrators who have developed this side over the last six years.)

And I don't think our Football Ecosystem is going to change any time soon to be honest.
The Curriculum is failing because it is not being used as intended because we lack Football Culture.



And because we lacked the Football Culture/Knowledge the NC had to be rewritten for Dummies.
The danger is that now we are following the NC to the letter this means "HOMOGENISATION", "STANDARISATION", "McDONALDISATION". The State TD's monitor the NPL TD's are implementing the NC but Berger envisaged the NC as a philosophical starting point, not the step by step guide to football success.
We need to be more innovative and develop our own Football Culture and every Club needs to develop its own Football Culture. Even if they play Long Ball Football.

We also need to look at a National Second Tier and a Roadmap to Promotion and Relegation.
The NPL needs to be revisited on whats working and whats not.


Edited by Arthur: 15/7/2016 12:10:58 AM

Edited by Arthur: 15/7/2016 12:11:34 AM

I don't see any players coming through that could play for the national team in the future.

Munrubenmuz would probably be equally appalled and pleased by what you're saying, Arthur. Appalled because it's horrific to hear (but better you tell it as you see it, rather than being sycophantic) and pleased because this is a fairly damning indictment of the establishment, which is not dissimilar to his line of argument.

How the hell does it get fixed.

It seems to me that we basically have to rely on producing good players by fluke and hope they end up in Europe as young as possible to have any chance.

Guess you have the same talent id process as sheffiled Wednesday who released vardy at 16 , who then went to non league reserve football.

In the end the answer lies in football culture.

I've had enough of closed leagues, the A-League is closed.
You don't get punished for finishing last, you don't get rewarded for finishing first in a lower division.
Now we have NPL which is also a closed competition. You get 3 year participation license and all is good.
The NPL Academies are required to follow academic theory in football development practices based on the curriculum so everyone plays the same style of football, that's not innovation that's standardization.
That's not football culture.
To participate in the NPL you have to follow the NC and have junior teams its the price of of playing in the second tier.

The lack of a transfer system or satisfactory compensation fees and solidarity fees is not Football Culture.
Why develop players is there any value or monetary reward to do so?
Currently if the NTC or COE or a HAL NYL team takes your player you get extra Player Points- Are we SERIOUS?
Football Nations would not allow this, Clubs would laugh at thier Ruling Body we just accept it.
Next we'll be having a draft cause that's what other sports do!!

Football culture starts when you're born and your parents give you a football to dribble every where you go. Not boot the shit out of the ball, it's too late when you're 9yo.
Football is hard cold and cruel, at the elite level ask any South American.

Ange Postecoglou asked for scrutiny of players performances and along with that goes coaches and clubs.

If Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Italy, England, France, Spain etc lost 3-0 to Vietnam at U16 does anyone beleive there would be no repercussions?
We have now lost 6-0 and 3-0 to Vietnam where is the scrutiny?
Do we not have scrutiny?
Because there is none, because we get away with losing to Vietnamn and there is no consequence let alone scrutiny that means we have weak Football Culture.

If we have weak football culture then what we have now is about as good as it gets I suppose.




Edited by Arthur: 15/7/2016 11:41:59 PM

Edited by Arthur: 16/7/2016 12:06:33 AM

Australia's football revolution: Eric Abrams on the country's big plans
By Adam Bate
Last Updated: 10/07/16 1:53pm

Eric Abrams is credited with helping to introduce the youth structure that developed the talents of Belgium's golden generation. Now he's taken on the challenge of harnessing Australia's vast potential. Adam Bate caught up with him to find out more...

Belgium and Australia are very different. You can drive across Belgium in two hours, while Australia has three time zones. Australia's smallest state, Tasmania, is more than twice the size of the European country. It's clear that Eric Abrams, the Belgian charged with bringing his football knowhow Down Under, has a big job on his hands in more ways than one.

Abrams, a genial 59-year-old coach with a passion for youth development, has a well-earned reputation. For more than a decade, he was integral to Belgium's elite player programme - innovations that the country's senior side are now enjoying the benefits of. From Vincent Kompany to Eden Hazard, Abrams has worked with them all.

Now he's tasked with "bringing to life" a national football curriculum in Australia with the stated aim of introducing "a defined playing style" in the country. The challenge is huge but so is the potential. "These are exciting times," Abrams tells Sky Sports. "I did my research so I knew what to expect but there are always surprises.

"The country is a big one geographically so it's a huge challenge and it's a different environment in Australia. Copy and pasting doesn't exist but some of the principles of Belgium can be implemented here. All I can conclude is that everyone I've met is open and receptive to my proposals. There's a supportive mind-set.


"I think they acknowledge that they're still not on the same page as the top countries in the world of football. But Australian people are used to being the world's best and I sense strongly the aspiration to do the same thing in football. So from day one until today, I'm still excited about the job and happy in what I'm doing."

What Abrams is doing is attempting to implement and adapt the vision of his predecessor Hans Berger, the man who came up with a written document outlining a long-term plan for Australian football. "What the FFA was really looking for was someone who could bring that to life in practice around the different member federations of Australia," says Abrams.

"In the 18 months I've been in the job, I'm not going to say there have been spectacular changes but you can see the recommendations will have benefits. There are strong, defined targets and that's part of our four-year plan. In fact, it fits perfectly with the FFA's long-term 'whole of football plan' over the next 15 to 20 years."

Abrams is full of ideas. "One of my key recommendations having had my experience in Belgium, was that giving young players international experience at a young age is a very important development tool for the players and a good benchmarking tool for the coaches in terms of seeing where your players are at the moment," he says.

"The best example is that if you look at the Belgium squad for Euro 2016, the majority of the players had played for the national team by under-16 level." The problem is that replicating this highly-successful system in a country the size of Australia is fraught with difficulty. "Being so far away from other countries makes it a very expensive exercise," he explains.

"It's easy to say we want more under-15 internationals but if we want to play against good teams, we need to go to Japan or South Korea. That's a flight of more than 10 hours, so it's a costly undertaking. Then you have to judge whether it's good to do this with 15-year-olds. So that's an area where we struggle with the resources we have available."

Even within the country, there are issues. Abrams introduced a full-time coaching programme in Belgium, one that saw the most talented youngsters coached in school in the morning and with their clubs in the evening. "These additional contact hours made our players better," he says. But getting elite youngsters together in Australia is a tricky business. In March, the FFA launched a 'high performance school' in Sydney in order to create a challenging environment for the best players aged between 15 and 18. But it's early days.

"That's what we miss in Australia, because teams like Western City Wanderers, Sydney FC, Perth Glory, Newcastle Emerging Jets and Central Coast Mariners have academies but even in these clubs the young players only train three or four times a week," he adds. "If there's really a desire to compete with the best in the world, then our young players have to train more. It's a must for these age groups if you want to compete, there's no doubt about it.

"The problem is that in centralising the programmes full-time, we excluded a lot of players because the travel was too far - in some territories it's a 10-hour drive from one side of a state to the other. So we introduced pilot part-time programmes in Western Australia and Tasmania in conjunction with the clubs. One or two times a week, the best players train with each other and the rest of the week, they train and play in junior competitions with their clubs.

"At least by having these regional centres and people in charge from the FFA, we have a better control over the talent spread over the country. It's a double function as we have more players in our elite programmes now part-time and more qualified people looking after our elite players. We need to extend our pool of top potential players.

"For example, only five A-League clubs have real, established academies. It was a surprise to me that there are professional clubs in this country with only a senior side and an under-20 side. There were no youth-team programmes established. Perhaps there wasn't the desire from the owners to have these academies. It's a process of changing the mind-set."

For Abrams, that means coaching the coaches. "What we did very well in Belgium is create fantastic coaches thanks to our coach education," he says. "Player development is linked to your quality of coaching. The better the coaches, the better the development. In Australia, the level of coaching is still in a growing phase with a brand new curriculum introduced in 2013. So the FFA has an ambitious plan to increase the pool of high-quality youth coaches.

"With high-quality coaches, you can improve players and turn them into fantastic players. They call it a 'golden generation' in Australia with Tim Cahill and Brett Emerton, but I don't think Belgium is a golden generation. It's a product of very good talent identification and development thanks to opportunities they've received. It's a top generation but there are other generations to come."

With this in mind, Abrams has introduced a system of talent identification. The process will not be left to chance. Coaches will be advised on how to spot the best. "What we did very well in Belgium is that we developed a talent ID pool with six key competencies," he says. "We educated people to look at players this way.

"One of the missing links in Australia was that we didn't have the tools to judge these competencies. When I came in and we got our technical departments together, I asked them to explain to me what they looked for in talented players - they had a hundred different answers for what they looked for in them.

"You need some consistency and so convincing people to use a tool to identify players is essential. You can still have personal ideas, that's not a problem, but there has to be a tool. What I do now when it comes to talent ID is convince them to look at players in another way before judging them. It's about educating people to look for talent in different ways. By creating a consistent approach and a network of scouting experts we will definitely extend Australia's pool of young talent."

These are early days for Australia's revolution but having won the Asian Cup last year, their place at next year's Confederations Cup is already booked and a new team is taking shape. Hopes are high, but Abrams' vision will take somewhat longer to implement. "It's a process," he admits. "There's a way to go but we are making good steps."

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/14654/10497201/australias-football-revolution-eric-abrams-on-the-countrys-big-plans

You make great points about our possible lack or weak football culture.

To be fair with all plans you can implement in any industry no one knows the future will be like and whether it works or not but no doubt with some of the good things that we may have seen with the current changes there are certain flaws we have identified also that we need to improve on.

We also need some perspective on where we sit in world football table and know how we can improve, constantly learning and evolving should the only way for us going forward.

Edited by Barca4life: 16/7/2016 06:01:07 AM

Tonight we play Singapore. Hoping the lads can improve on the Philippines win.

any idea on streams?

Why yes. I do.

https://youtu.be/K_z5sbbPQ5M

B4L all I can ask you in these questions:

In the top 50 football nations would it be acceptable for their U16 NT to lose to Vietnam 6-0 and 3-0 over the space of 18 months?
Would the top 50 football nations in world find it acceptable that the second tier competition have a PPS and if your best talent is taken from you, you get bonus points?
In the top 50 nations in the world is it common practice to have closed leagues?

In the top 50 football nations in the world they have a high level of football performance scrutiny do we?

If the answer is no to any of the above we have weak football culture.

In the article you found again it exposes our weak football culture on different levels. The theme that keeps coming through is only the FFA can develop footballers.
I