On Your Marks

The potential relocation of the Olympic Park athletics track has been on the agenda for quite a while now. With the new multi-purpose stadium currently in construction and targeted to be ready for late 2009 the old Olympic park stadium was fast running out of tenants. It now seems that the State Government are close to announcing the end for the old ground.

Constructed for the Melbourne Olympics in 1955 it was used as the warm up track before athletes made their way onto the main arena at the MCG. The original construction also included a velodrome, second ground and swimming complex (the current Lexus Centre) on the site and over the years the complex has been used for a wide range of sports (including Greyhound Racing). It was also the site of one of Australia’s most famous sporting moments when John Landy stopped mid-race to help fallen rival Ron Clarke, resume running and went on to win the race. The stadium’s contribution to football in this state also cannot be understated. Over the year numerous World Cup Qualifying games, NSL Grand Finals and A-League Matches have been held here. It was the first stadium in Australia to be officially recognised by FIFA.

Now with the Athletics move to Albert Park a fait accompli there is a question of how the land will be used going forward. As has been reported previously the AFL club Collingwood have already made overtures to the state government in a bid to gain control of the land. They want to build an oval there to use for training purposes and as expressed in the article today Mr Brumby seems to be indicating the a training ground will indeed be the end result.

But why an oval ground, with the new Stadium being built next door going to be Victoria’s premier rectangular ground for the next 30-40 years surely it would make more sense to provide another football pitch to be used for training by Melbourne Storm and Victory. Geoff Lord needs to be in there repairing some bridges with the state government to ensure that this opportunity is not lost. This will be a true test of how far football has come over the last few years.

On the positive side with the announcement of a $50 Million redevelopment of the Albert Park stadium to incorporate the new Athletics Track, Victorian Football with gain a revamped Bob Jane Stadium. South Melbourne Football Club has indicated they are working closely with the state government to ensure they secure their future at the ground.

Of course there will be many people outraged that the state government has shown such disregard to our history, Olympic and Football. Why spend $50 Million on Bob Jane Stadium when $25-35 Million spent on Olympic Park could have produced the same result. But in the end football is the winner here.

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Junior Super Hell

This past weekend saw the kickoff of the Junior competitions here in Melbourne for the 2008 season. An exciting time as young boys and girls venture forth to test their skills and see how much development has occurred over the summer break.

As I am fortunate to be living a suburb that holds several clubs fielding teams of junior super league quality I thought I would head along and check out a match. One of the local clubs Under 15’s team was playing at home, so I packed up my three year son and we cruised over to the game with expectations high.

What we witnessed was one of the worst matches I have ever seen. This is not to say the quality of football on show was poor, it wasn’t. Both teams contained some fine players and there were at times some beautiful passing and dribbling to be seen. What made the match so disappointing was a combination abysmal refereeing, disgraceful coaching and one side that was intent on causing as much physical damage to the opposition as possible.

In a classic example of a referee losing control of the game we were treated to three red cards (two to one team and one to the other) and a coach sent to the dressing rooms (after invading the field to continue his abuse of the ref after the third red). The refereeing was so bad you felt sorry for the players and left you wondering which street corner the FFV picked this ref up from.

The coach who was ejected from the game was nothing short of disgraceful. To think this person is in a role where he is so much influence over these young boys is horrifying. Throughout the match he abused the ref, opposition players and opposition coach constantly. At one stage one of his players went down with cramp and hobbled to the sidelines, his coach then proceeded to admonish the player for not staying down while on the field and thus delaying the game.

Finally only one team out there had come to play football, their opposition on the other hand were more interested in hacking them at every opportunity. With the help of the aforementioned referee they were given every opportunity to do so.

Now I am sure this is not your typical Junior Super League match (while I am hopeful at least) but for a game of such a high level to degenerate into such a mess is staggering. It is little wonder that Australia cannot produce players of high technical ability regularly when our youngsters are being developed under these circumstances.

On the bright side my three year old enjoyed himself immensely (had to restrain him from running on and trying to join in) and so we will again try and find a good game next week. The club on the other side of the suburb are at home next week.

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The Suspension of the Suspension

I always believed that the Vukovic suspension was overly harsh, the punishment in no way fitted the crime but the FFA’s latest about face on this matter is ludicrous in the extreme. In the last few years the FFA has made some giant strides in its professionalism, its a pity with this action they just took a massive leap backwards.

For those not up with the latest Vukovic will now have his suspension lifted for a period of time (from 25/06/2008 – 28/08/2008) effectively granting him the ability to compete in the Olympics,

There is no doubt that the FFA when applying their original punishment wanted to send a clear message to all players that manhandling of referees would not be tolerated and due to the fact that incident came at the end of the A-League year they applied a ban that would see him miss half of the 2008-9 A-League season. When you look at the ban in this context it seems reasonable (Approx. 10 weeks).

In a non-Olympic year or if Vukovic had of been over 23 and ineligible for the Olympics that would have been the end of it. The player would have served the ban and FFA would have been secure in the knowledge that all players understood the ramifications of their actions. But that was not the case and there was a strong element that Vukovic was being unfairly treated.

With the reduction to the suspension now in place Danny Vukovic will serve an approx. four match ban. That is right, in effect the only matches he will miss will be some Olyroos warm up matches and the first four A-League matches of the coming season. What kind of message does this send to young players. Oh we will come down hard on you but if you appeal enough we will wipe away 90% of the penalty.

The FFA are now a laughing stock, whether the original penalty was overly harsh is beside the point, they needed to stand their ground here and show some backbone. Instead they now look weak and have sent mixed messages to the wider player base.

Tough Times Ahead For Olyroos

Depending on how you look at it the Olyroos have been either given a fantastic draw or a nightmare one. On the one side the young roos will face some fantastic teams and will be given an opportunity to showcase their talents to the world. On the negative side there is no easy games in their group and to progress out of the group stage will require that every player brings their best to China in August.

Australia has drawn Argentina, Serbia and Ivory Coast as their opponents for the group stage.

Argentina
Will be favourites to top the group. Although their qualifying campaign was not overly impressive (Finishing second to Brazil in the final qualifying and only scraping past Uruguay with an extra two draws) we can expect them to bring a very strong team. They have confirmed that Juan Roman Riquelme (Boca Juniors) and Javier Mascherano (Liverpool) will be included as over age players and Lionel Messi (Barcelona) is eligible as he is under 23.

Serbia
At first glance many non football people are going to feel that Australia should ease past Serbia with little problem. They are in for a huge shock. This team was the standout at the UEFA Under 21 qualifying tournament. Topping their initial group (which included England) with solid wins against Italy and Czech Republic. In the knockout finals they were too strong for Belgium and finally succumbed to Netherlands in the final. Most of the names will not be familiar to Australia audiences but there is no doubting the quality of the clubs they come from. Players like Zdravko Kuzmananovic (Fiorentina), FiorentinaZdravko Kuzmanovic Zdravko Kuzmanovic Zdravko Kuzmanovic Zdravko Kuzmanovic Gojko Kačar (Hertha Berlin), Milan Smiljanić (Espanyol), Slobodan Rajković (Chelsea) will bring a quality that will surprise many.

Côte d'Ivoire
The last game of the group stages will be against the Ivory Coast and should be highly entertaining. The elephants have confirmed that they will be bringing Didier Drogba (Chelsea) as an over age player which will mean huge headaches for Adrian Leijer and Mark Milligan. The elephants won through the qualifying stages with ease winning 5 of their six matches (the one loss was a dead rubber against Senegal).


It certainly seems that Australia will face a uphill battle to win a game let alone progress past the group stages but Arnold will have to his advantage a large number of lead in games with the vast majority of the squad. This should help bind the team together.

Australia over age players will be a critical choice as it should help bolster the team while not upsetting the balance. Personally I favour a combination of attack and defence. My choices would be Valeri, Carle and MacDonald used in a 4-4-2 Diamond There are of course many options though depending on the setup that Arnold wants to use. I feel an experienced strike partner for Bruce Djite is critical, as I suspect the lone striker formation we played with in the qualifiers will not be as successful against much stronger opposition.

It's adiós at Victory

There has been a noticeable lack of signings by Melbourne Victory during the off season to date. Certainly Victory has been focussed on their AFC Champions League campaign but I am sure Gary Cole has been working hard behind the scenes to turnaround the poor season from last year.

So who exactly do we expect to be exiting the team and what areas might we expect to see new faces next year.

Adrian Caceres has accepted terms with Central Coast Mariners. It seems the Victory were unwilling or unable to match the Mariners offer to Caceres. Caceres is most likely the biggest loss of the players exiting the team. In the last half of the season he had established himself as starter within the team and with three goals from eleven starts provided a third striking option to Ernie Merrick.

It appears that Melbourne has decided not to offer Daniel Piorkowski a renewal of his contract. His continuing injury issues may have contributed to the decision and Victory may feel they can utilize his salary to attract a more consistent defender. I must say I think this is a good decision by Melbourne. With Steven Pace showing signs of being a decent signing and Sebastian Ryall developing nicely I feel Melbourne can afford to let Piorkowski go.

Leandro Love will almost certainly not be offered an extension to his loan deal. The Brazilian has failed to fire since arriving at Melbourne. It could be argued that for the vast majority of the time he spent on the field he was played out of position (Most of his fifteen appearances were more as a left sided winger than a true striker). However I think his biggest undoing is that he appears to be more comfortable running at defences rather than receiving the ball with his back to the goals or his aerial ability. This is a area Melbourne must address in the off season.

Kaz Patafta’s future at the club is still up in the air. Patafta himself has declared that his priority is his contract with Portugal side Benfica. The fact that he has been hardly used at Melbourne (starting only two games) his future at Benfica must be under serious doubt. If Benfica do release him from the contract he is still no certainly to remain with Victory. Newcastle United has shown interest and Patafta may believe that he has more opportunity for a starting position there than at Melbourne.

Nathan Elasi has only been contracted to June of this year and so Melbourne also need to decide whether to offer him a longer term deal. We haven’t seen Elasi in a match yet (though it has been reported that he impressed in the recent Adelaide friendly) so it is difficult to ascertain his future chances. Certainly he will be offered a youth contract if Melbourne feel he is not ready for a professional contract but Elasi may feel that he can do better elsewhere.

In addition there must be some doubt over the future of Joseph Keenan, originally left out of the Champions League Squad as Melbourne could only name three international players he was again overlooked when Brebner withdrew due to injury. If Melbourne does keep him (which I suspect they won’t) he has a lot to prove. He does have a year left on his contract however.


With a likely four-five players exiting Melbourne will need to look carefully at their recruitment. Tom Pondeljak has joined from Central Coast already and will provide a great deal of experience though at his age injuries will be a concern. Billy Celeski although inconsistent has added a new dimension on the right.

With Love almost certain to go and Keenan a chance there will be one to two international places on the squad available. Rumours of a Costa Rican striker waiting for a visa to trail at Victory have been reported and the Melbourne Forums have been alive with reports from Costa Rica of deal that is pretty much done with a defensive midfielder by the name of Pupy Ramierz. Could it be possible that the spine of Melbourne in 2009 will be all Costa Ricans.

Width is still a major concern at Melbourne and a natural left footed midfielder is needed to replace Caceres. Evan Berger doesn’t appear to be developing quickly enough to fill that role so hopefully Gary Cole has his eye on someone.

Melbourne biggest need at the moment is a third striker who can challenge Thompson and Allsopp for a place in the starting line-up. With the FFA announcing the Youth Marquee initiative Melbourne has effectively been handed another $150,000 to spend on a striker (Ward will almost certainly be Melbourne’s youth Marquee and his salary excluded from the cap).

Hopefully the picture will become clear in the next two months.

FFA Hitting The High Notes

Been away for the last week so apologies for the lack of posts.

I have been hugely impressed with the FFA recently with the youth initiatives they have announced. The introduction of Small Sided Games, National Youth League and now the Marquee Youth Player scheme are all terrific programs for the development of youth in this country.

Small Sided Games (SSG) will bring uniformity to our kiddie development programs and should ensure we produce more technically rounded players in the future. Of course with football there is always going to be those that want to resist change, I suspect mainly to simply demonstrate that they can. Lets hope the FFA stamps on this attitude firmly. My local junior club down the road will kick off SSG in two weeks, so I am looking forward to seeing what it’s all about as I am out and about walking the dog on Saturday Mornings.

I am also looking forward to the National Youth League (NYL). There has always be a pathway for the top 20 or so players into the A-League via the AIS. Now with the introduction of NYL we will see 70 odd junior players ranging in age from sixteen to twenty-one find themselves in the spotlight and shopfront of our national comp. With a bit of help from Foxtel we may even see the NYL gain wider exposure via the soon to released Football Channel.

The just released news that the A-League will introduce a second marquee player next year is welcome news in itself. The fact it is for Under Twenty-Three Australian (NZ in Phoenix Case) Players is even more exciting. The ability for A-league clubs to hang onto their brightest young talents for a few more years is tremendous for the league and with $150,000 excluded from the Salary Cap we should see the some of our top young players opting to say for a while longer.

So a big thumbs up for the FFA
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Craig Foster : Inspired or Ludicrous?

I missed The World game last week and yesterday I was catching up via the The World game website which posts clips of the show. I came across a piece by Craig Foster and Les Murray discussing the China Match. There is nobody within the Football media that inspires as much polarization of opinion as Craig Foster. This has a lot to do with the strong opinions that the man himself holds and regularly expresses.

Mike Salter of The Football Tragic has devoted a whole section of his blog to the man and it is well worth reading. Mike points out many of the inconsistencies that seem to affect Foster and hones in on one area that Foster has let himself down time and time again, his criticism of all things English.

There is little doubt that there are some aspects of football that Foster should not be involved in. His is a poor interviewer (for the same reason why he is a pretty good analyst, his strong opinions), he rarely allows a evasive answer to go unpunished. For those of you who didn’t see the now infamous Ange Postecoglo interview take a look and you see Foster at his worst. His point is made early in the interview but because he cannot get Postecoglo to give him the answer he wants the interview quickly degenerates in mudslinging on both sides.

It frustrates me endlessly that every time he takes a question he rolls his eyes or signs with frustration. His lack of professionalism sometimes is inexcusable.
For all his faults though Foster remains one of the best commentators of the local game. His opinion pieces on the SBS Web Site can throw up some fantastic information. I also love the way that he never lets an issue go and continues to push the limits with people when they appear on The World Game. His continuing pressure on the FFA for a Technical Director and now his resolve to hold Rob Baan accountable to implement real change within the grass roots of football in this country should be applauded.

Foster wrote a piece back in March 2007 title “Possess the ball - a new philosophy”, I recommend all coaches, parents and pretty much everybody involved in youth football in this country to read the piece and watch the accompanying video. His recent follow up opinion pieces on the The Future is Small Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, continue this youth development theme and are recommended reading.

So for all his failings I feel the game in this country definitely benefits from the presence of Craig Foster, now if someone could just convince him to lay off on the English bashing.

Time-out for Viduka

The will he or won’t he game concerning Mark Viduka’s continuing appearance in a Socceroos strip is on again. National coach, Pim Verbeek, jetted out to Europe on Sunday and one of the players he will be catching up with will be Mark Viduka.

This once again has ignited the question does Viduka really want to continue his international career and is his time up already after not making himself available for the first two qualifying matches.

Several media commentators have jumped to burn Viduka at the stake. According to these experts, Viduka having not made himself available for national duty for the Qatar and China qualifiers has committed the mortal sin of putting himself ahead of his country and so should not be considered for future matches and selection for the World Cup.

What a load of rubbish !

There is no doubt that as national team manager the last thing you want is for players to dictate availability for matches, especially matches that mean something. However just as importantly, it is critical that Pim manages his player list to ensure the best result for Australia as a whole. Is it really in Australia’s best interests to force Viduka to a decision on his playing future earlier than later. It seems a little short-sighted to insist he makes himself available for matches against Qatar, China and Iraq when the likely outcome is that he would retire.

Viduka has not commented on his position regarding national duty for a reason. That simply is because he hasn’t made up his mind. Pim has taken the right approach here, by not forcing the issue the door remains open. Personally I would give him a free pass for this whole qualifying round (that is 6 of the 14 qualifiers we need to play). This would allow Viduka an overdue holiday in June where he can recharge the batteries. With a bit of luck, he will return hungrier than ever.

Of course this is a risk, there would be egg on Verbeek’s face if he let Viduka have the vacation in June and then failed to qualify but these are the risks that are necessary to ensure a successful qualification campaign.