Where’s The New Generation

Pim Verbeek has come out and highlighted Australia’s missing Olympic generation. This is nothing new as several commentators like Les Murray and Craig Foster have done so in the past but it further raises the concern that we are not seeing younger quality players coming through.

In this two part series I take a look at the last Olyroos squad and where they are at now. I have ignored the overage players.

Goalkeepers
Adam Federici (Reading, England : On loan to Southend)
Offically joined the Royals in 2006 (after spending some time there the previous season) and since has seen very little game time (9 appearances in 2 seasons). Recently he has been loaned out to League 1 side Southend where reports indicate that he has impressed.

It seems he is contracted to Reading until June 2009. He probably needs to move and find a position as the regular starting keeper, even if that means dropping down permanently to League 1.

Certainly has potentially to develop and at 23 has plenty of time to grow into the role. Should really be pushing as Schwarzer’s backup for the World Cup.


Tando Velaphi (Perth Glory, Australia)
Burst onto the scene last year and probably gained his spot due to the Vukovic suspension. Inexplicitly was relegated to third choice keeper this year when Mitchell went out and obtained Frank Juric as the first choice keeper.

A series of poor performances from both Juric and Petkovic however have seen the youngster promoted back to a starting position where he has outperformed both of his older competitors. It looks like he will be the first choice starter for the remainder of the year and this should help build his confidence.

He still needs 2-3 years here in Australia occupying a starting position before heading off overseas but so far this 21 seems to be on track for a long career.

Defenders
Adrian Leijer (Fulham, England)
One of the fan favourites while at Melbourne Victory he made the move across to Premiership team Fulham in 2007/08 season. Since then however he has yet to make an appearance for the Cottagers, though he has been a regular in their reserves.

Along with Matthew Spiranovic, Adrian is one of the most talented centre backs that we have coming through. He is contracted until June 2010 to Fulham but he desperately needs first team match time. Either a transfer to a Championship team or a loan is critical to his development which seems to have stagnated.


Matthew Spiranovic (FC Nurnberg, Germany)
Since FC Nurnberg’s demotion to the second tier of the Bundesliga Matthew seems to be getting much more first team match time and seems to becoming a regular within their starting team.
Still very young (20), he is an exciting player who has the long term potential to be at least as good as Craig Moore and Lucas Neill. He is in a good position at the moment and he now needs to cement his position as a regular starter and build that into a transfer to a bigger club (whether within the Bundesliga or elsewhere).

Would really like to see him starting in the upcoming AFC Cup qualifying matches in January and March.


Mark Milligan (Newcastle Jets, Australia)
You could write a book about the mistakes Mark has made recently with respect to his career. After a dream run being selected as a train on player for the World Cup by Guus Hiddick and winning a starting position as a 20 year old with Sydney FC it seems to all have gone downhill quickly.

There is no doubt that the kid has talent but I think he is his own worst enemy and you need to question the advice he is getting. One of the issues he has is that he doesn’t seem to have a natural position. Is he a right back, centre back or holding midfielder ? Back with the Jets now he has a chance to get regular match time once again under his belt but his recent overseas tour of European clubs was a disaster and his career has taken a large hit.

Pim does seem to have maintained confidence in him and you would expect he will be selected for the AFC Cup Squad in the upcoming matches.


Ruben Zadkovich (Derby County, England)
Got to admit I am not a fan. Was surprised to see him land a contract at recently demoted Derby County and I suspected he wouldn’t see much match time once they saw him on the training track. To date he has been used twice as a late sub by Paul Jewell and to be honest there is no indication this will change.

To develop Ruben needs match time and I just can’t see that happening at Derby. At 22 years of age he should be playing as a starter and he will need to drop down to a lower league to achieve that. He appears to be going nowhere fast. We may see him back in the A-League sooner than later


Nikolai Topor-Stanley (Perth Glory, Australia)
The last couple of years have seen him playing as a left back which I don’t think is his true position. Although he has done well for Perth he seems more suited to a centre back role. Nikolai doesn’t seem to be coming on as a player and may need a change in environment to take the next step.

Similar to Spiranovic he may need make the transition to the second level of the Bundesliga or similar level league. He certainly does not look even close to an Australian Cap with his current form.


Trent McClenahan (Hamilton Academical, Scotland)
Did show some good things in the Olympic qualifiers but I have my doubts whether he has the composure and skills to step up to senior level.

Disappeared from view when he decided to not take up a new contract with League 2 outfit Hereford United. Signed recently with recently promoted Hamilton and has started five of the last six matches. Hamilton however are currently sitting bottom and relegation to the Scottish second division is not exactly a career booster.

Really needs a transfer to a bigger club to improve further or I suspect we may see him back here in Australia at a A-League club in the near future.


Next Episode : Midfielders and Strikers

,

Bigger Does Not Mean Better

So Ben Buckley has indicated that the FFA will re-look at the size of allowable squads for the clubs that are participating in the Asian Champions League. After the display that Adelaide served up in the two legged final on the surface this would seem a logical decision.

Adelaide were left with 15 eligible players to select from for the final at Hindmarsh this week and even then not all 15 were fit. For the FFA to allow the situation to arise where the biggest two games in Australian Club History (apologies to South Melbourne and their performances in the 2000 Club World Cup) were placed into the hands of a virtually untried 17 year old is appalling.

But would a larger squad size have made all that much difference. The answer may well depend on how the FFA implement a increased squad size for two teams while maintaining a fair competition in the A-League. You would have to think that any implementation of the increased size will have to be done in such a way that prevents the two teams gaining advantage from it in the A-league.

If that is the case, you would expect the FFA to implement something along the lines that the two ACL qualifiers can sign an extra 4-5 players for the ACL competition and these players may fall outside the A-league cap, but come the July 1 only 23 players can be named for the A-League.

But I am not sure how workable such a situation is. It would create the situation where clubs would need to sign players to short term contracts (Jan – July and then if they make it out of the group stages August - November) or they risk being stuck with players who are on longer contracts but ineligible to compete in the A-League.

There is also the fact that most A-League clubs already have more foreign visa players than the ACL allows so additional squad members cannot be filled by overseas guest players.

So the most likely candidates for these extra short-term spots will be state league players who are willing to throw away the preseason for their state clubs for a chance of sitting on the bench during the ACL and then to be discarded in a couple of months. Forgetting the fact that the majority of Australian state league players have little or no A-League experience let alone international club experience are going to hardly add a great deal to the squad, I seriously doubt that we will see huge amounts of players putting their hands up for a deal like this.

However looking back at the two early goals in the last leg there is a case that a experienced keeper may have kept Adeliade in the game. There is no doubt that Birighitti could and should have done better. I would not go as far to say that the goals were his error, his defenders were virtually non-existent in that first 15 mins, it is likely however that a more experience keeper would not have deflected the first goal ball back into corridor, and would instead look to “push” the ball wide. The second goal again was saveable and with a more experience keeper in place who knows.

So increasing the squads just for the Champions League will not add a lot of value but may remove the situation where teams are forced to use very inexperienced youth players to fill gaps in the team. I am not sure however that this is the result that we want. What we could very well see is managers going with the safer option of a experienced but less talented player rather than giving the less experienced youth a shot. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but if you asked me before the match I personally I would rather see Mark Birighitti in goals than say a Tommi Tomich.

The FFA have a delicate balancing act to achieve here and it will be interesting to see if they get it right.
,

Sooky Sooky La La

What is with the A-League managers at the moment? It seems a day cannot go by without one of them having a good old fashion whinge about something.

Last week we had the A-league's serial whinger John Kosmina complaining about the current transfer process which has disrupted his team. It seems that Kossie is not happy he has to decide on the future of some of his squad now rather than in two months time when the normal window would have opened. Poor guy I really feel for him.

Then on Friday night Kosmina is back again in the news after showing a complete lack of sportsmanship after his team went down to Wellington. It seems that Kossie thought the late penalty to the Phoenix was a very fortunate decision and decided to let Ricki Herbert in on his personal opinion. Forgetting that the replays show that ref Craig Zetter was 100% correct in his penalty call, it was poor form from Kosmina and the Wellington coaching staff have every right to feel aggrieved.

Of course the Sydney manager has prior form in this sort of behaviour so it comes as no surprise.

On the other hand it seems Gary van Egmond felt left out and decided to also get into the act on Sunday when he accused Perth player Arian Trinidad of taking a dive to gain the late penalty that gifted Perth a draw. Now I hope that Gary is feeling quite embarrassed by his behaviour after reviewing the tape as the vision clearly shows that the penalty was more than deserved and that Mr van Egmond might be better served having words to his soon to be departing captain. Did Trinidad draw the foul, yep and damn good work it was.

Thankfully Frank Farina managed to contain himself this week after another poor home result for the Roar. Maybe he has finally run out of excuses and has finally admitted to himself that its his teams fault they are not scoring.

Maybe the managers might just want to harden the fuck up and look to their own backyards before teeing off at the media, refs, other managers. Maybe then they just might have a chance of affecting some change in their underperforming teams.

,