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.
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