Not surprisingly the game last week didn’t live up to the hype that the media was building around it. If they didn’t know if before after last week all football fans will most certainly understand that Pim Verbeek is a extremely cautious manager. There was only one result that Pim was targeting last week and he achieved that with the 0-0 draw. It wasn’t pretty, especially in the second half when Japan ran rings around our midfield but it was effective.
With qualifying at the half way mark now it seems almost inconceivable that Australia could not finish in the top two of its group and book a place at South Africa. But in the bigger picture beyond even the qualification for SA 2010 are we satisfied with performance our team displayed.
As I was watching the game last though it struck me just how confident the Japanese midfielders were at moving the ball around and how they were able to apply constant pressure to the Aussies whenever they lost possession. Our team of Euro Aussies at times looked second rate against them. With the majority of their team coming from the J-league it really drives home the gap between our own domestic competition and theirs.
A little while ago I wrote about the introduction of the Asian Visa spot in the J-league and how this would result in J-league clubs raiding the A-league but this hasn’t occurred. To date not one J-league club has signed an Australian to their roster. Eddie Bosnar remains the sole Australian playing in the J-league first division and it looks likely to stay that way (for this season at least). This speaks volumes about the quality (or lack thereof) of the players in the A-League.
With most of the clubs going with South Korean players (a couple have picked up Chinese and North Korean players) there is no doubt that the J-League clubs see the K-League as a better option than the A-League and there is little evidence to argue against it. I think it is also interesting that not one Japanese player is currently playing in the A-League. If last night showed us anything it should be that the J-League could provide A-league clubs with talented midfielders (Even from their second division).
This year’s ACL will be a litmus test to the relative strengths of the four East Asian leagues. I think most supporters expect J-league clubs to finish top of each group but I have seen a lot of people talking up Newcastle and Central Coast’s chances of sneaking into second place. In my opinion if either team can progress out of the group stage they will have done a fantastic job.
With Adelaide United’s excellent and surprising run this year in the Asian Champions League a lot of Australian supporters seem to have an unrealistic idea of where the A-League stands in relation to the other leagues of East Asia. Both the Japan and Korea leagues are streets ahead of us. I put the Chinese league on par with us (and I am probably being generous).
Recent articles in the media seem to be suggesting the scrapping of the salary cap is immediately needed to halt the exodus of players to the higher paid Chinese and Korean leagues but is this really the answer. Are we in such a poor state that the talent pool here in Australia cannot handle the loss of 6-10 players to overseas clubs. The salaries of the players is not the key issue but the overall skill of our younger players coming through. We seem to be only producing 8-10 decent players per year, this needs to be transformed into 30-40.
The FFA has started the process of change. The SSG program will impart on our very youngest players a degree of ball control that has been lacking but we need to go a lot further than that. A complete culture change is needed in Australian and this type of change is the hardest to achieve. A move away from athleticism and towards creativity and skills is needed across all levels of our game. This is a change that will need years to achieve and will require a change in personnel at the highest levels of the game. Too many coaches of our youth (even at the elite level) are stuck in a mindset of win at all costs rather than development of the actual players.
But until such a change occurs I am afraid that we the supporters can only look forward to years of defensive strategies that we have witnessed recently at the Olympics and World Cup qualifiers.
,
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Taking A Defensive Posture
Posted by againstthecrossbar at 9:54 PM
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3 comments:
Brendan,
Great article. I'm of the opinion that the fact that there are no Australians playing in Japan doesn't really mean much: the best Aussie players play in Europe, not Asia, whereas there are very few Japanese and Koreans playing outside their own countries. Yes, the J.League is a step up from the A-League, but Japanese football has had a big headstart.
I fully agree with you that the loss of players overseas from the A-League is not as big a problem as it's being made out to be. We are already seeing some real quality come through the National Youth League - as long as our 'baseline' of raw talent coming through continues to gradually improve, it's a non-issue.
Thanks Bill
I take your point about our top players already in Europe.
I suppose my concern is that not one player from Australia has been signed and when you consider the new 3+1 rule they have introduced.
I wasn't expecting dozens just am surprised that not one player is of interest to the Japanense clubs.
one aspect of the visa rule is that the j-league wanted more asian players in order to create more asian interest in their league. they want to be asia`s number one league, and to do that, they want more chinese and koreans watching. a potential 20 million australian viewers is small change. but if any of the aussies do well in china or korea, a pay rise in japan is on the cards.
re the aus v japan game. it was cautious. it was ugly. but you can`t call it effective. our last 4 points were picked up because of our opponent`s lack of composure in front of goal, not because we defended well. tim cahill was wasted up front. ineffective and out of the picture. our best player.
clayton
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