Victorian Premier League Kicks Off

If you are looking for a place for football betting.

Monday saw the Victorian Football Federation launch its Victorian Premier and Women’s Premier Leagues at the Young And Jackson Hotel. The night was a celebration of 125 years of Victorian football. It was on February 29, 1884 that a group of gentlemen meet to finalise arrangements for the forming of Carlton, South Melbourne, Richmond and Prahran and thus kick off club in Victoria.

This year a total of 12 teams will take part in the Victorian Premier League and a total of 9 will contest the Women’s Premier League. The men’s league first round will kick off this Friday night, with the Women’s season starts in early April.

This Friday at the Kevin Barlett Reserve, Richmond FC will take on the Whittlesea Zebras while over in the South East Suburbs, the Oakleigh Cannons will play host to Heidelberg United at Jack Edwards Reserve. Both games kick off at 8:30pm

The remaining matches of the round will take place on Sunday Afternoon/Evening

Hume City vs Altona Magic, Broadmeadows Valley Park, 4:00pm
Preston Lions vs Melbourne Knights, BT Connor Reserve, 5:00pm
Green Gully Cavaliers vs Sunshine Georgies, Green Gully Reserve, 5:00pm
South Melbourne vs Dandenong Thunder, Bob Jane Stadium, 6:00pm

This season is expected to be a tightly contested affair with Dandenong Thunder being quite active in the transfer market, while both Hume City and South Melbourne have signed ex A-league strikers, Isyan Erodgan and Vaughan Coveny, respectively.

Recent seasons have seen the Victorian Premier League gain a reputation as a jumping off point to a professional contract within the A-League and again this year we can expect to see many young players showcasing their talents in the hope of an A-league contract.

My prediction for the cup? It is hard to go past Green Gully. Although Altona managed to secure the premiership last year with a late season run of form there is no doubt that Gully where the standout team of 2008 and look set to be a strong contender again this season.

But whoever holds aloft the cup in early September, I am looking forward to the 6 months of local football. Bring on the Bratwurst Sausages and Souvlaki Rolls.

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How Much For A Tico

The Melbourne Victory hierarchy face some hard decisions over the next few weeks. They must decide how much do they really think Carlos Hernandez is worth to the club. With his loan deal from Costa Rican club Liga Deportiva Alajuelense ending at the end of this season they must either negotiate a transfer for him, extend the loan deal or let him walk away.

Two years ago, after virtually winning the final off his own boot, Melbourne allowed Fred to walk away from the club and take up a contract with DC United in the American MLS. Can they afford to make the same mistake again.

I say mistake as the loss of Fred hurt the club badly. Although the club denies it, Fred was critical to the success of the 2006/07 season. He was the engine room of the midfield and the majority of the goals went through him. In the narrow system that Ernie Merrick favours he was the creativity outlet that provided the strikers with the ball to their feet that they needed. The loss of Fred was evident in the following season as the team struggled to find the fluency of the previous year as the newly loaned Hernandez struggled to find his feet in the league.

It has only been this year that the talent of Hernandez has shown through, it is no coincidence that he leads the league in providing through balls to his strikers, his vision and ability to hit his passes has no peer in the A-League. His work in close quarters and ability to hold the ball outstanding.

So why would Victory let him go? It will come down to money. It is from media reports Alajuelense want over $1 Million for his transfer and rumours are that there are other clubs in East Asia willing to part with it to obtained the Costa Rican’s services. Thankfully Carlos has indicated that he does want to stay at Melbourne which puts Victory in the box seat if they are willing to part with this amount of cash.

This kind of money would be a first for the A-League. The big question on supporters lips though is he worth it? In my opinion yes, empathically yes. However I am sure that the club’s decision will come down to whether financially they can take this step without placing undue stress on the bank balance.

Next year Melbourne we have their second shot at the Asian Champions League and need to prepare a team that can compete with the best from Japan, China and South Korea. A crucial aspect of that will be a team that can not only match these teams but win matches. To have to replace their key play maker could see a repeat of the 2007/08 season all over again and is something that Victory can ill afford.

A fully fit Carlos Hernandez will go a long way towards fulfilling that goal, without him I am not so sure we can find the back of the net consistently enough. So come on Gary Cole, Geoff Lord and co lets dust the cob webs off the wallet and ensure Melbourne has a fighting chance.

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Taking A Defensive Posture

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.

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Where’s The New Generation? Part 2

Sorry for the long gap between articles, a short break over summer has turned into a busy time at work.

In the last instalment we looked at where the Keepers and Defenders from our last Olyroos squads are at. In this is article we explore the Midfielders and Strikers.


Midfielders
Billy Celeski (Melbourne Victory, Australia)
I like Billy, he is a hard worker and versatile player who provides a manager with a lot of flexibility. But a future superstar he is not.

He has stepped up this year at Victory and cemented himself a starting position in the team. His consistent performances have even won him a position on Pim’s A-league squad for the upcoming AFC Cup Qualifier. But at 23 years of age (turns 24 this year) I am not sure he will develop beyond a solid A-League player


Neil Kilkenny (Leeds United, England)
A true box to box midfielder Kilkenny has been touted as a future Socceroo for a while now. To be honest I haven’t seen a huge amount of him but the times I have seen him play he has looked very comfortable on ball and his distribution was first class.

He is at Leeds presently, though is struggling to get game time due to a change in management. There is talk that he is looking elsewhere currently and a move might be on the cards. If he is good enough he will force himself into a Premier league team. Just as Cahill, Emerton and others have before him. He is in the right spot, now he just has to produce.


Stuart Musialik (Sydney FC, Australia)
It is funny how sometimes a simple move of club can make such a difference to a player’s development and career. At Newcastle Jets, Stuart Musialik looked like a future star of Australian football. His ability to break up opposition attacks and deliver quality passes out of his teams own half was second to none in the A-league.

When Sydney convinced him to move there for the 2008-9 season he was among the main reasons that many saw them as title favourites. But John Kosmina has failed to get the best out of him and his season this year has been poor. He looks overweight and his touch poor. Rather than looking for a move to Europe this year now he will be fighting to hang onto a starting position at Sydney.


Kristian Sarkies (Adelaide United, Australia)
When the only description that commentators can find for a player is set piece specialist alarm bells start ringing. Sometimes it appears it’s the only thing Kristian Sarkies has going for him. There is no doubting his ability to deliver a set piece but it’s the rest of his game that comes under question.

Kristian burst onto scene when chosen by Hiddick to be a train-on member of the 2006 World Cup squad but since then his has struggled to cement himself a starting spot first at Melbourne Victory and now at Adelaide United. To be honest I just don’t think he has the game to grow beyond a A-league level player.



James Troisi (Genclerbirligi, Turkey)
There is no doubting that this kid has potential, his ability to hold the ball and dribble through defences is exciting to watch. However to develop further he needed to take the step away from Newcastle United and get himself first team game time.

The second youngest of the Olyroos’s squad (Spiranovic is younger by 24 days) it appeared immediately after the Olympics that his career was in some trouble when talk of contracts in Spain didn’t eventuate. Luckily he appears to have find his feet at Turkish Club Genclerbirligi and is getting good game time.

If he can impress there hopefully he can find his way back into a quality “technical” league.


Strikers
Mark Bridge (Sydney FC, Australia)
You have to wonder sometimes how a player can seem so good one year and so poor the next. Mark Bridge looked like a future star when he burst onto the scene in the Jets 2006/07 season. Scoring 8 goals as a 21 year old his future looked bright but it has been all downhill from there. With only 3 goals to his name in the current A-league season his career is going nowhere fast

Like Musialik he should now be looking overseas to further his development but his horror season will leave him fighting for a starting position at Sydney and at 24 he may be already missing his chance to take his game to the next level.


Nikita Rukavytsya (Perth Glory, Australia)
Sometimes a player can suddenly click with a manager and take his performances to a new level. Such is the case with Rukavytsya. Dave Mitchell has certainly gotten the best out of this speed machine since he took over the job at Perth. Under his management Nikita has scored 15 goals in 26 matches.

His ability to run at defenders puts the fear of god into nearly all A-league defenders and if he can continue to develop his overall game he will be a future star for Australia.

He has just returned from a trial in Holland at FC Twente and the word is that Perth do not expect him back for the 2009/10 season. It would be a great move for him and hopefully he can force his way into senior team role there over the next two years.

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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

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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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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.

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