Coaches to raise standards

el-capitano · Apr 10, 2008

AFTER decades of neglect, the world is finally opening up for home-grown coaches, with the majority of A-League coaches using the off-season to broaden their education.

Aurelio Vidmar (Adelaide), Frank Farina (Queensland), Dave Mitchell (Perth) and Ricki Herbert (Wellington) have all been overseas since the end of the season to not only scout for new players, but - more importantly - to continue learning their craft by meeting coaches and attending training sessions. Equally significant is the fact that, in most cases, their clubs are paying for the trip. Sydney FC are a notable exception, although there are plans to send John Kosmina overseas at the end of next season.

Newcastle coach Gary van Egmond will also head to Europe in a fortnight where, among other duties, he will open his laptop and spend three days studying the methods of AS Roma coach Luciano Spalletti. Central Coast boss Lawrie McKinna will be back home in Scotland next week for a working holiday, spending time with Rangers head coach Walter Smith before heading south for a few days at Sheffield United.

Herbert - the first Kiwi to coach the New Zealand national team - recently returned from a trip to Europe and Brazil, and said: "Ultimately, the A-League will be a better league if it has better coaches."

Herbert will return to Europe in July to complete his UEFA Pro License, the highest coaching qualification in the world, but not before classmate Roy Keane pays him a visit in Wellington, where they'll both spend a couple of days with the All Blacks to fulfil one of the requirements of their course.

Vidmar, who is testing his wits in the Asian Champions League, admits he gained some important insights during his recent trip to Europe, adding: "Sometimes it's not the most obvious things that you benefit from. I went to Milanello [AC Milan's training headquarters] for a couple of days, and it was brilliant, but let's be honest, there's no way we can do a lot of those things at Adelaide United because we simply don't have the resources. Chievo [Verona], though, was a different story - much more like the level we have at our club, and some of the things I learnt about strength and conditioning, for instance, I'm going to incorporate into our pre-season."

Football Federation Australia has finally reacted to criticism it hasn't done enough, recently announcing a series of key initiatives. Perhaps the most important is a commitment to identify emerging coaches who have the ability for the elite level, and offering them three-year scholarships to fast-track their development.

The FFA's first National Coaching Conference is on next month, allowing coaches to learn from some globally recognised coaches, including FIFA technical director Jean-Michel Benezet, German Football Federation chief instructor Erich Rutemoller, former German national coach Jurgen Klinsmann, experienced Dutch coach Hans Westerhof, and former Socceroos and Czech coach, Josef Venglos.

GLOBETROTTERS

David Mitchell - Manchester City, Derby County, NAC Breda, Eintracht Frankfurt
Aurelio Vidmar - AC Milan, Chievo Verona, Manchester City

Ricki Herbert - Botafogo

Frank Farina - Atletico Mineiro

Gary van Egmond - AS Roma

Lawrie McKinna - Rangers, Sheffield United

http://www.smh.com.au/news/a-league/coaches-go-global/2008/04/10/1207420586813.html

el-capitano · Jul 17, 2008

DAVID MITCHELL was within a few hours of becoming national coach before old-style football politics got in the way and his former flatmate Frank Farina got the job instead. Within a couple of years he was out of work completely, and wondering whether he would ever coach again.

But there he was this week, an equal among peers, as the A-League coaches gathered in Sydney to chew through the big issues of the forthcoming season. Mitchell's resurrection is not assured - he accepts he needs a successful campaign with Perth Glory to regain his former eminence - but what he does know is that a decisive corner has been turned.

This season, six of the eight A-League coaches will be home grown, while the other two - Scots Lawrie McKinna and Ernie Merrick - have long called Australia home. When the A-League kicked off three years ago, only one coach, John Kosmina, was home-grown.

The governing body may still be pouring most of its money into employing foreign coaches, but at long last Football Federation Australia has begun to embrace the challenge of providing a pathway for its own. And having endured the stress and self-doubt of six years in purgatory, Mitchell senses the new mood of optimism better than most.

He is so confident the tide has turned he has bent the ear of FFA chief executive Ben Buckley, telling him the time had come for coaches' views to be heard. Buckley didn't need much convincing, and this week's coaches' forum was another example of the way coaching - as a profession - has begun to get the credibility it deserves. Six of the A-League coaches are former internationals, and seven of them spent parts of their playing careers in Europe. That's a lot of knowledge which, until now, had been ignored.

"When the FFA took over, they were always a bit worried about the old NSL, and that was a big part of the problem," Mitchell says. "But now, when they look around the room, they accept there's so much experience there, so much knowledge, it's unmatched. We, as coaches, feel we should help to make some of the decisions, that we can help solve some of the problems, and that we should be in the loop. They [FFA] are starting to listen more and more, and that's a good thing."

Gary van Egmond feels it too, a new-found atmosphere of respect. The coach of the year, who masterminded last season's unlikely championship triumph for the Newcastle Jets, sees a world of opportunity opening up after the dark days of subsistence wages, hair-trigger employers, woeful facilities and amateurish administrators.

"There's a lot more opportunity now," van Egmond says. "More and more jobs are being put in front of Australian coaches, all the way from senior coaching down to junior coaching. It's more a professional vocation than a hobby, as it has been previously … Financially it's still not the equal of [coaching] other sports, but as far as the perception is concerned, you've got a lot more credibility these days. That's because of the way the game is going, the profile it's getting.

"The emergence of the A-League, it's a great base for coaches. There's always been lot of good coaches within Australia, and now there's the incentive for the better ex-players to get involved. It's an exciting time to be part of it, but probably in 20 years we'll be saying the coaches are getting even more opportunities because the game is going to keep evolving."

As the game grows so does the level of expectation, but while job security can never be assumed Adelaide United coach Aurelio Vidmar shares the view that the future for Australian coaches is a lot brighter than the past.

"It's become much more of a career path, absolutely," Vidmar says. "There's a lot more light at the end of the tunnel - there's proper professional development, you can pick up the phone to the national coach if you need to, and the FFA are always open to suggestions. Things are a lot better than they used to be, but you're never going to get guarantees … It's a results-based position, and it's always going to be."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/football...a-fertile-patch/2008/07/17/1216163060664.html

el-capitano · Jul 20, 2008

PERTH GLORY coach David Mitchell wants Football Federation Australia to join forces with the Federal Government and fund opportunities for Australian coaches in Asia.

Mitchell is preparing for his first full season in the hot seat, and believes homegrown coaches need a better career path.

Australia's move into the Asian confederation, Mitchell says, has opened up huge opportunities.

"If one of the A-League coaches finds himself out of work in four or five months' time, and there's a club or national association in a developing Asian country which is looking for a coach, why not put them together?" Mitchell said. "If the FFA pays part of the wages it will help to make things happen.

"You eventually bring back experience and ideas from Asia which, after all, is where we compete. Now that the FFA's getting financially secure, it's not such a fantasy."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/football/lets-export-coaches-mitchell/2008/07/20/1216492254604.html

el-capitano · Feb 28, 2010

Warning: Fozzie rant to follow!

Gold Coast United have done Australian football a great service by removing Paul Okon as assistant coach at Gold Coast United because the former Socceroo can now start to develop as a coach in his own right.

The simple, if unpalatable, truth we must face up to is that the older generation is holding back coaches such as Okon This is the fact of the matter. Every player in the league knows it, and every former player is nodding in agreement.

It is time for former players such as Okon, who have played in the world's finest leagues under some of the greatest technicians, to claim their inheritance and move the game forward.

Today's coach must have command of the global and analytical. He must have both the master vision and the competence to bring it into being, and in my view this is the antithesis of what occurs at Gold Coast United, Newcastle Jets, Perth Glory, Brisbane Roar, North Queensland, Central Coast and Melbourne Victory.

Australian football remains stuck in the era of the five-a-side and occasional work on basic shape, which means there is no specific work on team compartments. There is only simplistic formational instruction, and for the vast majority of returning players the tactical and professional adjustment is down, not up.

Hopefully Okon will now get a chance to implement his own philosophy at another club, and the process of renewal in the coaching ranks can take a step forward.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/football/why-okons-had-a-lucky-escape-20100227-pa4s.html

Bass0r · Mar 1, 2010

Australian football remains stuck in the era of the five-a-side and occasional work on basic shape, which means there is no specific work on team compartments. There is only simplistic formational instruction, and for the vast majority of returning players the tactical and professional adjustment is down, not up.

As dirty as it makes me feel, I actually agree with Craig on this one.

While I don't have fantastic credentials or experience in the coaching world - and less than any coach in this league, even - I still feel I could produce training sessions much better than any of the A-League sessions I've seen to date.

Marcos Flores, Adelaide's new Argentine playmaker, noted after the win against Pohang Steelers that there is a huge focus on the physical side of training - something that South American football lacks - and a lesser focus on the technical side - something on which South America prides itself.

He was absolutely right. And we should be looking to find that perfect balance.

Sydneyartist · Mar 1, 2010

Aussies are very diligent when it comes to hard rough physical stuff and keeping fit.
However lets just face it, when it comes to the technical stuff, were not the sharpest tools in the shed these days.
Anything requiring more than the usual usage of our.. brains, is usually greeted by most Aussie males and females, with a blank and uncomprehending deer in the head lights like stare.
This unfortunately goes also beyond sport in our society, most Aussies now thanks to decades of unionism creeping into our workplaces are simply incapable of making any decision on their own, unless its first approved by a good round of braying from their equally witless peers, or approved from higher up.
If neither occurs the decision is quickly put in the too hard basket, or passed on to someone else.
The once admirable Aussie quality's of improvisation, having ago, thinking out loud have long since vanished.

RickChelsea · Mar 1, 2010

It only makes sense that a former UEFA Cup winner with coaching badges should be coaching ahead of someone like Bleiberg who doesn't even have his proper licenses and has never been out of Australia

Old dinosaurs trying to hold onto the past and not letting the new bloody come in sounds perfectly right

el-capitano · Feb 17, 2011

A Cockers "Hallelujah" piece........

Vindication? Absolutely. Recriminations? Pointless. Let's just hope those who have vilified, ostracised and often demonised Ange Postecoglou and Graham Arnold might take some time out for reflection.

Postecoglou and Arnold have borne the brunt of a vicious smear campaign over the past decade, and could be excused for getting square now that they've finished the season one and two. Instead they've been commendably restrained. They're going into tomorrow's major semi-final without rancour, and they're bigger men for it.
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If Postecoglou and Arnold were guilty of anything in their previous roles on the national coaching staff it's that they were promoted, perhaps, when they weren't ready. Strangely, in many quarters that was seen as a crime.

Now they get the last laugh, with Brisbane Roar having broken all records and set new benchmarks of excellence, and Central Coast Mariners not far behind. The insights they gained in a green and gold tracksuit have a lot to do with making them the coaches they are today. Which, surely, is the point.

Postecoglou and Arnold have proved that, given opportunity and experience, Australians can coach at this level. It was always the case of course - think the likes of Nick Theodorakopoulos, Berti Mariani, Gary Phillips and Frank Farina winning trophies in the old NSL, and Gary van Egmond winning the A-League three years ago.

But for whatever reason, the commentariat has never been willing to shed its cultural cringe. These views have held sway for decades, convincing clubs to choose foreign coaches over homegrown coaches with mind-numbing regularity.

Foreign coaches will always have a role in Australia, but you sense the free ride is over. The game has moved on, at last.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-leagu...-can-outshine-the-imports-20110217-1ay9o.html

ZoidburgFC · Feb 18, 2011

dumb reporting, a free ride?
Well who gave the better european coaches the so called free ride?
We did, because our coaching methods for adult men are still stuck in the u/12 mentality, no brains, no innitive for better skills and tactics, just endless repetition of what their dads and grand dads did.
There is no reason why we cant be as good as anyone else, we are all human beings, its the mentality of not trying to be better that is the problem in Australia.
This looks to be slowly changing at last, but lets give the european coaches applause not a kick in the head, for showing us Aussies the way to play better more exciting professional football.

RickChelsea · Feb 18, 2011

Typical of cockers to stick up for 2 of his old mates, Fink's response to it was really good.

el-capitano · Apr 18, 2012

Corica gets a leg up now.

SYDNEY FC youth coach Steve Corica hopes Graham Arnold will coach the Sky Blues next season but in the meantime he's off to learn the art of management from the world's best - Pep Guardiola.

As part of the coaching scholarship he received from Football Federation Australia, Corica will be given access to the inner workings of Barcelona next week, allowing him to see first-hand everything - from the way Guardiola coaches on game day to how the club's youth academy has produced an extraordinary generation of talent.

His access-all-areas pass will not be limited to the four-time European champions, with Corica set to get the same treatment at Dutch giants Ajax Amsterdam, a club with few peers in youth development. Ajax's own favourite son, Johann Cruyff, is credited with the creation of La Masia, Barca's famed youth academy.

''The philosophy that I want to coach by is the Barcelona style of football, based primarily on possession, so for me that was the ideal place to go and pick up a few secrets of how they do it,'' he said. ''Then I'll be going to Amsterdam for another week, which was arranged through the FFA's Dutch connections, and I'm really confident it will help further me in my coaching knowledge.''

Corica is especially keen to observe how they prepare their teams and said his arrival was perfectly timed to coincide with Barcelona's hosting of Chelsea in the Champions League next week.

''I'll be focusing on how they train and get their teams ready - it's always good to have some new things you can pick up and show the boys. I've got a lot of time arranged with the coaches at Ajax as well, and hopefully I'll return with some good insights.''

Fozzie's going blow his load.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-leagu...-tutorials-with-guardiola-20120418-1x7ms.html

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