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Australia Cup of life

April 9th 2010 06:18

As reports emerge that South Melbourne is set to participate in Singapore’s FA Cup, it again raises the issue of whether or not Australia should have its own knockout football competition.

You don’t have to be Greek to hope that Oceania’s best club of the 20th century does, indeed, receive an invitation. Having won the NSL four times and taken part in the inaugural Club World Championship, a chance to once more compete for major honours would be no more than South deserves.

So why, then, is such a storied outfit not participating in the A-League, when former NSL rivals Perth, Adelaide and Newcastle are? If the full story reads like a Homeric epic, the short version is this: South’s ‘old soccer’ ethos was considered incompatible with the ‘new football’ introduced by the FFA in 2005. The ‘Aussies’ were in, so the wogs were out.

While de-ethnicisation was an essential prerequisite in turning ‘wogball’ into mainstream fare, it was always understood that in trying to win over new fans, the FFA ran the risk of alienating the old supporters who had built the game. That was why, before the opening A-League season kicked off, Frank Lowy begged the traditionalists not to boycott it. “I hope they will come, I beg them to come, they must come.”

Five years on, it can be said that while new football has much to be proud of, there is still a lot that its administrators, personnel and fans can learn from their old soccer equivalents. Although the A-League has reached heights that the NSL could only have fantasised about, it is still deficient in expertise – the sort of expertise needed to further increase the competition’s standard and popularity. Thus, a link between the two eras needs to be created. A cup competition is the logical solution.

How wonderful it would be if we could welcome back not only South Melbourne, but also Adelaide City, APIA Leichardt, Brisbane Strikers, Heidelberg United, Marconi, Melbourne Knights, South Coast (ex-Wollongong) Wolves, Sydney Olympic and Sydney United, all of which now play at state level, and which won 19 championships between them. Besides injecting the A-League with a much-needed shot of tradition, an Australia Cup would give the diehards a reason to reconnect with the national club competition.

But a word of warning: if not done properly, the Australia Cup will send football backwards rather than forwards. Like promotion-relegation, many people are so enamoured with the idea that they assume it must necessarily succeed. While promotion-relegation, as Sport: The Australian Disease has explained, is a luxury that the A-League can’t afford, a cup competition could work – although only if it was properly structured.

Ask a cup adherent to argue their case and they will essentially tell you that because cups are wildly popular in Europe, they would surely find favour here too. This, however, misses two truths. Firstly, while the cup competitions have a very high profile in England, they are not as well supported in the rest of Europe. Secondly, and most importantly, Australia is not Europe.

Cups make sense in Europe because they fill a gap. Europe’s leagues are pure leagues – that is, first-past-the-post affairs – which leaves room for a knockout event. But the Australian sporting way is for a regular season to be followed by a finals series, making the A-League – like the AFL, NRL, NBL and Super 14 – part league and part knockout. Consequently, the gap that an Australia Cup would fill is much smaller – if, indeed, it exists at all.

The lesson to be learned is that for an Australia Cup to work, it has to be different. People would have to feel that it was offering something that the A-League, AFL, NRL, NBL and Super 14 weren’t, otherwise they wouldn’t bother paying attention. Thankfully, there are three potential unique selling points: regional involvement, fairytale runs and a truly knockout format.

An Australia Cup ought to look something like the following. While the A-League representatives are awarded byes to the round-of-32 stage, hundreds of other clubs would be randomly drawn against each other for the right to meet them there. Whether it was Alice Springs, Devonport, Ballarat or Mt Isa, communities that are otherwise starved of top-level sport would rally around their local heroes. By the time the big boys entered the competition, there would be (as of 2011-12) a dozen A-League clubs lying in wait for 20 upstarts.

At that point, the draw would be slightly rigged, so that all 12 A-League clubs would be drawn to play away to 12 minnows (with the remaining eight being randomly matched up). This would avoid the unsightly and costly spectacle of Sydney FC taking on Whoop Whoop FC at an empty Sydney Football Stadium; it would also give Whoop Whoop FC a massive financial boost and be a wonderful promotion for football in the area.

Buoyed on by a fanatical home crowd, it would be surprising if at least one of these Davids didn’t make national headlines by slaying their Goliath. But even if they didn’t, the round-of-16 would still contain four little fish. At this point, the draw would again become intriguingly random, on the proviso that a minnow would always be awarded home ground advantage over an A-League opponent.

To further maximise the chances of fairytale runs, all ties would be decided on the day. Because superior athletes or teams are more likely to triumph the longer any contest lasts, the Australia Cup would eschew replays and two-legged contests. If Whoop Whoop FC happened to catch Sydney FC on a bad day, the Sky Blues would not have the luxury of redeeming themselves at the SFS a week later.

Include those three unique selling points and an Australia Cup stands a good chance of capturing people’s imagination. Where it will fail is if it appears to be nothing more than an uninspired extension of the A-League. If it seems like the usual suspects coming together in the usual format – in other words, if there is a conspicuous lack of regional involvement, fairytale runs and a genuine knockout format – nobody will care. After all, why bother watching the poor man’s A-League when you can settle for the real thing? And come to think of it, why bother watching the A-League if it associates itself with such mediocrity?

That is why an unsuccessful Australia Cup would send football backwards. By contrast, a properly structured event would have the capacity to win over new fans. More importantly, it would weaken the resistance of some of the old soccer people, whose passion and expertise the local game sorely needs. So while it would be wonderful if South Melbourne ends up competing in Singapore’s cup competition, it would be even better if the former NSL giant one day participated in Australia’s.

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Czech out the future

March 21st 2010 07:57

As Terry McFlynn and Steve Corica hoisted their golden toilet seat triumphantly aloft, it marked the fourth different champion in the history of the A-League: Sydney in season one; Melbourne in seasons two and four; Newcastle in season three; and Vitezslav Lavicka in season five.

This was as much a victory for the Czech as it was for the true believers. After inheriting a rabble from John Kosmina, he took essentially the same individuals and moulded them into a disciplined and coherent unit. Although there were initially some shaky moments, during which the players struggled to implement his ideas, they became more and more fluent as the season progressed, eventually ending it with the competition’s most polished style of football.

True, the Sky Blues were barely able to string together two passes in the grand final, a failing that must be attributed to nerves. But during the regular season they distinguished themselves by playing out from the back, patiently moving the ball around and exchanging neat little passes in the opposition’s half. This is a reflection of the vast gulf in quality and experience between the current FC boss and his predecessor.

The point is best made by comparing Lavicka’s team with Kosmina’s – something presaged by Sport: The Australian Disease 13 months ago.

In season four, Kossie’s men started well, but then

deteriorated with alarming rapidity into a disjointed rabble, which lost games not through a lack of effort, but due to an obvious lack of ideas. The players were prepared to run all day – they were just unsure where they should be running, or why.

Lavicka’s charges, on the other hand, being rigorously schooled, understood exactly what they had to do, and with practice became increasingly adept at doing so. The climax came with the 4-2 demolition of Wellington in the preliminary final, during which they tore the visitors to pieces with their intelligent passing and movement, and could have netted several more.

The best illustration of the superiority of Lavicka’s European methodology can be found by contrasting John Aloisi’s two years in Sydney. During the first, he was tentative and ineffective – not due to a lack of talent, but because

the ball only rarely reached him in good positions...Typically, the ball would either be hoofed to him, or he would have to drop deep or wide to receive it. All too infrequently did Aloisi receive the ball at his feet when he was facing goal and in and around the box.

This season, however, better coaching resulted in better service, which in turn made the marquee man look immeasurably more assured and threatening. So having scored just two goals in 2008-9, he bagged 10 in 2009-10, to finish as the club’s leading marksman.

While charting Sydney’s on-field fortunes over the last two seasons is revealing, it is just as instructive to look at the way the Australian and Czech conducted themselves off the field.

If there is one thing that damned Kosmina more than his team’s play, it would have been his press conferences. Time and time again, he uttered remarks that bordered on the delusional. Losses were never blamed on the fact that the Sydney players were manifestly confused about their roles. Instead, they were blamed on injuries, on referees, on opposition gamesmanship, on bad luck – and finally, most shamefully, on Aloisi...Each time he did so, it became that little bit clearer that he didn’t understand why Sydney was in such a mess – and if he didn’t understand why Sydney was in such a mess, how could he be expected to clean it up?

Lavicka’s dealings with the media could not have been more different. Win, lose or draw, he reacted calmly and contemplatively, providing thoughtful explanations for what had occurred over the 90 minutes. Where Kossie was emotional, Vitya was rational. Is it any wonder, then, that while the Sydney whole in season four was less than the sum of its parts, in season five it was greater?

Consequently, there was only one conclusion that Sport: The Australian Disease could have reached this time last year:

So, it’s out with Kossie and in with Vitezslav Lavicka. Given that nobody in Australia seems to know who he is, it is difficult to assess his appointment. However, at least on paper, it looks to be a promising one. As the recent manager of Czech powerhouse Sparta Prague, the 2006 and 2007 coach of the year and the boss of his country’s under 21 team, he immediately becomes the A-League’s most experienced and accomplished mentor. Furthermore, the fact that he was entrusted with the Czech Republic’s juniors is a very good sign. As anybody who has watched their senior team would know, the Czechs produce the sort of attractive and technical football that Australia’s domestic and national teams should be striving to emulate. And so if firing John Kosmina was a good way for Sydney’s new owners to begin their reign, hiring Vitezslav Lavicka may prove to be an even better one.

Lavicka has delivered a message that the rest of the A-League would do well to heed. Clubs should no longer attempt to follow the traditional path to glory, with its dull blend of recruiting, tub-thumping and percentage football. Rather, they should aim for something more sophisticated, by hiring experienced and well-qualified coaches (and administrators). Lavicka did not claim a minor-major premiership double because he inherited more talent than his rivals, delivered louder rallying calls than his rivals or calculated the percentages better than his rivals. He outsmarted them instead. The payoff was not simply success, but the sort of attractive style that the A-League needs to embrace if it is to prosper in a fiercely competitive sporting market. Thus, while fans of other clubs may love to hate Sydney, this should be one time they don’t mind being Czech-mated.

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Pride before the fall

January 29th 2010 02:22

They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but the North Queensland Fury must be ruing the negative headlines that have been running for the last few days. This is no way for a struggling organisation to win over the public and sponsors of Townsville.

The problem began when Robbie Fowler, upset at being excluded from Ian Ferguson’s starting line-up, elected to skip the match entirely, preferring to play with his little son in the stands than take his place on the bench. This was interpreted as a legend of the game raising a very public middle finger to his rookie boss – which, nobody should doubt, was exactly how it was intended.

That’s despite the vigorous spinning that the Fury attempted the following day. According to chairman Don Matheson, the whole thing was nothing more than an unfortunate mix-up between Ferguson and Fowler.

“I’ve spoken to them today and realise there has been a misunderstanding,” he insisted. “Ian wanted to play a particular formation and that included utilising Robbie as an impact player off the bench and Robbie believed he wasn’t part of the squad – and there has been an unfortunate outcome because of that misunderstanding.”

If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. After all, it’s very difficult for somebody to be told “Robbie, I’m dropping you to the bench”, only to hear “Robbie, rather than including you in the match-day squad, I’ve decided that you and your boy should spend some quality time together in the stands.” Yet even if, somehow, something was lost in translation, as Matheson would have people believe, there would have been ample time for Ferguson to clarify things.

So why, then, has Matheson decided to accept – at least officially – such a fairytale? The answer is that he has concluded it is in North Queensland’s best interests for everybody to pretend that nothing actually happened. In football the world over, it is commonplace for disgruntled players to rebel. Sometimes, they will storm out of the stadium if substituted early; sometimes, they will refuse to attend the game if not included in the squad; and sometimes, as in Fowler’s case, they will react angrily to news that 11 teammates have been preferred to them. In response, an ultimatum is generally issued, along the lines of “Apologise, or you’ll never be picked again.” This is the club’s way of trying to regain control of the situation, and of reminding the players who is and who isn’t in charge. Typically, such phrases as “No player is bigger than the club” are also bandied about.

If Matheson opted not to follow this well-trodden path, it’s because he must have feared that Fowler would refuse to apologise. For continued recalcitrance by the Englishman would have forced him to choose between two unpalatable options: sack his star import, who is by far the most talented and marketable member of the Fury; or essentially do nothing, thereby destroying the credibility of the board and the coach. Consequently, Matheson chose to hear no evil and see no evil, reasoning that looking a little foolish and weak was better than escalating a crisis that may well have ended unhappily.

With the standoff now seemingly over, it can be said that all three key participants have emerged from it with their reputations diminished. Clearly, Fowler has behaved petulantly (unless, before signing with North Queensland, he was secretly promised that he would always start if fit). When it came time to go into battle, he decided that salving his wounded pride was more important than fighting side by side with his comrades. As captain, he has set a shocking example for his teammates, while disrespecting them in the process. His was the reaction of a man who believes himself to be bigger than the club. Inevitably, some of the Fury – especially the younger members, who would have hung on his every word – must now be questioning their faith in God.

Where Fowler looks arrogant, his superiors appear pathetic. We now know that their authority is not as absolute as was once thought. Having so publicly lost the respect of his marquee man, Ferguson’s credibility has taken a battering. And having turned a blind eye to his employee’s disobedience, so has Matheson’s. Yet it is difficult to say that they have acted wrongly.

Ferguson may have erred in trying a new formation, and he may have erred in thinking that it could not accommodate Fowler. But tactics and selection are solely the coach’s domain. It is the coach’s right to plump for whichever system and players he likes, for which he is then held accountable. Fowler understands this – as does Matheson, who, to his credit, made a point of refusing to overturn the controversial demotion. A coach is paid to make decisions and a player is paid to obey them. If Fowler wasn’t willing to accept this, he shouldn’t have signed his generous contract.

However, once the crisis erupted, the Fury powerbrokers may have reasoned that although they occupied the moral high ground, backing down was the most responsible option. Yes, they may have been justified in publicly admonishing the former Liverpool legend, reminding him that a paycheque comes with obligations, and that he would therefore have to apologise – or else. But would escalating a crisis that may have resulted in Fowler’s axing have been in the club’s best interests?

In other words, could it be that instead of feebly caving in, Matheson and Ferguson have demonstrated strength by being prepared to lose face in order to secure the fledgling club’s future? Turning a profit in the A-League is difficult at the best of times, but when your market is small and you’re sitting near the bottom of the ladder, it becomes even more challenging. Maybe, the pair agreed that although it would undermine their authority and affect the team’s cohesion, finding a way to retain their highly bankable star was the lesser of two evils. If so, that would be ironic, because a crisis that was precipitated by somebody placing their ego before the club would have been ended by two men placing the club before their egos.

Such a message would not have been lost on Fowler, who has agreed to play out the season, but may well return home rather than honour the final year of his contract. It is no secret that he and Ferguson have never had the best of relationships, and now the Scotsman has irritated him further, firstly by dropping him and – perhaps – by then being the bigger man. Given that the import’s tantrum has been indulged, and his place guaranteed for the following game, he has no pretext for angrily storming back to England. So now it is him who has been left with two options: swallow his pride and fulfil his agreement, or conceitedly run away and damage the club that he has so often declared his commitment to. What sort of man is God? We’re about to find out.

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The war of the World

December 20th 2009 02:31

According to Andrew Demetriou and David Gallop, the AFL and NRL want nothing more than for Australia to win the right to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup. According to Frank Lowy, the FFA is convinced that all the football codes would benefit from such an outcome. These men are lying.

Hence, we have a situation in which the FFA is trying desperately to prevail in an extraordinarily challenging fight, while its two main local competitors are trying desperately – if subtly – to ensure its defeat

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Who’s been a naughty boy?

October 16th 2009 05:36

Thanks to the arrival of John van 't Schip and the departure of Frank Farina, coaches have been the main focus of the A-League in recent days. While the two have generated headlines for very different reasons, their clubs deserve praise for what they have in common- namely, an ability to make strong, logical judgments.

That opinion would not be shared by Farina. A prickly chap at the best of times, Cranky Frankie’s mood has only darkened since being dismissed for his second drink-driving offence. To say that he is bitter would be an understatement

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Today Asia…tomorrow the world?

June 18th 2009 06:24

“And the winner of the World Cup is…Australia!”

For even the most passionate supporter, it is too much to hope that those words will be uttered come South Africa 2010. But what about some time off into the murky distance? Is it unrealistic to expect that the Socceroos will one day get to raise the coveted 18 carat gold trophy

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If Kosmina was a joke, Lavicka may be the perfect punch line

February 2nd 2009 05:08

Lovers of comedy will be distraught to see him go, but most of Sydney FC’s fans and players will be heartened by the sacking of John Kosmina.

Despite possessing a reasonable amount of experience, the former Newcastle Breakers, Brisbane Strikers and Adelaide United mentor lacked the nous to be able to turn a squad of talented individuals into a cohesive unit

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How in the world does the FFA expect to pull this off?

January 28th 2009 05:22

When Qatar throws its hat into the ring, you know that things are getting ridiculous.

The prize on offer, of course, is the right to host the 2018 World Cup. With sentiment suggesting that it ought to be awarded to Europe, England has been installed as the bookmaker’s favourite, while continental associates Russia, Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium/Luxembourg are also being taken very seriously. Greece is another challenger that may emerge from UEFA

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Newcastle fans have been Conned

January 20th 2009 13:10

It’s difficult to say who has been providing the most entertainment in the A-League recently- the coaches, or the owners. For it certainly hasn’t been the players.

Instinctively, one would have to assume that it’s been the coaches. After all, Miron Bleiberg has been boasting about the qualities of a squad that has yet to play a game, Frank Farina has been baiting John Kosmina (admittedly, not a difficult thing to do), while Kossie has been behaving in defiantly Kosminaesque fashion

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When something for nothing isn’t worth anything

January 4th 2009 12:28

What do Travis Dodd, Kevin Muscat, Joel Griffiths, Danny Tiatto and Steve Corica have in common? All have represented Australia, all are valuable players, and all are popular with their supporters.

And what do Paul Agostino, Archie Thompson, Mark Milligan, Craig Moore and John Aloisi have in common? All have represented Australia, all are valuable players, and all (with the recent exception of Aloisi) are popular with their supporters. But there’s one other thing they have in common: they are considered to be the A-League’s five marquee players

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How I love to hate you

December 14th 2008 04:31

Just as Adelaide United’s recent transcontinental triumphs have been a win for Australian football, so it is in the A-League’s interest for the new regime of Sydney FC to succeed.

The current majority owner, Frank Lowy, will soon make way for a partnership of Australian Paul Ramsay and Russian David Traktovenko, the latter of whom once controlled Zenit St Petersburg, and who was said to have been influential in its dramatic rise. Everybody should be cheering them on

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Australian Premier League?

November 25th 2008 05:08

Will the English Premier League be coming to Australian shores?

It’s been a busy month for Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam. Not long after declaring that the Wellington Phoenix should be expelled from the A-League, he has thrown his support behind the English Premier League’s controversial ‘39th round’ proposal.

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Phoenix falling?

November 18th 2008 07:16

In an interview screened on The World Game, SBS’s excellent football program, Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam made an extraordinary pronouncement: he wants the Wellington Phoenix to be expelled from the A-League.

“Australia is engaging a non-Australian team in its league,” he explained, despite the AFC’s wish for “the A-League to have only Australian clubs. The A-League has permission from FIFA to do so but only till 2011. Our Pro-League committee has approved this situation but after 2011 all clubs have to be Australian

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What’s in a name?

October 30th 2008 05:15

“What’s in a name?” Juliet famously asked Romeo.

Although Ms Capulet would beg to differ, the answer, as far as embryonic sporting organisations are concerned, is plenty

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