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Australian transfers 25-26 Winter

rebelliousfeminist974 said:
Player development is largely limited to NPL given that there isn't a youth league any more so they end up having to either play in NPL or go elsewhere, and most opt for the latter.
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Mostly agree with this. Haven’t read the Slater article because it’s behind a paywall and I refuse to give my cash to Spewscorp, but A-League players moving abroad can’t be a bad thing. With the limited opportunities to play professional football in Australia, young players moving abroad and freeing up places for more young players has to be a positive.
 
So why aren't we producing players like Lazaridis, Kewell, Viduka, and Bresch any more? There's been no one remotely close to these GG players since then. So many players since then have looked promising and then faded away into mediocrity.
 
Frankly Speaking said:
So why aren't we producing players like Lazaridis, Kewell, Viduka, and Bresch any more? There's been no one remotely close to these GG players since then. So many players since then have looked promising and then faded away into mediocrity.
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Say you're not claiming the minimal amount of time Harry spent at Marconi as responsible for his development.
 
Monoethnic Social Club said:
well he WAS there from 12-15 years old .... He didnt go to Eng;and NOT knowing how to kick a ball...... just saying.
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He actually credits David Lee

Harry continues, “When I got to state football at U13 level I worked with a coach called David Lee who selected players whom he wanted to train personally. After I’d played in that team I went to his training school twice a week. He saw potential in me when not many others did, to be honest. I never made the AIS [Australian Institute of Sport] and was left out of teams at Marconi. David took me in and helped me work on individual skills. It was at David’s academy that I met Brett [Emerton] and our friendship began from there. When I arrived for my first day I walked on to the field and all the other players were juggling. At that stage I could barely juggle a ball and it was a bit intimidating. David invested a great deal of time just working on my skills; juggling, striking, turns and tricks. He really polished me up and I got better, stronger and more technically adept.”
 
patjennings said:
He actually credits David Lee

Harry continues, “When I got to state football at U13 level I worked with a coach called David Lee who selected players whom he wanted to train personally. After I’d played in that team I went to his training school twice a week. He saw potential in me when not many others did, to be honest. I never made the AIS [Australian Institute of Sport] and was left out of teams at Marconi. David took me in and helped me work on individual skills. It was at David’s academy that I met Brett [Emerton] and our friendship began from there. When I arrived for my first day I walked on to the field and all the other players were juggling. At that stage I could barely juggle a ball and it was a bit intimidating. David invested a great deal of time just working on my skills; juggling, striking, turns and tricks. He really polished me up and I got better, stronger and more technically adept.”
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Cheers .... I didnt know this.... Is David Lee still involved?
 
Frankly Speaking said:
So why aren't we producing players like Lazaridis, Kewell, Viduka, and Bresch any more? There's been no one remotely close to these GG players since then. So many players since then have looked promising and then faded away into mediocrity.
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They are called the GG for a reason. EDIT: I think it would be fair to say it was just a coincidence of good luck / timing. It's not like there was a overriding curriculum or national philosophy guiding development of players at this time.

Each of the clubs had their own youth structures and we had the AIS as a kind of finishing school to develop professionals. But there isn't really anything I can think of which we could point to and say it was because of this. The traditional clubs had been developing players before this and after this without the same success. The NSL had been around for years with similar results. Others with more knowledge of player development at this time can probably speak to it better.

There have been individuals since, Mooy, Rogic, Ryan, but not a group like before. There are also different levels to this, Kewell and Viduka were on a tier of their own, probably before or since would be fair to say?

I think the current Aleague youth NPL setup is probably better than any potential youth league (definitely better than the previous youth league which only had 10 matches?). The bigger problem is the small number of professional teams and therefore professional pathways to capture the talent.
 
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Frankly Speaking said:
Has to be said, reading this thread over time, that our talent base has been very ordinary for a long, long time. So many other countries, even small ones like Georgia, from time to time produce real talents. Why doesn't Australia? Even Cahill, on those terms, was pretty unremarkable. Is it because our best athletes are hoovered up by AFL and NRL? What do people think? Quite apart from skillsets, where are our outstanding athletes?
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Football is played with the brain, look at the best players in the world and the players that ply their trade at the best leagues they all if most are technically gifted and they can think 2 or 3 steps ahead with their decision making, sometimes Australian football's problem is we think football can be played like the NRL/AFL world where physicality and size is valued more but the problem is football is a technical sport at its core if your not fundamentally sound which is your first touch, passing, shooting and 1v1 we will mostly be behind.

At least the young players coming through are more competent at these fundamentals now and its getting better but I feel there is too much emphasis on the pace and power which is cultural, the top players in the world are fundamentally sound and this is where most of the focus should be on if we want to continue to improve.
 
Barca4life said:
Football is played with the brain, look at the best players in the world and the players that ply their trade at the best leagues they all if most are technically gifted and they can think 2 or 3 steps ahead with their decision making, sometimes Australian football's problem is we think football can be played like the NRL/AFL world where physicality and size is valued more but the problem is football is a technical sport at its core if your not fundamentally sound which is your first touch, passing, shooting and 1v1 we will mostly be behind.

At least the young players coming through are more competent at these fundamentals now and its getting better but I feel there is too much emphasis on the pace and power which is cultural, the top players in the world are fundamentally sound and this is where most of the focus should be on if we want to continue to improve.
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Agree - but if we could combine size, pace and power with technical gifts and and great decision making we would consistently be playing at a better level.

I was looking at a youtube of an American that had earlier compared NFL players with football players. His first video was pretty disparaging. When people pointed out that most players play the full 90 minutes (or 120) and cover around 14-15km he quickly changed his tune. Football is different conditioning. I once watched a training session where Nick Montgomery was training separately after an injury and he ran non-stop for over two hours. I can't imagine players that are used to relying on interchange could do that
 
patjennings said:
He actually credits David Lee

Harry continues, “When I got to state football at U13 level I worked with a coach called David Lee who selected players whom he wanted to train personally. After I’d played in that team I went to his training school twice a week. He saw potential in me when not many others did, to be honest. I never made the AIS [Australian Institute of Sport] and was left out of teams at Marconi. David took me in and helped me work on individual skills. It was at David’s academy that I met Brett [Emerton] and our friendship began from there. When I arrived for my first day I walked on to the field and all the other players were juggling. At that stage I could barely juggle a ball and it was a bit intimidating. David invested a great deal of time just working on my skills; juggling, striking, turns and tricks. He really polished me up and I got better, stronger and more technically adept.”
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Kewell says he didn't make AIS, but didn't he go to Leeds at 15 and stay there? I thought that players were generally 16-17 when offered at position at AIS?
 
Cunningstunt said:
They are called the GG for a reason. EDIT: I think it would be fair to say it was just a coincidence of good luck / timing. It's not like there was a overriding curriculum or national philosophy guiding development of players at this time.

Each of the clubs had their own youth structures and we had the AIS as a kind of finishing school to develop professionals. But there isn't really anything I can think of which we could point to and say it was because of this. The traditional clubs had been developing players before this and after this without the same success. The NSL had been around for years with similar results. Others with more knowledge of player development at this time can probably speak to it better.

There have been individuals since, Mooy, Rogic, Ryan, but not a group like before. There are also different levels to this, Kewell and Viduka were on a tier of their own, probably before or since would be fair to say?

I think the current Aleague youth NPL setup is probably better than any potential youth league (definitely better than the previous youth league which only had 10 matches?). The bigger problem is the small number of professional teams and therefore professional pathways to capture the talent.
Click to expand...
Counter factual history is hard but the old system had a lot of initiatives we didnt have

1) having underage sides down to u6s (we just started having sides down to u13 in 2014)
2) having a national youth league that ran a full season. Many teams had 2 teams in the nyl, the second team being a so called colts team. In the a league era there have only been 8 seasons which managed 18 rounds or more which is still shorter than the typical 26 round seasons they had back then
3) having reserve sides in the state league, we have begun to do that today which is good but it is presented as an alternative to a nyl.
4) have state and federal ais which would also play in the youth leagues and expose the best of the best to a full time schedule. This was 2 training sessions a day and a gym session 4 days a week from the age of 16.
5) having a system where clubs that are ambitious have a shot of playing on the national level which dangles a carrot for many grassroots clubs to try and improve. This means more clubs are trying to produce youth so the best players are competing against better players and improving more. At the moment a key problem we face is the gap between our best youth and the next level down so kids plateau at around 15
6) we took youth internationals very seriously. The coaches were some of the best coaches we had who had success at club level and we played many friendlies. We have started to play more youth internationals in the last few years and we had a brief period where we got a good credentialled coach in jans (we got lucky with morgan being a good coach from year 1 rather than needing experience)

There is evidence that all of these initiatives improve talent development. Who knows if we keep producing kewells and vidukas if we had all of that again, but it certainly would improve what we have
 
grazorblade said:
Counter factual history is hard but the old system had a lot of initiatives we didnt have

1) having underage sides down to u6s (we just started having sides down to u13 in 2014)
2) having a national youth league that ran a full season. Many teams had 2 teams in the nyl, the second team being a so called colts team. In the a league era there have only been 8 seasons which managed 18 rounds or more which is still shorter than the typical 26 round seasons they had back then
3) having reserve sides in the state league, we have begun to do that today which is good but it is presented as an alternative to a nyl.
4) have state and federal ais which would also play in the youth leagues and expose the best of the best to a full time schedule. This was 2 training sessions a day and a gym session 4 days a week from the age of 16.
5) having a system where clubs that are ambitious have a shot of playing on the national level which dangles a carrot for many grassroots clubs to try and improve. This means more clubs are trying to produce youth so the best players are competing against better players and improving more. At the moment a key problem we face is the gap between our best youth and the next level down so kids plateau at around 15
6) we took youth internationals very seriously. The coaches were some of the best coaches we had who had success at club level and we played many friendlies. We have started to play more youth internationals in the last few years and we had a brief period where we got a good credentialled coach in jans (we got lucky with morgan being a good coach from year 1 rather than needing experience)

There is evidence that all of these initiatives improve talent development. Who knows if we keep producing kewells and vidukas if we had all of that again, but it certainly would improve what we have
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Yeah points 1-4 all fall under having more opportunities.
5: Do you mean pro/rel? Because the NSL never really had this, or only briefly correct?
6: We made world cups because we qualified in oceania. But outside of this the current setup in Asia is much better. Agree they have started to take this much more seriously, especially since the decoupling with the APL.

One thought I had about the GG, chatgpt tells me the average age at 2006 WC was 27. So working backwards, their development years would have been from 1988 - 97 (approx?). It seems even before the implosion with the new dawn, the old system had fallen off. Because the drop off after the GG was sudden.
 
As man posters have said here, it also comes down to football being truly a world game now. Talent from anywhere in the world can make it over to Europe and play at the top level. In the GG days, Australia as a wealthy English-speaking country with a love of sport had big advantages over many other countries around the world, especially for the players that went to the UK, which is most, and then some of the very good players went on to Europe, unless their background was from a European country and they went to that country to play. Immigration has changed too, our big 4 immigrant countries: UK, NZ, India, and China, with the exception of the UK, are not footballing powerhouses and football isn’t the number one sport.
 
Kitwally said:
As man posters have said here, it also comes down to football being truly a world game now. Talent from anywhere in the world can make it over to Europe and play at the top level. In the GG days, Australia as a wealthy English-speaking country with a love of sport had big advantages over many other countries around the world, especially for the players that went to the UK, which is most, and then some of the very good players went on to Europe, unless their background was from a European country and they went to that country to play. Immigration has changed too, our big 4 immigrant countries: UK, NZ, India, and China, with the exception of the UK, are not footballing powerhouses and football isn’t the number one sport.
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Despite someone like Weah being a rare talent out of Liberia, a lot of places back then just didn't have the scouts watching or the facilities. Facilities across the world have gone through the roof. Ghana is one that I think Ajax have some tie to. Japan we needed say anymore compared to 30 years ago.
 
Kitwally said:
As man posters have said here, it also comes down to football being truly a world game now. Talent from anywhere in the world can make it over to Europe and play at the top level. In the GG days, Australia as a wealthy English-speaking country with a love of sport had big advantages over many other countries around the world, especially for the players that went to the UK, which is most, and then some of the very good players went on to Europe, unless their background was from a European country and they went to that country to play. Immigration has changed too, our big 4 immigrant countries: UK, NZ, India, and China, with the exception of the UK, are not footballing powerhouses and football isn’t the number one sport.
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Yeah I think this point is underappreciated. Also the easiest transitions for a lot of Australians was to the UK, there the EPL has seen the biggest increase in talent from around the world since the GG.
 
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