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General A Leagues thread (Men and Women) 2025/26 season

I've been in the system.


Many coaches thought it was the job of coaches coaching older, or younger players than their age group/team, to impart a range of techniques. Nobody was doing it.

State underage coaches have told me this in the past.

If they were doing them, why were so few Aussies at senior level never performing them under match conditions?

In the SAP/NTC system and its successor, younger players have acquired a range of techniques. Some players like some techniques more than others. Some can do some techniques better than other techniques too.
Youve given yourself the answer in your previous post... Stop thinking of football techniques in terms of karate techniques, to be applied under certain solvable conditions.. Football movement is fluid and ever evolving, even within 90 mins...

"Arzani beat 2 Buri players with a La Croqueta, but his second touch put the ball a bit too far in front in the pen box having beaten both Buri defenders neck and crop, and, a 3rd Buri defender pounced in the nick of time before Arzani shot close to the Buri goal ( which given his current shooting form would probably have missed)."

All the "la porchettas" in the world wont help Arzani score if he cant shoot or find a player to thread a pass too.

Tricks and techniques exist, and have existed for decades.... Have you ever seen the freestyle street football types who can juggle the football while doing all sorts of whizbangtricks and spins??? Ever wondered why none of them has ever made their way onto a real football pitch?
 
Youve given yourself the answer in your previous post... Stop thinking of football techniques in terms of karate techniques, to be applied under certain solvable conditions.. Football movement is fluid and ever evolving, even within 90 mins...

"Arzani beat 2 Buri players with a La Croqueta, but his second touch put the ball a bit too far in front in the pen box having beaten both Buri defenders neck and crop, and, a 3rd Buri defender pounced in the nick of time before Arzani shot close to the Buri goal ( which given his current shooting form would probably have missed)."

All the "la porchettas" in the world wont help Arzani score if he cant shoot or find a player to thread a pass too.

Tricks and techniques exist, and have existed for decades.... Have you ever seen the freestyle street football types who can juggle the football while doing all sorts of whizbangtricks and spins??? Ever wondered why none of them has ever made their way onto a real football pitch?
I’ve seen many freestyle jugglers who look wonderful, but most of what they do is not game related.

I listed 2 useful different dribbling techniques that both Sicluna and Arzani used to beat 2 opponents in succession - that are game related.

Arnie said some time back looking at the Bos cohort of 16-17 yo old Aus players that they were able to do things previous gens of Aus footballers couldn’t. It would include a lot of these 1v1 dribbling techniques that have been imparted and coached more systematically in the SAP system than in the past.

Watching the Matildas in the last few games we are still only seeing body swerves, Standard Cuts, Matthews Cuts deployed, as well as changes of pace, for them to beat players. I’m not sure why we aren’t seeing the greater array of dribbling techniques of the men?

You might be right about me perceiving some techniques as a karate teacher/ general teacher, but players need to be exposed to different techniques. Credit to you for perception and comprehension!

Look at all the advanced techniques of Brazilian players of the past when one looks at Ronaldino (thanks LFC - have seen plenty of his highlights before, but not the two Elastics with both left and right foot), Ronaldo, Kleberson, Garrincha, et al, plus Cristiano Ronaldo, Zidane and Cruyff’s kit bag.

Conversely, Messi and Aus’s own emerging Clayton Taylor tend to use the 4 more simple techniques of the past.

One state underage coach and NPL Tech Dir, who was a top line Vic NPL former player, had the attitude that if any of his players were working their guts out trying to master difficult technical 1v1 techniques, they would touch the ball a lot with much simpler touches in between. Not a bad point. Combined with dribbling around cones, playing against a wall and juggling, that is a diverse skill set of game related technique.
 
If South Melbourne got relegated that'd be as much pure cinema as it would if Tottenham got relegated from the Premier League.
It's still early days with South Melbourne five points safe from the drop going into matchday 4 but bearing in mind we have to balance OFC Pro League and NPL Victoria with not that much squad depth in addition to the cup competitions, whereas other teams only have to balance the league and Dockerty Cup at most.
 
3 rounds into theseason and we are 2nd on the table and it "hit a nerve"? hahaha are you a bit slow? Go back to AFL, I dont think you get how Soccer works.
Been a football (the real one with the round ball) fan for 30 years you grumpy old bastard.

You're the type who gatekeeps who thinks only the ethnic minorities are real fans.

Sounds racist to me.
 
Been a football fan for 30 years you grumpy old bastard.
Ahhh so you are slow then, thanks for clearing that up... Give it another 30 years , you may just get there in the end...

Ill give you a hint, the teams with the LEAST points at the end of the season usually get relegated (in proper leagues anyway), NOT the ones at the pointy end of the table.....
 
Ahhh so you are slow then, thanks for clearing that up... Give it another 30 years , you may just get there in the end...

Ill give you a hint, the teams with the LEAST points at the end of the season usually get relegated (in proper leagues anyway), NOT the ones at the pointy end of the table.....
It hasn't been like that in AUSTRALIA for 30+ years.
 
It hasn't been like that in AUSTRALIA for 30+ years.
FAARRRKKKK!!! I better tell all the clubs that have been promoted up the state league pyramids these past 100+ years that they were hallucinating... Thanks for the info...

I was gonna try and stop in to Northcote City tonight against North Geelong but I dont want to be the one to tell them they have to go back 6 levels because the past 70 years of their existence have been a lie...
 
FAARRRKKKK!!! I better tell all the clubs that have been promoted up the state league pyramids these past 100+ years that they were hallucinating... Thanks for the info...

I was gonna try and stop in to Northcote City tonight against North Geelong but I dont want to be the one to tell them they have to go back 6 levels because the past 70 years of their existence have been a lie...
You know full well I was referring to the top flight. The NSL (the binfire corpse you still wish was the top flight) got rid of pro/rel in the early 90's.
 
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