Flair

As some wags have put it, it’s well and good to have a ‘flare review’ but where is the ‘flair review’ after the disastrous and embarrassing Socceroos collapse in Doha.

Regular readers will know that our abandonment of a commitment to youth from the FFA and A-League clubs has been a bug-bear of mine for a while but I’m not sure I have vented enough on it.

While the usual (read South Australian) suspects defend Vidmar and promote how the lack of overseas players killed their chances the question still remains how he got a second crack at the Olyroos after the disaster of his first stint.  As good as those 12 or so months between early 2008 and early 2009 were for Adelaide domestically and internationally, he's now got a very barren head coaching record otherwise: 6th (of eight teams) and ACL group stage elimination in his first year at Adelaide, wooden spoon in an expansion season and a so-so ACL Ro16 campaign in his third year, and now two awful Olyroos campaigns in which there has been no signs of improvement.

Although as lame as his teams undoubtedly look, they're pretty much playing the way the whole revolution - and all of it's staunch admirers - seem to want them to play. Much useless possession that occasionally looks pretty with no real desire for outdated ideas like winning and absolutely useless in the final third.

They have taken the one real strength of Australian football - a very competitive mentality - and wiped it.  Same with the once plentiful diversity of styles, gone. They've then replaced that with a bunch of listless drones with zero flare or ability to actually win in this manner.

We weren’t hard to beat in Doha, you just had to give us the ball.  Everything  is painfully telegraphed, boring and dim-witted. Hold defensively and it probably won't be long before you snatch a goal. Because our defenders are ordinary, as are our wingers, goalscorers, and pretty much anyone tasked with creating a threat on goal

The FFAs revolutionary National Curriculum is a fail. Pretty much zero Return on Investment. We've gone backwards and the HAL seems to be spitting out an ever growing list of over-hyped young players who head overseas and inevitably get spat straight back after failing miserably, often in some fairly average leagues. Mostly it seems to be because they're not nearly as good as they have been led to believe they are, and because the once strong competitive mentality and diversity has been neutered by the bland, sterile, sheltered environment they have played in.

Meanwhile of course as I detailed here the FFA have retrenched on the commitment to the National Youth League and any commitment from the clubs to bring players through from these sides.  The Majority of A-League clubs have no academy or development strategy at all and the NYL is basically now a glorified holiday programme as the player base to select from continues to shrink

Transfers

Was I the only one basking in the schadenfreude of David Carney in Sky Blue at the weekend as Sydney meekly surrendered to what is a pretty average Perth Glory side? It really must be a breath of fresh air for Carney being in a team playing largely uninspiring football, committing stupid costly mistakes like Vedran did for Keogh's goal amidst a dying home atmosphere. Totally validating his desperation to move from the Jets by the looks of it.

Another interesting weekend in Melbourne as well where City, a top 2 or 3 team most of the season, drafted not one but two of the midfield from the worst team in the comp straight into their starting line-up and have been pretty ordinary. Fitzgerald is a chronic fizzer and will find a way to miss an open goal tap in. If he ever has the ball in the front third, just look away for your own sanity. Meanwhile Caceres cops his 2nd stupid red in just his 3rd game.

The transfer system in this league is laughable.  If you are a ‘big’ club you can sign who you want despite there being no transfers between clubs.  From the blatant piss-take of Manchester City signing average midfielders to loan to the Melbourne outpost to the Carney debacle where Newcastle demanded two players in a swap, then one player in a swap and then no players in a swap between the FFA owned club and a team in a key market.

It’s not hard to write a set of rules that are fair and balanced, that have the loopholes filled and to enforce them but that would mean the FFA would struggle to play favourites and have to pay more than lip service to the idea of a level playing field.

Still.  It could be worse.  New Zealand Football could be managing the transfers.