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DanielJohnCosta

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Jul 10, 2015
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as an Aussie I apologise for the league, the countries football is a joke, we all know it. The game is literally going backwards, it's crazy that a sport crazy country can be going backwards in a game that has no rival in being the best sport on the planet. For me, and many others the game is almost unwatchable.
 

BringBack_leGin

Well-Known Member
Jul 28, 2004
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as an Aussie I apologise for the league, the countries football is a joke, we all know it. The game is literally going backwards, it's crazy that a sport crazy country can be going backwards in a game that has no rival in being the best sport on the planet. For me, and many others the game is almost unwatchable.
The crazy thing is, after the 2006 World Cup when you only went out after an injury time penalty to Italy in the last 16, you could have really pushed on. You had some very capable footballers. Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Jason Culina, Brett Emerton, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell, Marl Bresciano, these were good footballers with ability. Where was the inspired next generation?

When you look how well your country does in tennis, football, swimming, motorsport, rugby and cricket, it is amazing that it can’t compete in football which is a far simpler sport to master than all of those. Maybe it’s like with the USA where there are just too many more popular sports so football is left under populated?
 

RichieS

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Dec 23, 2004
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The crazy thing is, after the 2006 World Cup when you only went out after an injury time penalty to Italy in the last 16, you could have really pushed on. You had some very capable footballers. Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Jason Culina, Brett Emerton, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell, Marl Bresciano, these were good footballers with ability. Where was the inspired next generation?

When you look how well your country does in tennis, football, swimming, motorsport, rugby and cricket, it is amazing that it can’t compete in football which is a far simpler sport to master than all of those. Maybe it’s like with the USA where there are just too many more popular sports so football is left under populated?
There are only 20 million or so Australians and they also have their own version of football. As you say, too much rivalry.
 

DanielJohnCosta

Well-Known Member
Jul 10, 2015
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The crazy thing is, after the 2006 World Cup when you only went out after an injury time penalty to Italy in the last 16, you could have really pushed on. You had some very capable footballers. Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Jason Culina, Brett Emerton, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell, Marl Bresciano, these were good footballers with ability. Where was the inspired next generation?

When you look how well your country does in tennis, football, swimming, motorsport, rugby and cricket, it is amazing that it can’t compete in football which is a far simpler sport to master than all of those. Maybe it’s like with the USA where there are just too many more popular sports so football is left under populated?

yeh I don't know. I work as a PE teacher at a Primary level and most of the sports that were popular among juniors around the time of 2006 world cup (rugby, rugby league) are almost dead at a junior level. Football is literally growing, and growing in participants. I believe it's just how the people running the junior football look at what's important (big emphasis on fitness) with little on ability, technique. Another thing is that kids in the country just have little/no work ethic for sport anymore, it's so frustrating to see but you just can't push them like you used to and that's being displayed in almost all sporting codes across the country.
 

Danners9

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Mar 30, 2004
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yeh I don't know. I work as a PE teacher at a Primary level and most of the sports that were popular among juniors around the time of 2006 world cup (rugby, rugby league) are almost dead at a junior level. Football is literally growing, and growing in participants. I believe it's just how the people running the junior football look at what's important (big emphasis on fitness) with little on ability, technique. Another thing is that kids in the country just have little/no work ethic for sport anymore, it's so frustrating to see but you just can't push them like you used to and that's being displayed in almost all sporting codes across the country.
I feel the A-League is really mis-managed. If they could make it an attractive place to play or an appealing career, maybe more kdis would want to continue..

The issues I have with it are:
Very few teams for such a large country.
High concentration of teams in Sydney and Melbourne while sparse elsewhere.
Emphasis on mediocre foreign players.
Tactics are so basic.
No transfer fees between clubs and low fees when selling abroad leading to low emphasis producing youth players.
Low budgets and salary caps leading to high turnover of players.
Also seems like there isn't much of a link up between the NPL level clubs and the A-League.

May be wrong on the facts but this is my perception.

If the coaching at youth level is focusing on fitness, it's no surprise that kids are turning away. Bigger, fitter kids could probably play rugby or AFL which is more recogniseable, and the smaller kids don't have their technique nurtured so they give up...

semi-rant below about the A-League:
I live in QLD, an absolutely huge state, and there is one A-League side. Used to be two others but for one reason or another they folded because of financial issues. It means there are large towns and smaller cities outside of Brisbane with no club nearby. Gold Coast and Townsville have rugby though. It also means there might be kids all across the state, all states, really, with talent not being picked up.

I am not a fan per se, but friends are, and it's the closest team to me, but... Brisbane Roar have fallen so far in the last few years, from winners in 2014 and AFC CL group stages in 2015 and 2017, to second bottom right now. Only last season did they open up their own youth training facility. I guess they used the same sort of gyms as I do before that, or a school field... No way for a pro team to be run. They sacked their manager in December and still haven't appointed a new one. Recently lost top scorer Adam Taggart FOR FREE to a Korean side because of a clause in his contract which stated he could leave for free if Aloisi (the previous mgr) was fired. Unbelievable.

Perth to Wellington is 7hrs flight? Wellington this weekend had to give up a home game to play in Campbelltown, Sydney, against Sydney FC. Next season Melbourne will have 3 teams, Sydney has 2 and 2 others not that far away. WA, SA, QLD only have one. The country's capital, Canberra, hasn't got a team (it has a Women's League team though), and there are expansion plans in the works and most likely another team will be added to Sydney.

Because budgets are so tight, all but three (Melb C, Melb V, Sydney FC) have really high turnover of players. To re-sign players from one season to the next takes them over budget, so thay can't do it. Some of the stars from one season won't be there the next, while rival clubs can pick them up by shifting their players around. Any young (often dual-nationality) players with promise will go overseas as soon as possible (see Arzani and Daniel De Silva for recent examples). The older guys like Maclaren, Sainsbury, Irvine - the guys in the national side - are Scottish Prem, English Championship level. Sainsbury moved to Inter when the owners of his Chinese team bought the club, he's now with PSV and hardly plays. Except against us in the CL - thanks for the OG!

A few seasons ago Adelaide won the trophy, the toilet seat one :D, but had to let their stars go and finished bottom the next season. Western Sydney won the Asian CL one season and fell away the next. Brisbane also used to be good, and now are 2nd bottom. No idea how much the FFA makes from the league but it seems as if the majority of the money isn't going back to the teams. Taggart going to Suwon to make 3-4x the wage he was on at Brisbane is a shame for the league.

Attendances are low. Except for derby games. I wonder if they had young players from the area to cheer for whether the fans would come back? Everyone knows the 'stars' are there for a few months, and they aren't really stars. Le Fondre (ex Reading) and Ola Toivonen (ex Sunderland) are tearing it up. There are regional NPL leagues and then a national championship, too, so they could promote players and have a stream of talent coming through to push up to the national team, instead of turning to Europe for 32+ yr olds willing to move, or returning Aussies getting cut because their team in China or Korea wants to sign someone better. But because clubs can't make anything from developing players, what's the point in trying to. It's an expense, and when budgets are tight they could use that money getting someone in for now. And it's always a series of 'now', season after season, rather than looking a few seasons ahead.

And then there's the refs... early this season the use of VAR was absolutely ruining every game. Crazy decisions by referees who were bad to begin with, being reviewed by equally bad refs. Surprised teams didn't walk off in protest at some of the things they were giving.

It's a shame because the quality of the NRL and even the BBL cricket is really, really high. The A-League and football in general is lagging very far behind. There's competition for talent and audiences, but football is on now and rugby isn't, AFL hasn't started yet and the cricket just finished. There should be enough appetite to make all of them viable. If only the quality was there.
 

Clark28

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Aug 31, 2016
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It's hard to invest time into a league where a player fucks off overseas as soon as they get semi-decent (I don't blame them for leaving though)
So you're left watching washed-up players, or others who are pretty average.

Adelaide won the championship in 2016 and then 7 players left before the next season started.
 

Danners9

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Mar 30, 2004
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He starts today vs Perth.

An odd round this time. They have split the matches between this week and next week.
 

Tottenham_God

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Nov 6, 2011
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The crazy thing is, after the 2006 World Cup when you only went out after an injury time penalty to Italy in the last 16, you could have really pushed on. You had some very capable footballers. Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Jason Culina, Brett Emerton, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell, Marl Bresciano, these were good footballers with ability. Where was the inspired next generation?

When you look how well your country does in tennis, football, swimming, motorsport, rugby and cricket, it is amazing that it can’t compete in football which is a far simpler sport to master than all of those. Maybe it’s like with the USA where there are just too many more popular sports so football is left under populated?
AFL is king where I'm from (Western Australia) and in Victoria and i was called a "fag" growing up for playing soccer. Rugby is king in NSW and Queensland.
 

Danners9

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alexis

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Sep 1, 2012
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Looked wide but can’t but help his confidence. Melbourne not a bad city to be in either.
 

mattdefoe

Well-Known Member
Jul 16, 2009
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The crazy thing is, after the 2006 World Cup when you only went out after an injury time penalty to Italy in the last 16, you could have really pushed on. You had some very capable footballers. Mark Schwarzer, Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Jason Culina, Brett Emerton, Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell, Marl Bresciano, these were good footballers with ability. Where was the inspired next generation?

When you look how well your country does in tennis, football, swimming, motorsport, rugby and cricket, it is amazing that it can’t compete in football which is a far simpler sport to master than all of those. Maybe it’s like with the USA where there are just too many more popular sports so football is left under populated?

I dont agree that its a simpler game to master. Lots of natural skill , control, touch , heading, vision , passing , tactics etcl, an absolute ton of competition. Games like cricket and rugby barely have an competition much small ponds.
 

BringBack_leGin

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Jul 28, 2004
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I dont agree that its a simpler game to master. Lots of natural skill , control, touch , heading, vision , passing , tactics etcl, an absolute ton of competition. Games like cricket and rugby barely have an competition much small ponds.
My point is that pretty much everybody of able body and fitness can play football to some level, even just jumpers for goalposts, and it’s accessible to people from all backgrounds.

Can’t really say that about any other sport.
 

C0YS

Just another member
Jul 9, 2007
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My point is that pretty much everybody of able body and fitness can play football to some level, even just jumpers for goalposts, and it’s accessible to people from all backgrounds.

Can’t really say that about any other sport.
Tbf cricket isn't that different in that regard. I get what your saying though.

Tbh I don't see why football would be big in Australia or why they would be good at it. They have a small population that focuses already on a lot of sports, many of which a played by very few other countries. You can't really expect them to compete over other nations and as a country they actually massively overachieve footballing wise when you think about footballs popularity in far East Asia and the middle East.

Australia are overachievers in a sport that isn't that big there it would take something extraordinary for them to really push to becoming a seriously competitive side.
 

Danners9

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Played again today. A few nice touches, beat 2 men with ease ('glided' the commentators said), and had a shot go pretty close. His team wasn't at the races at all, lost 0-3 away to Western Sydney are 3 places and now just 7pts below City in the league. Missing their in-form striker, Jamie Maclaren, which wouldn't have helped. They had to reshuffle completely and I saw Ritchie De Laet (the defender on loan from Villa) was playing right of a front three.
 
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