Update on Pim's Blueprint

After yesterday's World Cup Qualifier, I thought I'd do a little update, in reference to an earlier blog I wrote before the Qatar game, entitled Pim's Blueprint.

I believe 'Pim's Blueprint' is the ideal solution to the problems we have always had with our biggest players playing on the other side of the World. Essentially the idea is that a squad of locally based players is well prepared for a game, with training camps and practice matches to ensure they are up for the contest. When a big game approaches, a squad of our best European based players is called up, we aim to field our best squad (as we always should), which is generally going to be made up of players who play in European leagues. However, as is inevitable, not all the European based players are going to make the trip - and if there is little time to prepare some may not come in the best condition to take part. The advantage here is that the locally based squad is ready, if any players drop out then they are there and ready to step up.

It's a great way of approaching things, but yesterday we saw a Socceroos squad decimated by injury with Pim having very few options against China, especially up front - we blame the eventual draw on the lack of available players and in light of this we conclude that it was a good result. This is true, but what went wrong? What if things had gone even worse? We can't take any risks when it comes to World Cup qualifying and as far as I'm concerned it is not acceptable that the Socceroos are limited in striking options, when there are plenty of other Aussies out there who could have give our side an attacking edge.

I think the main problem this week, apart from the obviously unlucky run of injuries, was that many of Pim's A-leauge based squad were cast aside before the European based Socceroos were even getting on the plane. The A-leauge Socceroos, alongside a couple of European based players who left their clubs early took on Singapore on Saturday, it was a poor game, but there were a couple of standout performers - James Troisi and Nathan Burns. Both were then sent home, Pim didn't think they were in our best squad (he was probably right) and didn't think they would be needed against China. Unfortunatey he was wrong about that, both players would have been very valuable assets in Wednesday's game. Who better to replace Kewell than Troisi or Burns?

In the future, the entire A-league squad that Pim has prepared needs to be at every world cup qualifier, when problems occur they need to be ready to fill the void and give Pim a few options.

One other thing I will mention briefly is the omission of Joel Griffiths, maybe Pim and the FFA weren't happy with a couple of Joel's remarks after the Qatar clash (for the record, Joel criticised the FFA after he was injured in a Socceroos training camp just before the Qatar game, claiming he wasn't properly looked after. Somehow I suspect his criticism was warranted - why would he make up something like that?), but that's no reason to leave him home - pick your best squad. On that topic where was John Aloisi?

Also, I just have to wish good luck to Harry Kewell after he has done himself another Groin injury, hopefully it's very minor and allows him a quick recovery, the chances of him staying at Liverpool are low, but if he can just find some form he will be an asset to any club he joins.

Bye for now,
Matt

Pim's Blueprint

The new head coach of the Socceroos, Pim Verbeek, probably didn't anticipate the debate that has dominated the Australian football community when he made his comments regarding the standard of the A-league compared to European leagues.

In the past couple of years, the Hyundai A-league has been doing things that many Australian football fans never thought possible - pulling big crowds, good tv ratings, engaging the mainstream media - but the question has always been in the back of fan's minds: how does this really compare to European football? Pim Verbeek's recent comments have brought this discussion out into the open - and all opinions are being laid on the table.

At a press conference last week, Pim made this claim: that a player who is training in Europe (specifically at clubs like Nuremburg and Karlsruhe in the German Bundesliga) would be better prepared for the upcoming World Cup Qualifier against Qatar than a player who is playing every week at an A-league club. These comments made headlines around the country - At times they were taken out of context, but they were very harsh comments. It is true that players who are training at big European clubs are generally better players than those playing in the A-league, with better skills and fitness, but training can not prepare you for a big international game, especially when you come up against a team like Qatar, who will be match fit - and very well prepared for the contest.

This is shown clearly by past results - in 2006 a Socceroos side with only A-league players beat Kuwait 2-0 at the Sydney Football Stadium (and were the dominant side), while a month later a side made up of European based players (many who had not been playing reguarly for their European clubs) were beaten comprehensively (loosing 2-0) in Kuwait City. Although the weather may have been partly to blame for Australia's loss on this occasion - there was no doubt that Australia's players were not ready for the physical contest. It was a similar story last year at the Asian Cup, the European based players were not ready - physically or mentally - even with a couple of weeks of preperation they could not prepare themselves well enough to even make the semi finals of the Asian Cup. If there was a bright spot in that campaign, it was the performance of A-league based players, who were match fit and showed that they had the quality to play at that level.

Both these examples demonstrate how the A-league, although maybe lacking some of the technical quality of many European leagues, provides decent preperation for international football. To say that to be training with a European club is better preperation for the game against Qatar than playing week-in-week-out in the A-league, is false - especially when the European based players will be getting off the plane only a couple of days before the match.

That being said, I still belive that the way Pim Verbeek has approached the game against Qatar - whether it be for the right reasons or not - is the best way to deal with these crucial matches - and should be seen as the blueprint for our future games of such nature. Pim has taken an A-league based squad, and prepared it for the game - he has worked with them for weeks, and they are ready to face Qatar in what will be a crucial game. He has then called up 19 European based players, due to logistical constraints, Pim will not be able to work with these players untill a day or two before the match. You can also expect that many players that Pim has called up will never actually make it to Australia, some will pick up 'injuries' on the weekend, some will miss the match through 'general soreness' - this is natural, and in reality these players would probably not be in the right condition to play against Qatar anyway.

This is why what Pim has done will work: when the inevitable occurs and many of the European based Socceroos do not arrive in Australia next Monday, Pim will be prepared - he has 20 A-league players ready for the contest. If 10-12 players arrive from Europe, in good condition and are ready to play against Qatar - then that is perfect. However if many players arrive tired, jet-lagged and ill-prepared for the game, then Pim has a whole squad of A-league players ready to step up. This will ensure a healthy mix of match-fit A-league players, and European based players who will add a technical 'edge' to the Socceroos side. You will not see a Socceroos side that looks slow, tired, unfit or unprepared next Wednesday - you will see a side in great condition, with a real attacking edge. This is the blueprint, that I believe will be used for years to come as we attempt to qualify for big international tournaments. What Pim has done has, I believe, has solved the problems we have over the past few years with no-shows and ill-prepared Socceroo teams. Whether he rates the A-league or not, I congratulate Pim on how he has approached next weeks game - let's just hope the result is the one we are looking for...

2007 in Review

This year has been an interesting one for football in Australia. The memories of the World Cup in 2006 are starting to fade, but the integration of Australia into the Asian Confederation has given great hope that football will continue to grow as a force in Australian Sport.

There has been a lot of football this year, really there has barely been a break - and for football fans, that's been great. The year started off with the conclusion of the A-leauge, as an Adelaide United fan, the 6-0 loss to Melbourne Victory in the grand final was hard to take, particuarly as two of Melbourne's goals were clearly offside, and we had a goal ruled out for offside when it cleary came of a Melbourne player. 4-1 certainly would have been a fairer scoreline, but full credit to the Victory who pushed the boundaries of the A-leauge, and proved that Aussie clubs could thrive - both on and off the pitch.

Adelaide and Sydney then took part in the Asian Champions leauge, there were some nice moments during this campaign - Sydney's first-up victory in China and tight contests with the eventual champions - Urawa. I felt Adelaide was unlucky, and when only one team from each group progresses to the knockout rounds, you need a bit of luck - Travis Dodd's hat-trick in the final game was the highlight for me though.

Meanwhile the European season was drawing to an end, West Ham's remarkable run to see them stay in the top flight was unforgettable. For many weeks it looked like we may see a grandstand finish to the EPL season, Chelsea and Man United were scheduled to face off in the final week, and when Chelsea had an opportunity to get within 2 points of United a week or so before this game, every neutral fan was hoping that this match may decide the premier league champions. In the end, Chelsea couldn't take advantage of the chances that Man United gave them to catch up - and Man United sealed the Premier League title a week out from the end of the season. Chelsea got one back a week later, winning a dull FA Cup final at Wembley.

AC Milan took out the UEFA Champions league, although Liverpool looked the better side for most of the game, then again Milan dominated much of the 2005 final, which Liverpool took out on penalties. It was also good to see Harry Kewell come back from injury late in the season, he would go on to do well in the Asian Cup for the Socceroos, and has eventually started to get some regular football for Liverpool in the current EPL season.

Anticipation was starting to rise for the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, a full strength Socceroos team was called up for the tournament, and the expectation was that Australia would take out the title. Unfortunately for Aussie fans, the tournament did not go well - in retrospect it seems that Graham Arnold and the FFA underestimated the tournament, players all had a break for a month or so before the tournament, and were obviously not fit enough to be at their best. Despite an opening draw, and a dissapointing loss - Australia hit back with a 4-0 win against Thailand to book their spot in the Quarter finals. Aussie fans began to hope that the Socceroos were coming into form at the right time, and after John Aloisi put Australia 1-0 up with 25 minutes to go in the Quarter final against Japan, it seemed that this was the case. Some lazy defending, however, allowed Japan to equalise. The Japanese were obviously fitter and from that point on were clearly the better side, Australia managed to take the game to a penalty shootout, but when both Kewell and Neill missed their penalties, Australia were as good as eliminated. It was encouraging, however, to see two A-league stars in David Carney and Nick Carle score penalties to keep the pressure on Japan, but no miricale was to occur and Australia bowed out.

On a more general level, the Asian Cup was a good touranment. The quality of football was good, and the tournament was well run. Unfortunately the crowds were poor in both Thailand and Malaysia - but good crowds in Indonesia and Vietnam meant that at least some games had a nice atmosphere. The temperature was also a problem, average temperatures in the mid-30s with high humidity made it very difficult for the players, this is something the AFC will have to look at, if the Asian Cup is going to grow into a really major tournament, then you can't have games played under those conditions - it's going to be a tricky problem to deal with.

A decent performance against Argentina and a win against Nigeria saw the Socceroos round out 2007 well. New coach Pim Verbeek was appointed when Dick Advocaat pulled out on the FFA at the last minute. 2008 will be an interesting year for the 'roos. The 2010 world cup qualifiers are the obvious fixture, with Australia in a tough group. It will be interesting to see how Australia deals with the problem of unavaliability of European players in their first couple of games - let's hope we can work out a system that will serve us well in the future.

Australia's women had a big tournament this year, a first up win and two impressive draws saw the Matlida's qualify for the Quarter finals of the Womens World Cup in China. It looked like a massive upset might be on the cards as Australia came back from 2-0 down to be level against Brazil in the Quarter final, however Brazil managed to find another goal and progress - they ended up cruising into the final of the tournament (which they did loose), which shows how close Australia came to a huge result in what was a very successful tournament.

Another Australian national team making waves in 2007 was the Olyroos. Australia's under-23 team faced a very difficult campaign to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, but they came through a very difficult group to reach the final stage of qualification with some impressive wins. Players like Kristian Sarkies, Nathan Burns, Bruce Djite, Mark Bridge, James Troisi, Neil Kilkeny, Mark Milligan and Adrien Leijer all impressed and look to have a good future. The team would end up topping their final round group (which was required for qualification) after a 2-0 victory over Iraq at a packed stadium in Gosford and a tense 1-1 draw in North Korea. It was a shame that most of the Olyroos games this year were not televised in Australia, particuarly when coveraged was produced for every game - and many countries across Asia had coverage of our games. Eventually SBS decided to show our game against Iraq and Fox Sports stepped in to show the final game against North Korea. Hopefully this trend will continue and we will start to see a lot more games invloving youth and womens teams (especially games in Asian competitions) broadcast.

Talking of football broadcasting, it has also been great to see Setanta Sports truly enter the Australian market through their transmission on Foxtel. Live coverage of international games, and games from several European leagues has seen Australia finally get up to standard as far as football coverage goes - there is still a lot of room for improvement though. Fox Sports also deserves a lot of credit for it's coverage of the English Premier league - the 'press red' feature and viewers choice has been very welcome, hopefully it won't be too long and every EPL game will be live on Fox Sports. It would be nice to see a little more coverage on FTA television, as that is really a requirement to continue growing the game - hopefully the rumors about Socceroos games being put back on FTA TV are true. It would also be nice to see the A-league (and prehaps EPL) highlights shows on FTA one day.

The A-league kicked off again for Season 3 in August. The first season of the A-league had the novelty factor of being season 1, and the second season was played only a couple of months after the 2006 World Cup - so Season 3 was always going to be a more difficult year for the A-league. Despite this, crowds are up overall - as are TV ratings and media interest. The Wellington Phoenix have replaced the NZ knights, and have impressed - although they will not make the finals, they have got some good results, played some good football and pulled in some big crowds. The quality of the football has prehaps been a bit lacking in season 3 of the A-league, but this is partly because the competition is more even this year. Sydney FC's 5-4 victory over the Mariners on Saturday was the best game the A-league has ever seen, so prehaps the trend of low-scoring matches is over. The season is delicately poised going into next year, hopefully we'll have a few more classic games as we get close to the finals.

The international football for the year concluded in November with the final round of Euro 2008 qualifying. Scotland came very close to knocking Italy - the World Champions - out of the tournament before it began, but in the end Italy had a little too much class. Class is something England ran out of as they crashed out at the hands of Croatia, thanks to some terrible defending and goalkeeping.

The European club season has been exciting and memorable as always. I look forward to visiting London next weekend to take in Chelsea v Newcastle. As always, the real drama will start occuring next year when trophies are on the line.

So what should we be looking forward to in 2008? There will certainly be some interesting developments around the A-league. Expansion is on the cards, and the Gold Coast Galaxy look set to be playing in the A-league next season. There is also a possibility that the Townsville Thunder will see a 10 team league in 2008/2009. New teams will be exciting, and hopefully they will both draw big crowds, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding how the 10 team league will work. I would love to see the season going 27 rounds into March/April and overlapping the champions league, but will there be problems with ground availability? Also, will international breaks be recognised? Will we have a few more midweek games? Will more games be played around the Christmas period? It will be a year of change for the A-league, and personally - I am excited.

A revamp of the Asian Champions league will also be considered next year, it is possible that we may see 3 A-league teams in the ACL for 2009, with the format of the ACL tinkered with - this is certainly necessary as the tournament does have it's problems - but it has a lot of potential.

2008 will again be a big year: World Cup qualifiers, Euro 2008 and the Olympic Games will be 3 highlights - let's hope it's a good year.

Bye for now,
Matt

Asian Cup/Qualifiers Scheduling

Next year, some of our World Cup qualifiers will not be played on full FIFA dates. Obviously this is a problem as clubs will not be releasing there players and we will have to field an A-league based Socceroo side.

This problem is, at heart, caused by the Asian Cup being played in 2007, rather than in 2008. Here are our match dates for next year:

Feb 6 Aus v Qatar (FIFA Friendly date)
March 26 China v Aus (FIFA Friendly date)
June 7 Aus v Iraq (FIFA tournament date - during Euro 2008)
June 14 Iraq v Aus (FIFA tournament date - during Euro 2008)
Sep 6 Qatar v Aus (Full FIFA date)
Sept 10 Aus v China (Full FIFA date)

As you can see, our first two games are during FIFA friendly dates, this means that if players are called up, clubs are required to release their players for only 48 hours. Obviously this is not long enough for them to come back to Australia.

Both games against Iraq are played in June, when clubs are required to release players as it is an "International period" when Euro 2008 takes place, we should be able to bring a decent squad back for those games - although some players may want rest.

Our last games on September 6 and 10 fall on a full FIFA date, players are required to be released for at least 4-5 days so we could get a strong squad back here.

Now the real problem is the first two games we play, we will be able to get back virtually no European players, and although we should be able to put out a decent, A-league based lineup it will make things difficult. If all our games were on full fifa dates, things would be easier - we probably wouldn't see every one of the Socceroo stars back in Australia for every game, but we could negotiate with clubs and see at least a few of our best players coming back for every match.

I'm sure the problem that Australia has is also an issue for the likes of Japan and Korea. If Asian football wants to grow, more and more asian players will need to start making an impact in Europe, and hence the problem that Australia is having will spread to even more nations eventually. Thus it is important to Asian football, that in the future all qualifiers are scheduled on full fifa dates.

How could this be achieved? Well fifa designs it's schedule based on the European teams having a major tournament every two years, the World Cup in 2006/2010 etc. and then the European Championships in 2008/2010 etc. The full fifa dates are designed for qualifying for these tournaments, European teams don't start qualifying for the World Cup untill after Euro 2008, thus full FIFA dates don't occur in the first half of next year, only friendly dates are scheduled. The AFC should realise this and should not have started World Cup qualifying early next year, but later in the year.

Here's the easy solution (note that there is obviously is no chance of a change for this qualifying campaign - but an example of what could be done in the future):

There is a full FIFA date from October 11 to October 15 next year, the two games from February 6 and March 26 could be moved to this date, bringing all World Cup Qualifying matches onto full fifa dates. There will be enough full fifa dates to ensure this also happens in 2009 with the final round of qualifiers.

The sensible thing to do, would be to hold the Asian Cup next year, rather than this year - World Cup qualifying could start in June, then teams could go off to the Asian Cup in July (which doesn't clash with Euro 2008), and then this round of World Cup qualifying could be concluded on the two, full fifa dates remaining in 2008.

This would work well, as 2007 would have been an easier year for our players, who do need rest - you could have had Asian Cup qualifying last year, but that is hardly as crucial as World Cup qualifying, and you wouldn't need to get all our best players back for every game (although there would still be more than enough designated dates for all games to be played on full fifa dates). Go back to 2006, and you would then have the entire year focused on just the World Cup, no Asian Cup qualifiers to worry about - and an easy second half of the year (although probably a friendly) for our players.

The reason that the 2007 Asian Cup was held in 2007, rather than 2008 was to avoid a clash with Euro 2008 and the Olympics - but this is hardly a problem. It would not be a direct clash anyway, Euro 2008 would have finished a week or so before the Asian Cup, while the Olympics would not be untill a few weeks after the Asian Cup had finished - yes media attention might have been lower given the other significant events happening next year, but it would have made a lot more sense, and long term it would be a lot better for Asian football.

Now obviously it's too late to make the suggested changes now, but going forward we have the chance to put the Asian Cup back to the "middle year" between world cups - the next Asian Cup is being played in January 2011, this is only a few months after the 2010 World Cup, and is going to leave a huge gap between major tournaments for the Socceroos and other major Asian nations. It is not too late to reschedule the tournament to January 2012. By 2016, the tournament could be back where it belongs - almost exactly in between world cups - July 2016.

The scheduling for qualifiers is then simple, 2015 would be all about Asian Cup qualifying, 2016 would have the Asian Cup as well as early World Cup qualifiers, 2017 would have the major round of World Cup qualifiers and 2018 would be devoted to friendlies and the World Cup.

It is the best way forward for Asian football.