Friday, July 18, 2008

Pre-match, pre-season cup: Sydney v Roar

I read Jesse Fink's piece about John Aloisi on the world game site and laughed, it's an in joke for long term bloggers - 'Where is Mike'. Anyone get it. Without losing my subtlety it involves one of the longest A-League blob exchanges ever and dates from the Terry Butcher days.

Anyway, Jesse thinks this is a do or die year for Sydney and, given his foot injury, our John doesn't look like a good investment. Plus they have loads of players unavailable or injured. Which was the risk of keeping under the salary cap by playing up for individuals and running a small squad. The thing that really gets me is that, growing up in Sydney, I know that NSW has immense youth talent. So why hasn't Sydney FC cultivated 4 or 5 Biddles?

This is where Frank Farina is great. Almost all his coaching experience, including the Socceroos, was under a regime of not spending any money. He knows how to find these players. And guess who the crowd come to see at the Roar - Zullo, Kruse and Tahj Minniecon and soon it will be Thomas Oar too (as well as DeVere and Cernak). Sydney don't need Aloisi for a crowd.

Good football can be played at any age. It is about mentoring, game time, rising to the occasion, learning hard lessons - just like all the other big things in life. So if Frank can find a bunch of young Queenslanders ready to embarrass the journeymen, why can't John Kosmina. Why does Kosmina need Foxtel to do his job for him? Don't get me wrong Fox 8's Football Superstar is fantastic but those players have always been there.

Then the old hands are the backbone and the icing on the cake.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

did the roar sign anyone up to the youth marquee deal?

the way the ffa has set up this salary cap exemption could be a hassle for the roar.

who gets the marquee dollars, and do other young talent resent not getting it?

kosmina brought burns and djite through at AU. will he give someone a chance at SFC? we`ll see.

Anonymous said...

I would not go writing Aloisi off as a reasonable investment just yet. Plenty of Goals in him when he gets fit I recon. Good point about Farina though, we turn up to see the kids, they dont cost a lot and in return we have room for a player like Danny T within the cap.

john said...

Jesse Fink was doing the righting off not me. I think Aloisi is a position player - he will get himself into position and if the ball is there he will score. A surprising number of strikers can't do that.

yes Kosmina stole Nathan Burns from under Sydney FC's noses. Perhaps that was because they lacked local knowledge in season one?

As far as I know the Roar have not used the marquee option. I don't see the marquee option as positive - it is still a faction of the European dollars - why hold someone back and stop the search for the next new star?

It will be interesting to see how many of this type of marquee signings there are.