The Football Tragic

I escaped from my newborn this week just long enough to watch the final of FIFA's Under 17 World Cup in Nigeria. It was a game well worth watching.

World Soccer's Paul Gardner, a football purist who makes Craig Foster seem like an apostle of playing the percentages by comparison, has often written that the Under 17 event is his favourite tournament. Why? Because at that level, skill, enterprise and attack are generally rewarded much more than in the senior game.

It has often been so in the past. But in Sunday's match, we saw pragmatism overcome flair and enterprise, despite fanatical home support.

This is not to decry the quality of the Swiss, who played some delightful football in their semi-final win over Colombia and clearly have some players of great ability. But in the final, they set out to soak up the Nigerian possession and hit their hosts on the break. Ultimately, the strategy was successful...something of a rarity at Under 17 level.

It was a callow sort of pragmatism, in some ways. There were some unpunished blunders in defence, and occasionally the Swiss wasted some 3 v. 2 and even 2 v. 1 opportunities at the other end, by being a bit too cute. But on the whole, their defensive efforts were laudable. Tackles were nicely timed, positioning was surprisingly mature, and the star of the match, Ricardo Rodriguez, showed precocious authority at the back.

The aforementioned Craig Foster made the accurate observation at half-time that Nigeria were wasting their opportunities by snatching at their shots just shy of the penalty box - rushes of blood to the head won out over teamwork at that critical point. Abdul Ajagun was particularly guilty of this, but others were prone to it as well. And although the Nigerians were tearing the Swiss to pieces down the left, with the powerful Terry Envoh getting past his man constantly, the killing cut-back never arrived.

Is such a result a straw in the wind, combined with Ghana's victory over Brazil with ten men in the Under 20 event? Certainly, youth teams appear to be showing more organisation and teamwork than in the past. But pragmatic does not necessarily mean dour, and I felt there was plenty to admire about the Swiss effort in Abuja. On the whole, they deserved their triumph.

A final thought: has there ever been a more ethnically diverse team at a FIFA event than the Swiss in Nigeria? There were, just from memory, names of French, German, Czech, Albanian, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Yugoslav, and West African extraction. United Nations FC?

The acquisition of Kevin Sheedy as coach of the AFL's new western Sydney franchise has set plenty of tongues wagging, and keyboards clicking. The presence of one of the sport's most charismatic figures in enemy territory is good copy...especially for rugby league scribes defending the bastions.

Greg Prichard has given Penrith's Mark Geyer a free kick (or should that be a scrum feed?) in this morning's SMH, while another Fairfax stayer in Roy Masters had his say a couple of days ago. There was also a rambling segment on the ABC's 7:30 Report on Tuesday, which managed to subtly portray Sheedy as something of a performing seal.

Anyway, to the point. All three of the above pieces had one thing in common: football was not mentioned at all. Not once.

Rather worrying when you consider a couple of things: firstly, that the round-ball game was considered an important future player in the western Sydney market only a couple of years ago, and secondly that the new "Sydney Rovers" franchise will not have much of a headstart on a Sheedy-led AFL venture.

I still feel that a western Sydney AFL team is doomed to failure, but football is another matter. A little while back, another piece from Masters grudgingly acknowledged that football was likely to have its say in the war for the entertainment dollar in Sydney's overpopulated west.

Things appear to have changed. And it's not just the A-League's falling attendances; the whole bidding process for the twelfth A-League licence, steered towards western Sydney from the outset, turned into an embarrassing pig's breakfast. And all the initial statements from Ian Rowden et al. re the new franchise suggest that no-one really has a clue about how to proceed as yet.

A good thing they have another year and a half to get things together...by which time, one hopes, the A-League will be on a better footing than it is now.

Alex Brosque's return to form this season has been a delight to watch, but this sudden move up the ranks comes as a surprise nonetheless. The timing is unfortunate, since Brosque was surprisingly ineffective against Gold Coast United this weekend, especially after the game-changing departure of Steve Corica.

In the final analysis, it is extraordinary that a player scoring regularly for a club as prestigious as Celtic has effectively (although technically Brosque is a replacement for Josh Kennedy) been ditched in favour of a Sydney FC player who has found a pleasing groove, but has notched only two goals this season. But the Scott McDonald "problem" continues to be one of the more irksome issues on Pim Verbeek's agenda.

Simply put, McDonald does not fit into the system that Verbeek has settled on. A modus operandi that consists of Kennedy terrorizing Asian defences in the air, with Tim Cahill sniffing around for second balls, leaves little room for a "channels" player like McDonald.

There have, of course, been previous examples of strikers who simply can't replicate their club form at international level, for whatever reason. Andy Cole, a demon at Manchester United and a dud for the Three Lions, was one such. But have the Socceroos really become so stuck in their ways that McDonald can be deemed surplus to requirements for thinly-veiled tactical reasons?

The withdrawal of Kennedy against Oman leaves Bruce Djite as a possible point-man, a player whose last foray at international level left many wondering what on earth he was doing in a Socceroo shirt. After a bright start in Turkey, he has found the going difficult.

Nikita Rukavytsya must consider himself unlucky to miss out, especially considering his recent prolific form. But, like McDonald, he is a striker with a penchant for peeling out wide, running off the main man. Not Verbeek's kind of player.

Re the gradual shadow falling over McDonald's Socceroo career, SBS's blogger-in-chief has voiced similar concerns in one of his recent pieces, but has concluded that Verbeek knows what he's doing. I wish I could share his optimism.

Has there been a better team goal in this season's A-League than Wellington's second against Newcastle last night (about two and a half minutes into this)? If Paul Ifill's surging run down the left was typically impressive, Costa Barbarouses' nonchalant flick was sublime. And Chris Greenacre's finish was no less classy.

It's tremendous to see the Phoenix so buoyant in the league despite the loss of Shane Smeltz. Although Greenacre has not been as prolific as his predecessor, he appears to be slowly finding his feet. Ifill has been a splendidly effective signing, probably the best foreign acquisition in the A-League this season, with the possible exception of Robbie Fowler.

Perhaps the most heartening aspect of their victory over Newcastle was the fact that they managed to maintain their positive frame of mind despite the setback in Sydney. Some of the euphoria from their thumping of the Gold Coast clearly remained.

With every passing season, I am more convinced that Wellington's presence in the league is a boon, not a burden. It would be a shame if their participation in the Australian domestic competition were to become a political chip for Australia's rivals in the battle to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cups; with some sensible manoeuvring from the FFA (never a given, these days), it needn't be.

There have been plenty of success stories at Sydney FC this season. The wonderful mobility of the Brosque-Bridge partnership, Stuart Musialik's return to form, the impressive fitness levels...not to mention the much-improved relations with the media, with Vitezslav Lavicka's courteous and dignified manner putting all four of his predecessors to shame.

But another pleasing story is the redemption of Clint Bolton, who has gone a long way towards shedding the "Faulty Bolty" moniker which he attracted last season. Against Wellington this evening, Bolton was superb, but then he has looked a player reborn all season.

With his excellent performances for Sydney Olympic in mind, many pundits singled out Bolton as the best goalkeeping acquisition at the A-League's inception, and so it proved in season one. Under Pierre Littbarski, whom he admired, Bolton was a tower of strength, playing a major (and often under-valued) role in Sydney's championship campaign.

In the subsequent three seasons, it was a slow journey downhill. Bolton (like many of Sydney's other senior players) detested Terry Butcher, and reportedly failed to build a rapport with the Englishman's successors either. The nadir in Bolton's Sydney FC career came last season, when he deservedly lost his place to Ivan Necevski.

Plenty of fans thought that Necevski would be Lavicka's first choice as well, but Bolton has belied his previous form with his efforts this season. It is surely significant that he has gone on the record expressing admiration for Lavicka and his methods; he seems to have found a manager for whom he is willing to produce his best.

This afternoon, Wellington's main method of attack was the lofted ball from out wide, but Bolton's alertness never wavered, and very few of the deep crosses found a Wellington head. Not that the delivery was particularly good (Sydney sensibly double-teamed the dangerous Paul Ifill throughout), but there was a confidence and certainty about Bolton which Sydney fans have seen so rarely of late.

The penalty save from Daniel was the simply sort of thing that happens when you're on your game. And even his save from Costa Barbarouses near the end was highly impressive, a quick dash off the line and a well-timed spreading of the body.

Otherwise, it was another professional, incisive performance from Sydney, whose first eleven is looking tighter and more creative with every game. Wellington, too, played their part in what was a very entertaining afternoon's football - by stark contrast to the utterly dismal fare on display in Canberra last night.

Given all the glowing publicity surrounding the new Gold Coast United franchise early in the season, including a cloying puff piece on Channel 9's 60 Minutes, this makes particularly depressing reading.

Yes, stadium deals are tricky things. Sydney FC, for one, suffered from an onerous deal with the SFS (Aussie Stadium, as it then was) in the first A-League season, one which was largely responsible for the loss the club made in 2005/06. Brisbane Roar, too, have had problems aplenty with Suncorp.

But if the Skilled Park deal is forcing Clive Palmer to take such absurd, counter-productive steps in order to stop the cash haemorrhage, then one has to wonder what on earth Palmer and his cohorts were doing getting into such a deal in the first place.

The ticket prices at the club are obscene by Australian standards, and given that one of the promised benefits of membership (see here) was free public transport to the ground, members who will be deprived of this (to the best of my knowledge) under the 5,000 cap have the right to be mightily peeved.

It is another salutary lesson for the A-League as a whole: lone, messiah-style investors, particularly those with only tenuous links to the game, are a mixed blessing at best. Plenty of pundits were frankly fawning over Palmer only a few short months ago, but the demeanour of the man throughout has been that of someone savouring a new toy...one which might be dispensed with in short order.

As for the supposed ructions in the dressing-room, it is no secret that Miron Bleiberg is a handful to work with, and Paul Okon - a prickly character himself, if his recent history is any guide - could well jump ship before long. There may be concerns, too, over Jason Culina's faltering form; his fluent performance in the season opener against Brisbane seems a long time ago now.

All is not lost. The team is still riding high in the league, and there is plenty of residual goodwill towards one of the new franchises which most neutrals are desperate to see succeed, for the sake of the competition. But a compromise agreement on the Skilled Park deal needs to be made pronto, and Archie Fraser should take to heart the lessons of dealing with a pugnacious new owner with little prior interest in football.

No Moore. No Malcolm. No Tiatto. No Miller. It was always going to be a stringent test of Brisbane's resources.

And yet they acquitted themselves not too badly, on the whole. Although they were plainly outclassed in midfield for much of the game, and had every reason to let their heads drop after the injury to Reinaldo, they made a real fight of the game in the final twenty minutes, and perhaps deserved to equalise. They may well have done so, in fact, had Matt McKay not donned a cloak of invisibility in the second half, after a moderately influential first.

But there were others who stepped up for the Roar in the second period, not least Tommy Oar, and their last-ditch surge perhaps suggested that "the lads" are not wholly indispensable.

As for Sydney FC, it was far from their best performance, but teams that can play badly and still win command respect. Full marks to Vitezslav Lavicka for sticking resolutely with the system and the players that accounted for Melbourne, despite the setback in Adelaide. Although the Brosque-Corica-Bridge combination didn't quite function as it should in the first half, Sydney's first goal underlined just how effective the trio can be in concert, when the cogs are turning properly.

And the fact that Sydney bounced back from a dispiriting loss with a win makes this damning-with-faint-praise from Mike Cockerill particularly distasteful. Cockerill has done his best to subtly run down the affable, diligent Lavicka in the interests of promoting local aspirants (a favourite theme of his), but linking yesterday's pitiful attendance to a nascent "blandness" at the club is disingenuous. The A-League crowds are down across the board, and a wet Sunday afternoon game against a club lacking many of its recognisable faces is hardly going to produce a bumper turnout in 2009/10.

On the matter of Sydney's "injury breaks" in the final minutes, he has more of a point. That was indeed cynical, and the sort of thing that the A-League could do without.

The alarming drop-off in A-League crowds was surely the main impetus behind these comments by Frank Lowy this week.

The A-League on free-to-air TV? A worthwhile aim, but wishful thinking at the moment. It is hard to see any of the commercial networks being willing to fit even a single game into their crowded weekend schedules, and coverage on the ABC or SBS would not bring in anything like sufficient revenue. It's possible that one of the new digital channels might give the local competition a go, but it still seems like slim pickings.

I've commented on the history of football's encounters with free-to-air TV in the past, so I won't cover old ground. But now, more than ever, with interest in the domestic league plainly waning, it looks like being an uphill struggle to convince the FTA broadcasters to take an interest.

The other issues that Lowy has touched on are closely related to the central one of crowds and TV coverage. Promotion and relegation has been barely mentioned by the FFA since the introduction of the A-League, but now, with crowds down, it suddenly seems an attractive concept. Whatever its impracticability in the short term, I've always been of the belief that eventually it will need to play a part in the A-League.

The familiar counter-argument - that promotion/relegation systems are alien to the Australian sporting landscape - ignores the fact that many fans of the domestic competition follow the European game closely as well, where relegation scraps are not only a fact of life, but a source of considerable excitement towards the end of the season. A more reasonable point is that the A-League clubs would not survive demotion to a second league, and this in particular makes a two-tier system problematic (to say the least) for a few years yet.

And then there's the question of when to begin the A-League season. Although the cross-over with the AFL and NRL finals had its inevitable effect, I tend to think that this has been overstated somewhat. More significant, surely, was the lack of marketing prior to the start of the season; the anticipated post-AFL/NRL promotional blitz has not eventuated.

It's hard to suggest a panacea for the A-League's many current problems. I still feel that the greatest immediate benefit would come from concentrating on the essential "product" - the football. There has been some improvement this season, but more is required to make it a genuinely crowd-pleasing competition. A more adventurous approach, greater focus on attack rather than defence, less frantic pressuring of the opposition so as to save some energy for when possession is recovered.

The A-League will never challenge the top leagues of Europe in terms of quality, but it can be made into a better spectacle. But this requires a significant shift in mentality among both coaches and players.

There are plenty of issues elsewhere, but a more attractive on-field product will make these a little easier to resolve.

The Half-Time Heroes are back for October, and Con Stamocostas (who has assumed editorial duties in the enforced absence of Eamonn Flanagan) has compiled another meaty production. Shane Davis talks Dutch tactics, FourFourTwo's Ben O'Neil talks Germany, TWG's Stuart Randall talks EPL, and yours truly, as usual, talks rubbish.