Australian Football is Lazy !

The recent success of Noa Skoko with Hajduk Split and the Croatian National youth team has re-confirmed an important point to me.

In Australia, we do not have an issue producing top talents worthy of playing at the top level of world football.

The problem lies with Australian selectors in top jobs recognising what top talents are and those making decision in the game investing in talent identification.

Those in the top positions of Australian football appear to be too lazy in searching for the top talents. They are relying on elite Academies to do all of their work and then send through a list of names that they then filter, profile and select for the young Australian teams.

In the context of world football, this is amateur hour. This is lazy and inept and it’s no wonder that we are continuing to fall behind the rest of the world.

Geelong boy Noa Skoko, son of former Socceroo Josip, is the perfect example.

For me, Noa is the best 2006 born player in Australia. This was proven in the National Championships when he refused to represent Victoria Metro and instead decided to play with the majority of his friends from North Geelong Warriors for Victoria Country. This team, from a regional centre with 5 players born in 2007, made it to final of the National Championships narrowly losing to Victoria Metro.

Noa was exceptional in this tournament. He had opportunities to join A-League academies, but decided to stay at home in Geelong and remain playing with North Geelong Warriors. Like me, Noa’s family lived in Geelong, which is about an hour from Melbourne.

North Geelong are no easy beats. The “Warriors” are playing in the top Victorian NPL tier 1. Their juniors were ranked 3rd last year in Victoria in overall points accumulated in the Victorian NPL, behind Melbourne Victory and in front of Melbourne City. North Geelong is currently ranked first in every age group across Victorian West division, ahead of Western United.

When the time came to select the U/17 Australian Team, Noa was overlooked by the Australian selectors. This is even after the fact he was playing first team senior soccer for North Geelong. In my view, an inconceivable error.

Josip, his father and former Socceroo great, simply packed up the family and headed for Croatia. Within 3 weeks, Noa was selected for the Croatian U/17 National Team – and we all know the quality of players coming through this system - arguably the best and most concentrated talent pool in the world.. Now playing for the Hajduk Split U/19 team - who beat Manchester City in the Champions League – he is a player who is probably now lost to Australia.

This is only one example of Australian selectors missing great talent who aren’t playing in the usual shop window. Christian Valpato who is now playing at AS Roma and Italy U/20’s. He wasn’t selected to play in the A-League academies and then then he was overlooked by the Australian team. It is those who are selecting the talent and setting up the system that are flawed, not the talent. Those selecting are taking the lazy and outdated option of just outsourcing talent identification to a handful of clubs and then to cherry pick some names.

I started volunteering at North Geelong over a decade ago, alongside Josip Skoko. We both. know what it takes to produce decent footballers.

During my four years as a player at Ajax Amsterdam, I admired the work the club did with its juniors. So much so that I became obsessed by youth development. Then having had the privilege of working with Louis Van Gaal, Jochim Low, Ronald Koeman and within the Croatian National Team, my obsession grew into creating winning

cultures and instilling a deep work ethic into kids that valued hard work. Josip shared such a philosophy and had his own experiences of Champions League Football and captaining teams in Europe.

The Warriors are not the only club producing talented players outside of the “main street”. We are regularly beating A-League Academies and have secured promotion into NPL1 by focussing on our young players rather than paying inflated salaries to has-beens. ?

Not once though have the selectors or scouts even bothered to pick up their phones to give us a call. Not an email, not a message, nothing.

This is in stark contrast to our experience within Croatian Football. The Croatian Delegation knows about Geelong. Last month, the absolute elite within the Croatian Football Federation – head coach Zlatko Dalic, Director of Football Stipe Pletikosa and Australian-born former international Josip Simunic, came down to Australia to connect with the Australian soccer family.

They used their prize money from the World Cup to reinvest in talent identification.

Five players from the North Geelong Warriors have now been invited by this esteemed delegation to travel to Zagreb in the next term school holidays.

Croatia, a nation who have been 2nd and 3rd in the world in the last two world cups, has taken an interest in players out of Geelong whilst the Australians are yet to send a text to see if there are any talented players down in country Victoria.

Whilst the Croatians are scouting the world to find the next Josip Simunic, Luka Modric or Noa Skoko, we are still waiting for as much as a text message from Football Australia.