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Old hands won't win new fans
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Enlarge textBrisbane Roar should take a gamble when appointing a successor to Frank Farina.
Can Ange Postecoglou break out of the 'old soccer' mould if he takes the coaching job at the Roar? [GETTY]
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This football writer doesn't wish to put the mozz on John Kosmina's chances of taking over from Frank Farina at Brisbane Roar, a scenario suggested as a distinct possibility in the papers, but there are a couple of points of discussion that arise from it, even if, as expected and reported today by SBS, Ange Postecoglou signs on the dotted line as the struggling Queensland outfit's third coach in five seasons.
When Kosmina left Sydney FC in acrimonious circumstances and made such a hue and cry about how great it was to be back spending time with his family it wasn't difficult to feel genuine compassion for him. Though he was a divisive character and mostly unloved by the fans, Kossie was first and foremost a human being. He'd been put through the wringer and spat out.
Like me, you probably thought he'd turn his hand to something new, something less stressful. Like carpentry. Or gardening.
But no. Like a moth to a flame, Kosmina has shown with his comments that he'd consider the Brisbane job that he's quite prepared to keep coming back for more punishment.
I had started to even abide him as a commentator for Fox Sports, the provisional employer of his rival Postecoglou, despite the apparent hypocrisy of his having a job with the A-League's official broadcaster.
(You will undoubtedly remember Kossie's ill-tempered and bewildering spray when he defamed sections of the Australian football media as an "asylum" and some cross remarks made to Simon Hill in a post-match presser after the-then Sydney coach had a public "dust up" with Wellington Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert. If so nutty, why join them?)
Kosmina is, if nothing else, a football man. He had a great domestic and representative career as a player. He loves the game. He has knowledge. He has opinions and just as much as right as anyone else to express them.
But why, when Brisbane is making noises about trying to correct a perceived image of the club being ill-disciplined, would they consider plumping for a guy who is a byword for drama? Take a dart and throw it. You'll hit something. Stoushes with Kevin Muscat and Danny Allsopp. Verbal spats with Frank Farina and Ricki Herbert. Sideline bans. Those memorable media blow-ups.
If Brisbane wants more column inches, they couldn't ask for a better candidate than Kosmina. But right now I'm guessing they want less publicity and more stability.
Hence, so we are informed, the choice of A-League cleanskin Postecoglou. Someone to restore the gloss of the "brand". Someone to get Brisbane playing the attractive end-to-end football that is going to draw punters who have hitherto shied away from coming to Suncorp rolling through the turnstiles.
Kosmina didn't get Adelaide or Sydney playing what I consider attractive football, too frequently promoting a kick-up-the-guts-and-pray-for-the-best approach, so even if he got the job I don't expect he'd manage to change his record with Brisbane. Credit to the guy, though: he got Adelaide to the Grand Final, something Farina never managed to do while he was employed all those years in Queensland.
And that's perhaps what still makes Kosmina, despite his flaws, such a tantalising proposition to so many Australian football clubs. To win ugly is still to win. If not hired by Brisbane, he will come back with another club.
As for Postecoglou, his candidacy is just as underwhelming.
Much is made of his two NSL titles with South Melbourne in the late 1990s but more recently he failed spectacularly with the Young Socceroos and barely lasted more than six months with a lower-division Greek club called Panachaiki.
Like Kosmina, the guy most assuredly knows football, which is why Fox employ him to comment, but he's offering nothing new. His name is old soccer. Brisbane, in my opinion, would have been better off emulating the example of Sydney FC, who took a bold leap in hiring a relatively unknown but pedigreed Czech coach, Vitezslav Lavicka, and showing Kosmina the door.
In just under a dozen games in charge, Lavicka has the Sky Blues playing a brand of football fans of Sydney never thought they'd see.
Brisbane, by contrast, is going backwards at a rate of knots. I can't see Postecoglou turning them around any time soon.
:: For more Fink musings on the big issues in football, check out Half-time Orange on The World Game.
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Comments (24)
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01 May 2011 0:54 AEST
From: brisbane
haha so wrong
boy were you wrong on this one fink.
18 Mar 2011 1:50 AEST
From: al
kosmina
Kosmina was without doubt the most successful coach in the A-League's brief history prior to walking away with a year of his contract still remaining. And even then he jumped before he was pushed.The caretaker coach Vidmar summed up the ignorance of many Australians by suggesting that nobody in the land had ever seen a Champions League match before.I had Champions League tickets in 2008, but i didn't go. I missed the final and I wonder if I will ever get to see them playing a final.
17 Oct 2009 11:22 AEST
From: Brisbane
NSL
Further to my comment about Steven's view on the NSL I had a look at the teams involved in it's last year 03/04 and surprise,surprise, I found at least 17 who are still playing in A-League today. p.s. Wasn't looking too hard either.
17 Oct 2009 7:43 AEST
From: Brisbane
the NSL
Steven from Sydney has it all worked out. "the NSL was shit". It is this type of thinking that is holding back football's growth in this country. I have been watching "national league football" since it's inception in '77 and even got involved between '78 and '81. There was nothing wrong with the NSL on the field, it was actually the thing that began the revolution for young Aussies to take up the game and graduate from there to "faraway places". One may ask why then did I only stay 3 years and I would answer that more important work was needing done at an administrative level for there the code was still immersed in a morass of ethnic and egotistical power struggles. After another 3 years of beating against a brick wall enough was enough. The people running the game knew next to nothing about the game itself and continued to apply the brakes as they fought their internal feuds.This latest episode with the Roar has simply shown that nothing has really changed. Observers can go on about players,teams ,coaches and argue till the cows come home but the FFA, if it is to be successful, must rid the code of this incompetence at top club level. If we are to go the way of private owners or investors then these people must be given some official help to ensure their money is being used in a manner not detrimental to the code's image. Success will only be achieved by strict supervision of the goings-on BEHIND the scenes.
15 Oct 2009 19:17 AEST
From: Sydney
Postecoglou appointment is a ticking timebomb
I've been reading these comments and can't believe the people who agree with Postecoglou's appointment .... This is a guy who couldn't even get our young Australian team to beat bloody Laos !!! The guy is a fraud and he will fail miserably within 2 seasons. Fact is he failed in Greece okay .. otherwise he would still be there or at a bigger club. The guy one two championships with some of the most talented players in the old NSL. Big DEAL .. The NSL was shit and had nothing compared to the top teams of today's A-League. What Brisbane need is an appointment like Sydney FC. Someone said that above and I couldn't agree more. Look at our national setup all are now dutch and are finally succeeding. Haha can you imagine if Farina (a former Australian NSL coach) was still the coach of the Socceroos .. we would have failed to get to the world cup and would now be going backwards as our golden generation start to age. The Dutch have brought so much to our game in Australia and I am so very thankful for that. Melbourne Heart have made an astute introduction with their coach and will play a good brand of football. Brisbane on the other hand have just cost themselves any chance of winning a title or even finishing in the top four for the next two years. Craig Foster is dead right that Postecoglou belongs on the scrap heap and that's where the soccer dinosaur should stay !
15 Oct 2009 15:00 AEST
From: Mildura
Is afshin ghotbi available?
Jesse How are Iran going in the WCQ? Is afshin ghotbi available anytime soon? Be interesting to see an Asian region coach in the HAL and would provide a point of difference in terms of marketing etc as well I would imagine Thoughts/Comments on his 'fit' with the Roar?
15 Oct 2009 13:37 AEST
From: Adelaide
Sydney
Come on Jesse. I think you're exagerating just a touch when you say that Sydney is playing an attractive brand of football since they hired an overseas coach. They've really only played two "attractive" games so far this season, the second being against Melbourne last week. Previous to that they played some boring stuff. Have you forgotten Brank Culina's comment after they played Newcastle? I agree with Branko. Too much is made of overseas coaches. South Melbourne played attractive football under Postecoglou and won two NSL titles.
15 Oct 2009 12:58 AEST
From: sydney
agreed
No personal disrespect to the names put forwards as new roar coach options, but, surely someone other than a sacked A-League coach could be found in the world who is in the roar's price range?!
15 Oct 2009 10:46 AEST
From: Brisbane
Injustice
Hey finky I'm Surprised and to tell you the truth, pleased that the name Arnold hasn't been thrown in the ring. I thinks frank has stepped over the line but if anything he was one of the best things at the club. He took us from gutter trash to finals contenders. The brisbane board is the problem as they have no idea how to market their brand and make the club into a regional powerhouse on and off the field. The best thing the board can do is leave vidosic in control until they find a good replacement for farina. Get someone like lavitska and stuff all that anti foreign coaching crap. The best Aussie coaches are all taken. The Roar need a marketing lift and a foreign coach would do just that. Go the roar and best of luck to Frank Farina!
15 Oct 2009 10:23 AEST
From: London
FFA should educate our Australian coaches by sending them overseas.
The FFA should be actively seeking to create networks and partnerships overseas as an extra resource to add to the education of our professionally qualified coaches to the Australasian standard. In the off-season A-League coaches, with help from the FFA should be sent overseas to continue their education on the latest techniques, tactical approaches and development of our game. Ange would be a great appointment for the Roar, which at the moment is an old boys Scottish retirement club and needs change. Back to back championships in the old NSL, a successful stint in Greece and contributing to the development of the next batch of bright young Australian footballers is no mean feet. I say out with the old and in with the new mixed in with some overseas training and our game will continue to go from strength to strength.
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The Finktank is more of what you've come to expect from Jesse Fink, The World Game's enfant terrible, but with a bent on the big issues in sport. No sport, no personality, no subject, is off limits.
Jesse Fink Jesse Fink is one of Australia's most popular football writers and sports columnists. He is the author of the book 15 Days in June: How Australia Became a Football Nation (Hardie Grant, $29.95) and writes twice a week as "Half-Time Orange" for The World Game and weekly for ESPN Star Sports in Singapore. He lives in Sydney.
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