(Transcript from World News Australia Radio)
By the end of next year, Australia will have its first football graduates.
With the A-League grand final over, the annual migration of Australia's best footballers overseas begins.
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But by the end of next year, there could be a different kind of Australian football talent leaving.
Students will have graduated from what's claimed to be the Southern Hemisphere's only football degree, being offered by Edith Cowan University in Western Australia.
The degree from Edith Cowan University in Western Australia paves the way for graduates to become coaches, player analysts or sports teachers.
It's football practice, but it's not the players who are honing their skills.
University student Matthew Pasquale is practising how to be a soccer coach and using his fellow students as guinea pigs.
"What we're going to be focusing on today is first touch, so what we're going to do is start off with a quite simple drill so the oranges, I'm going to get you to line up on the outside of the square. You can see the red cones lined up here."
The 18-year-old is studying a sports science degree - specializing in football.
It's a mix of lectures and practical work including the coaching clinics.
They also analyse player movement, tactics on the football pitch, human anatomy and how to motivate and teach young and old players.
The students also have a guest lecturers from the football world.
Former Socceroo and West Ham player Chris Coyne, now the coach of state league side Bayswater City, is passing on his tips for coaching children.
"Make sure the kids do get a lot of touches on the ball. I think that's imporant even in adult football. The more touches players have on the ball, it becomes a friend. You play table tennis for long enough you're going to get better at it, aren't you? So if you can keep the ball at their feet, obviously their basic skills are going to improve a hell of a lot more."
The degree course is headed by Dr Fardi Ma'ayah.
"We realised there is a need for sports science and football and if you go to Europe, European countries, there are courses in these universities and in Australia we didn't have this in existence. So what happened in Australia is you have generic sports science courses, and these courses are in many universities in Australia, but we decided to still offer that course, and we have very successful course in sports science, but we thought we'd also specialise in sports science and football and we started last year with sports science and football and it has been a great success."
Chris Coyne says he wished the degree was around when he was a player.
"Probably something that would have appealed to me. I mean I got a decent education and went to a good private school and that and obviously the only thing I knew at the time was football so if I had been given the opportunity to do this as well as play the game I think I would have taken that opportunity."
Two students who have taken that opportunity are Manuel Muessener from Germany and Marcel Suwarno from Indonesia.
Manuel Muessener says the coaching tactics are familiar.
"Most of the coaches are similar to the ones in Germany because I think every country really changed little bit their style of coaching when they coach children, because I can remember from back then when I was a kid and how all the coaches, a lot of them, just didn't know what to do and how they're going to explain it to us and just make examples and stuff like that. And now it's really interactive and you can just ask questions or I can ask questions even more to get it right so, yeah, I really like it."
Marcel Suwarno has an ambitious goal.
"I always have the dream of coaching Manchester United, but you always have to start from the bottom so I guess if I have a job here I'd stay here and start coaching."
The course uses moden techniques like analysing how much oxygen players need at certain levels of physical exertion.
Matches and filmed, and every move a player makes are recorded on a computer program.
It means coaches and player analysts can sit down with a player after a match and show them exactly what they're doing and where they need to improve.
Dr Ma'yaah hopes the university's specialist sports science degree will produce a new breed of football professionals.
"Education is very important and I think if they improve their education, it will give them advantage so if you have two people with the same expertise at playing and the same coaching qualification, but then you have an edge of having a degree in science - it does help you to open doors, especially with the high tech and the technology and all the research now in football."
The first students are due to graduate from the course next year.
