A-League should laugh off Babbel's self-serving blasts

One thing about football that is still a little surprising in over 20 years of covering the game is how sensitive to criticism many coaches are.

You’d think they would be immune to the bricks lobbed their way by journalists and/or pundits, but many take them very seriously.

In 2005, I wrote something about the fortunes of the South Korean national team and paid a compliment to the team’s assistant coach, a certain Pim Verbeek, after some encouraging performances.

I had no idea that it would cause problems.

The recently-arrived head coach at the time was Dick Advocaat.

Despite having bossed the Dutch national team, as well as PSV Eindhoven and Rangers (when these teams were continental forces to be reckoned with), Advocaat took issue with the article that was in no way negative towards him.

He got on well with Verbeek but still told me that I shouldn’t talk about his staff as the improvements were down to him.

The coach, often funny and jocular, was deadly serious this time.

It is understandable that people want to protect their public image but there are times when it is so blatant that it should be treated for what it is.

For Markus Babbel, being fired by Western Sydney Wanderers obviously grates and he has indulged in the time-honoured practice of talking to a friendly journalist at home to explain to his compatriots that what happened during his time overseas was not his fault.

The standard of the A-League is, he said, "to be honest, weak. The pace is slow, there are many technical mistakes. You can see a good game from time to time but that's more of an exception."

Plenty of coaches have done the same in the past - Graham Arnold did something similar when he finished a short spell in Japan with Vegalta Sendai.

What Babbel said was not meant to be a constructive criticism of the A-League, that perhaps would be of interest, but a PR exercise and an attempt to put an asterisk next to the Australian section of his CV.

Such comments are usually best taken with a pinch of salt. Some of the points Babbel made would be hard to argue with but will not have come as news to anyone in Australian football.

It has been pointed out that there is obvious irony in calling a league weak when, had it featured relegation, would have left he and the Wanderers in danger of dropping out of it.

The German’s self-serving comments should be laughed off but it is not only coaches who can be sensitive to criticism, perceived or genuine.

At one time, such remarks would never have left Germany and would have been swiftly forgotten.

Babbel blabbed to Bild but his comments were soon picked up and splashed all over the Australian media.

The same happened with Chris Sutton and his December 2018 comments regarding Tom Rogic leaving Celtic to play for Australia at the Asian Cup.

“There’s a lot of Scottish football fans thinking the Socceroos should shove their (beer) somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine,” Sutton said.

“It’s not on. It’s Mickey Mouse football. Stick to your prawns and your barbecues.”

Sutton is more intelligent than such comments suggest and is not averse to courting controversy.

He knew exactly what he was doing though probably didn’t expect that his comments would be talked about in Australia for weeks.

Nobody should care what a pundit on the other side of the world says about Australian football and given the fact that one brother played in the A-league and another lives in Sydney, it may well have been a public repeat of family ‘banter’.

Sutton’s opinion - if that was his genuine opinion - should have been ignored or simply treated with amusement.

Same with Babbel.