FFA Technical Director Han Berger says football coaching in Australia is undergoing a “fundamental" change, following the 2011 national coaching seminar, which took place in Canberra last week.
FFA Technical Director Han Berger says football coaching in Australia is undergoing a “fundamental" change, following the 2011 national coaching seminar, which took place in Canberra last week.
The annual seminar brings together the nation-s best and brightest in football coaching, including national team coaching staff, state technical directors, institute coaches, and skill trainers, continuing the education of those responsible for the next generation of Australian footballers.
“We have the national curriculum but we have been taking all that to the next level,” Berger says.
“We should be [setting] the best practice and the benchmark for coaching in Australia, so the seminar covered several topics, like skill acquisition, game training, and working with players in all different age groups.
“Football conditioning was a big topic, working with under-13s in skill acquisition, the 1-4-3-3 playing system that we use in all the different development age groups, coach education. The national curriculum is about a fundamental transformation and the seminar was aiming to get everyone on the same page.”
Berger, who oversaw the seminar as head of the FFA technical staff, says that although raising the standards of Australian coaching to match the world-s best is a long-term project, the positive effects can already been seen in the young players and coaches coming through the ranks.
“It is a long-term process; you should speak in terms of five years to decades - but it-s moving, because the week before it was linked to the State Institute Challenge, the yearly tournament of the best under-16 players in Australia - you really see a change there. A change in playing style and the way coaches and players approach the game.
“The funny thing was that the head of the referees came up to me and said, ‘The referees are saying because of the change of play style we also have to adjust'. Normally the referees would take a position around the centre circle because every restart was a long kick, but they-re not doing that any more the referees said, 'They-re playing out of the back, so our position is not good and we have to readjust'.
“It-s things like that that really give you the positive energy and confirmation that things are changing.”
The so-called “Dutch system” still has its critics but Berger says the curriculum is about changing the game in Australia to bring our coaching in line with the best in the world.
“The traditional Australian style is a very physical and direct style of play but our aim is to become a world leader of the world game. And at the world-s top level, the game is not like that. It-s a possession-based, combination style where special players - what we call match-winning players, those with extremely technical qualities - they make the difference.
“The transformation is to gradually develop football and change the direction into that way, so that means a different approach to coaching and a different way of playing and teaching the game.
“We-re not yet there but there is a clear improvement. One of the things that shows that is the AFC, that-s 46 countries, have approved our coach education curriculum - and only Japan and Australia are allowed to do that, because of the quality of our new courses. So that is very encouraging and we-ve very proud of that.
“It-s a long-term process and this is just the start, it-s just coming to life. There-s still a long way to go.”