The A-League coaching caper

Recycling coaches has become a thing of the past in the A-League. Get sacked, be 'mutually terminated' or resign from your head coaching job these days and you can forget about returning to that level - unless you're one of a very select few.

A-League

Former North Queensland Fury coach Franz Straka was a popular figure in the A-League (AAP) Source: CTK

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Coaches keeping their careers alive by moving from club to club, sometimes with gaps in-between, used to be much more common. Here are a few examples: John Kosmina went from Adelaide United to Sydney FC and back to Adelaide, Ian Ferguson from North Queensland Fury to Perth Glory, Branko Culina from Sydney FC to Newcastle Jets, Frank Farina from Brisbane Roar to Sydney FC and Mike Mulvey from Gold Coast United, where he was caretaker coach as the club entered its death throes, to Brisbane Roar. Gary van Egmond had two stints at Newcastle.

But it is a much less common practice now. The only coaches in recent history who departed the A-League and have managed to get back in are Ernie Merrick, Graham Arnold and John van't Schip - and they are all exceptional cases.

Merrick coached Melbourne Victory for the first six seasons of the A-League and was responsible for establishing the club's trademark style of exciting, attacking play, winning two championships in the process.

He ended up being sacked, as almost all coaches are eventually, but he had long since proven himself and a return to the A-League was always likely.

After two years out of the competition, during which time he coached the Hong Kong national team, Merrick returned at Wellington Phoenix, where he is now in his second season in charge and has made the team highly competitive.

Arnold built the Central Coast Mariners team that won the 2012-2013 championship. He left early the following season to accept a job coaching Vegalta Sendai in the J.League, but that partnership turned sour and he became available to coach in the A-League again.

Multiple clubs, including Sydney FC and Newcastle, were interested in Arnold's services and Sydney won out. After a mid-season slump that was largely due to a horror injury toll, Sydney FC re-tooled during the January transfer window and is on the boil again.

Van't Schip was the original Melbourne Heart coach, but he announced during the club's second season that he would be leaving at the end of it, for personal reasons. The former Netherlands international steered the club to the finals before departing.

When John Aloisi was sacked as Heart coach midway through the 2013-2014 season and the club desperately needed to steady the ship after a run of poor results, it again sought the services of Van't Schip.

He came on until the end of that season, but eventually extended for three more seasons with the re-branded club that is now Melbourne City.

Way out-numbering that short list of three coaches is a long list of coaches who got one shot at coaching in the A-League and haven't had a second and - in the vast majority of cases - appear unlikely to get one.

One of them - Ian Crook - found out coaching at this level wasn't for him and resigned from his job at Sydney FC. Several others came from overseas and went back after it didn't work out. Vitezslav Lavicka had success at Sydney FC and split with the club after expressing his desire to return home.

The list over the past five years includes Aurelio Vidmar (Adelaide), Lawrie McKinna (Central Coast), David Mitchell (Perth Glory), Franz Straka (North Queensland), Rini Coolen (Adelaide), Mehmet Durakovic (Melbourne Victory), Miron Bleiberg (Gold Coast), Jim Magilton (Melbourne Victory), Rado Vidosic (Brisbane Roar), Ricki Herbert (Wellington), Alistair Edwards (Perth) and John Aloisi (Melbourne Heart).

Clayton Zane was caretaker coach at Newcastle between Van Egmond leaving after his second stint and Phil Stubbins arriving. He was among the coaching staff members recently sacked by the club along with a number of players.

Instead of recycling coaches, the recent trend for clubs has been to appoint coaches who have either come through their system or been identified overseas.

Phil Moss (Central Coast), Kevin Muscat (Melbourne Victory) and Kenny Lowe (Perth) were all assistants to previous coaches at those clubs.

Josep Gombau and Frans Thijssen came from overseas to Adelaide and Brisbane respectively, although Thijssen was originally identified for the role as technical director for next season before being fast-forwarded to interim head coach when Mulvey was sacked.

Tony Popovic was an assistant at Sydney FC and Crystal Palace in England before being head-hunted to be the coach of Western Sydney Wanderers when it entered the competition in the 2012-2013 season.

This is only Popovic's third year as coach, but he has now been at his current club for longer than any other current A-League coaches have been at theirs.

Stubbins was an assistant to Vidmar when Adelaide competed very strongly in the A-League and AFC Champions League, but he was coaching in Asia when the Jets signed him.

Mulvey took Roar to the championship last season, but has now had to go to Malaysia to continue his coaching career as technical director for Sabah FA after being stunningly sacked not long into this season.

No wonder coaches like Stubbins and Moss, whose teams have struggled this season, are fighting so hard to keep their A-League careers alive.

Each has only a short history as an A-League coach and given the recent trend of non-recycling if either was to lose his job there would probably be no way back to that level.


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5 min read
Published 26 February 2015 12:30pm
Updated 26 February 2015 1:24pm
By Greg Prichard
Source: SBS

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