Frank Farina Sacked

I have been in a long running debate with friends today about the demise of Frank Farina as Australia’s soccer coach.  I am a very big supporter of Australian soccer and have watched the serial blunders that have plagued our World Cup efforts since 1974 (not that I remember the 78 debacle!).

My position, if I can be so bold to state, is that the FFA should have sacked Farina 12 months ago and that to do so yesterday a mere 6 months from qualifying is a disaster.  Having said that, I don’t believe Australia would have qualified in the end anyway if our very sorry performance at the Confederations Cup was any indicator.

I think Frank Farina should be remembered for bringing the game forward in this country and for being the first Australian coach to understand the plight of our overseas players.  By using London as a base and a venue for International Friendlies, I think that legacy will be fondly remembered.  Unfortunately whilst he was a good people manager and motivator, he was not a great technical coach and the fact that the team seems to have lost the plot in defence is the reason why he was not the man for the job and with Frank at the helm, we were never going to win qualification in a one off match in South America.

Instead, we will have a change.  A change that has been incredibly badly managed and whilst I believe it is warranted, does not absolve the FFA from blame.  Lowy et al should have bitten the bullet when the results against NZ and other lesser games did not go as planned.  Poor results against Jamaica and South Africa 12 months or so ago should have been the writing on the wall.

We, as a soccer nation, were not embarrassed in attack and showed great glimpses of skill and talent in front of goal and we were harshly judged by referees.  But we should have overcome that relatively minor adversity if the defence could hold firm.  Instead, the defence was embarrassingly poor and amateurish.

A change was required, but only history will judge if the change has a positive or negative impact on qualification for Germany 2006.  My view is that nobody should be buying tickets to Germany yet.