For all of his dubious personality traits, John Kosmina certainly wasn't afraid of throwing a surprise in the team sheet. In what was a discouraging final season as coach of Sydney FC, he gave significant game time to Chris Payne, Matt Jurman, Anthony Golec, Brendan Gan, Rhyan Grant and Kofi Danning, with overwhelmingly positive results.
Although they failed to make the finals that year, at least Sydney FC fans were left with some hope; there were a group of talented younger footballers waiting in the wings to take over the reins. At this stage, many of these players were 'the future of Australian football'. Rhyan Grant was even touted as being a future Socceroos captain.
Fast forward two years and it's difficult to say the same.
After struggling in the A-League following an exodus of key players since the last season, the solution to fill the holes in their Asian Champions League squad were the loan signings of Andrew Durante and David Williams and drafting in some youth players to provide (cheap) cover. It seemed like a plausible idea at the time, indeed it's one followed by A-League clubs in previous years.
It became quickly apparent, however, that this would not be enough to compete with the best in Asia. As Sydney's Asian Champions League campaign quickly deteriorated, coach Vitezslav Lavicka continued to persist with the tried and tested team sheet, which, let's be perfectly honest, was dysfunctional at most times.
"Surely he'll try something new", I thought. "If it's not working, he's not dim enough to stick with it for the next few weeks."
But he didn't change anything.
Matchday 5 ended Sydney's hopes of progressing to the next round of the ACL. There would have been no better time than Matchday 6 to try a bunch of new players. Heck, even just starting Kofi Danning would've been a worthwhile exercise.
In my (possibly misguided) opinion, Danning is one of the best young strikers in Australia and needs to be starting regular games, or at least doing more than making a string of 86th minute cameo appearances off the bench. Pairing him with Bruno Cazarine could have been a successful exercise, or at least, a chance for him to show what he can do.
Kashima are a top-notch team and despite playing a positive first half against them on Tuesday night, Sydney were unlikely to come away with more than a point. Even if they had, it would hardly have mattered in the grand scheme of things. What would have been beneficial would be to have played those ex or current youth league players who had been restricted to the bench.
What was the point of playing Andrew Durante? Or Matt Jurman? Or David Williams? They're not going to be Sydney FC players next season. As Harps said during commentary of the match, starting Jurman was only giving him experience to take to Brisbane Roar for next season.
Why start Stuart Musialik or Scott Jamieson? We know what they're capable of. No disrespect to the pair, their positions in the team are probably guaranteed given the current squad, it's just that playing a youth player or two (or three or four...) would have provided the coaching staff and fans alike with a good idea of where they stand for next season.
Now the ACL is over for Sydney and we still don't know much about Joel Chianese, Luke Austin, Blake Powell, Jared Lum, Nathan Sherlock etc.
Suddenly, Sydney FC are left in a rather compromising position. Last season's squad was insufficient to compete in the A-League and the only seriously exciting signing they've made for next season sees a return to the Sky Blues by Karol Kisel. Already rumours are circulating that Stephan Keller will be leaving the club in the off season (thanks for that one Harps), which leaves two central defenders: Michael Beauchamp (good) and Sebastian Ryall (not so good but marginally less "not so good" as a right back). Meanwhile, youth defenders Nathan Sherlock and Luke Austin failed to gain a start for Sydney during the ACL, despite having fantastic seasons in the youth team.
The last time I saw Sydney's youth team was when they defeated Newcastle Jets youth 3-0 back in January. Even then I was unable to offer an explanation as to why none of them could break into the senior team. As the months have gone by, it's become even more inexplicable.
In the short term, the state of the team is looking rocky for the beginning of next season.
More importantly, in the long term not using young players when the opportunity arises is resulting in losing promising young talent to other A-League clubs, or overseas teams. According to the Herald, Danning and Gan are out the door. But if this policy continues, I have a feeling it won't be just them...
