So over the next season or two what should be the best plan for him?

When he shows he can easily play in the A-League then he has to make the next step. For every young player you have to make your next step. And some players cannot make the next step so that’s also no problem. They can play 15 years in the A-League and that’s perfect. You have a good professional career [here].

I always talk to the players and say, “Don’t be satisfied with what you’re doing now”. The last few years we had a lot of young players at the AIS now playing in the A-League. Curtis Good, Hamill, Musti, Terry … and that’s no coincidence that they can make the step.

If we watched the Young Socceroos in 10 years time, what type of team will it look like?

If you don’t improve in the area of six-eight to 14 then you always will be behind the other countries. It’s a must if you want to make that next step. Australia at this moment, if you look at their position they are in the top 20 of the world. I think that’s a fair reflection of where we are right now.

The Olyroos, they've strugged to score goals and Olympic qualification is not assured. Your thoughts?

The ones who started a few years ago, a lot of the Olyroos were in the 2008 Young Socceroos U19 squad. They’ve also improved.

If for example you look at Matthew Jurman and I started with him and we had a tournament in Japan and we played against Argentina and I saw the problems he had with playing out from the back and I see him now, it’s a huge improvement.

And that shows also that if you work in the right way with those boys even in the older age, they can improve. But you’d like to get them in [to the development system] better and only improving them in the later stage of their development.

Mustafa Amini, a new type of player coming through and already with a European contract. What does it say about the system?

It’s an interesting question. With all the changes now with identifying players, how to look at players and what kinds of things you’re looking at and the tools you need.

I think Musti wouldn’t have had any chance say five or six years ago to get into the system because he wasn’t fast enough, too small and now we are looking at the awareness and the technical skills and if you look at Musti he has great awareness and feelings to get into positions and feeling about how to protect the ball. He has to add some things to his game to become a better player but for his age, he’s quite good.

There is a saying it’s not that important how fast you are but it’s more important if you at the right moment at the right position. Musti is playing in a number 10 position [for his club the Mariners] so he should be able to get more in front of the goals and he’s proven with the Young Socceroos that he can score goals.

It’s not just about players; talk us through some of the young Aussie coaches you’ve worked with in your time?

From what I hear from people in Newcastle Gary [Van Egmond] came back as a better coach after his time at the AIS. Of course he’d already won a championship with Newcastle so that’s a very good thing.

And Arthur [Papas] is probably one of the younger coaches who is very passionate and also he has a lot of knowledge in football. And I see he can become a very good coach. He has all the attributes to become a very good coach. The ones who work with me one of them is Ante Milicic now working at Melbourne Heart, I also rate him quite high.

What’s the next step in their coaching careers?

It depends on each individual situation. Like Arthur now he’s gone to Newcastle and will take the national youth league team and assist Gary so probably he has to be in that role in a few years and hopefully he can take his next step to become a head coach of maybe Newcastle.

Brisbane Roar, how’d they go in say the Belgian or Dutch leagues?

I think they can manage to play in those leagues. The challenge is always if you play one or two games against that kind of opponent probably you will do well. The challenge is to play a full year. That’s another story. And also the pace especially is higher. They talk many times about the speed of the game in Australia but it depends on how you quantify speed. I think of it as speed of decision, ball speed and the like.

Will you ever return to work here?

You never know in football. It’s difficult to predict. If you told me five years ago that I’d work three and a half years in Australia I couldn’t have known. When you work in world football anything can pop up.

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