One-on-one with John Aloisi: “I want to coach again”

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Socceroos legend John Aloisi has declared he wants to coach again “sooner rather than later”, hoping to get that opportunity locally in the A-League or overseas in the future.

Aloisi, who currently works as a pundit for Optus Sport, last coached the Brisbane Roar to two top-four finishes in the A-League, in his first two seasons at the club.

The 45-year-old would eventually leave his post in late 2018, during his fourth season as manager at the club.

In a wide-ranging chat with Soccerscene, the man who scored that famous penalty against Uruguay touches on the current status of youth development in Australian football, the need for a national second division, his future ambitions in coaching, the quality of local coaches, his playing career and the upcoming Women’s World Cup.

First of all John, the current state of affairs due to COVID-19 has seen a lot more youngsters get playing time in the A-League. Which young players have particularly stood out for you and how significant is it for youth development in this country for these players to get valuable minutes? 

John Aloisi: Yeah I think it’s very important for the players to get minutes. If you go around the world, the best leagues do have players at an early age playing a lot of games of football. You can do all the training in the world, but if you don’t play games you’re not going to improve as a footballer.

Pretty much every team in the A-League has had young players that are really standing out. It’s good to see the young Australian strikers at the top of the scoring charts, you’ve got Kuol at Central Coast Mariners, Wenzel-Halls at Brisbane Roar and D’Agostino at Perth all up there.

It’s a great opportunity for all the young players at the moment, because you’ve got the Olympic Games just around the corner. I think it’s exciting for Graham Arnold and for the young boys, if they do well they could be on the plane to Tokyo.

You played senior matches as a 15-16-year-old at Adelaide City at the start of your career. Personally, how vital were those games in your development as a player?

John Aloisi: I only really played one NSL game, but I played a lot of the cup games and whatever else, but at the time it was crucial. But look, you had to be good enough or else you didn’t play. Adelaide City didn’t just throw in young players for the sake of it, they had a very experienced squad. For me to play with the experienced players around me, I remember just in the starting 11, you had Milan Ivanovic, Alex Tobin, there were internationals, Tony Vidmar was there, Joe Mullen, Ernie Tapai and so on. I learnt a lot off them, not only in games but also in training, so I was fortunate in that way.

When I then went to Europe, I started playing at 17 in the first team for Royal Antwerp, so it was really valuable to get those minutes at that age to improve as a footballer.

Another thing that will aid youth development is a national second tier. There’s been a lot of talk recently about the right model for it in Australia; do you support the introduction of a full, home and away, national second division with 12-16 teams?

John Aloisi: Yeah, I do. I think if they can get that formula right in terms of the financials, that would definitely improve the younger players. They will get more opportunities then and there will be a different pathway for a lot of them. At the moment, it’s still quite tough for a lot of these young talented players to come up into an A-League side. If you have more teams, it will definitely help. You will also make it exciting with promotion and relegation battles and I think it will only be beneficial.

So, I do support a national second division and I believe in the future there will be one, it’s just the matter of how they go about getting one and how it works financially.

Moving on a bit from that, Aussie coaches have also been given more of a chance recently in the A-League. How do you see the current quality of Australian coaches and what type of differences have you noticed since you began coaching Melbourne Heart nine years ago?

John Aloisi: The quality of the coaches has been there for a long period. I think what’s changed and helped the quality is the likes of Ange Postecoglou and Graham Arnold, because they set a standard. From there, the standard keeps on going up and coaches keep on improving. A lot of Australian coaches have worked under them or with them, asked them questions and so forth, but also when you coach against them you learn a lot.

It’s a good thing to see more of these Australian coaches coming through.

Aloisi was appointed manager of Melbourne Heart in 2012.

You have obviously had a couple of senior coaching positions in your time, like I said with the then Melbourne Heart and also the Brisbane Roar. Do you have any further ambitions to coach again in the A-League or overseas in the future?

John Aloisi: Yeah I definitely do, I want to coach again. I hope its sooner rather than later, but it has to be the right job and right environment. Hopefully that will happen here in Australia.

In the future I would love to go back overseas and coach, I was there as a player, but who knows what the future holds. But coaching is definitely still on my radar and hopefully I can get that opportunity again soon.

Touching on that playing career overseas, you played in top leagues around the world including La Liga, the Premier League and Serie A. What can you tell me in regards to the difference in football cultures in these three countries based on your experiences there?

John Aloisi: It was very different when I was there. The Serie A was very defence minded, especially the lower teams, but it’s changed quite a bit now in terms of the way they like to play their football. It’s a lot more open and attacking, but back then the only thing that mattered were results. It didn’t matter how you won; the defence was key. It wasn’t always that great to play there as a striker, because we didn’t have many chances in a game.

England was a lot more open. The supporters there, if you tried, ran and fought, they would applaud your efforts. I enjoyed playing in England, it was a great atmosphere at the games and as a striker you got more opportunities to score goals than probably all of the three big leagues I played in.

The one that was a combination of both (Italy and England) cultures was probably the Spanish league. I just really enjoyed the style of football, the culture and the way they thought about football.

The three countries were all different, but football was number one, so it was great to be in countries where football means everything to them.

You obviously had a long successful career as a player, what would you say is the best moment you had in your playing career?

John Aloisi: The highlight for me was playing at the World Cup for the Socceroos. It was a dream as a kid, we hadn’t qualified for so many years. Watching the World Cups when I was growing up, was always without Australia there. It was exciting to play at a World Cup, but it was also just the whole build up…it was amazing when we finally got there. It was definitely a highlight for me and I’m pretty sure for all the players that played in that World Cup in 2006.

I think also playing in the Spanish Cup final for Osasuna, it was my last game for the club. To play in the Copa Del Rey final, the only time in Osasuna’s 100-year history to make a major final, was also a massive highlight.

They are probably two of things that stand out the most.

The Socceroos celebrate a goal at the 2006 World Cup.

Lastly John, looking ahead we have the Women’s World Cup here in 2023 and it could be a real game changer for Australian football. How important is it to capitalise on this event, something the game didn’t really execute with the 2015 Asian Cup?

John Aloisi: It’s massive. First of all, I believe the Matildas can win it. We have a great generation of talented women players, so hopefully we can win the World Cup and that will really boost the game on many levels.

But, it’s also about getting the infrastructure right for the Women’s World Cup, which will end up helping us in the future in terms of football at all levels. I’m talking about training facilities, purpose-built stadiums for football and that’s when it will be a lot easier to have a national second division and those type of things. When you have the infrastructure right, you can produce better players. That’s what we want to do, produce world-class players, both women and men.

It’s important to get the government backing us, because if they do that, we will get the facilities right.

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The A-Leagues Final Series important status also a secret hinderance

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The Isuzu A-League finals series is a huge event in the footballing calendar, though its contribution to stagnant attendance numbers in the league is something to be said.

If the 2025/26 finals series follows similar patterns to those before it, it will gather huge traction and strong ticket sales.

It is the largest event for the domestic league, bringing in massive amounts of viewership through media and gate receipts.

Finals series from years past have shown this, with the 2024/25 final, a Melbourne derby, being sold out within 48 hours and gathering significant viewership online.

The idea of a finals series lies within the Australian sporting ethos; the other sporting codes have had this tradition for most of their existence, especially in recent history.

Football, though, is different from the rest of the sporting codes in Australia, unique even. This has historically contributed to its inability to integrate into the same supported status as other codes.

Many in the Australian footballing community, supporter groups, players, coaches, and even the new Director of Football Australia, have voiced concerns over fan numbers in the league competition.

It wouldn’t be absurd to say that maybe, though profitable now, the finals series is actually taking away from the league itself.

Consider the media image: the league winner is called the “minor premiership,” and ticket sales and viewership figures reveal a huge disparity between the two parts of the A-League.

It must be said that an alternative that could work in unison with the league and possibly increase viewership of the league itself would be a great advantage.

It would allow the league to gain more jeopardy and drama, which could build greater interest in attending league games.

One alternative is already here.

No other sporting code in Australia has both a league competition and a cup competition. Football in Australia does.

The Hahn’s Australia Cup is our equivalent to the FA Cup in England or the Copa del Rey in Spain.

These are competitions that offer a finals option in a different competition entirely. They generate huge traction while never diminishing the importance of the league and, therefore, its popularity.

These cup competitions cannot be discussed without acknowledging some obvious differences.

They don’t face the same popularity issues that football does in Australia. It’s obvious the Hahn’s Australia Cup doesn’t yet gain the traction that the finals series does.

However, for a healthy footballing environment with increasing fan numbers, it should.

The idea of elevating the Hahn’s Australia Cup and scaling back the finals series is a complex question, one that is treated like a “no-go zone” by many in the Australian footballing community, and that is understandable.

Though big changes like this might, in the end, be credible options for the future of the sport in this country.

Larger plans must be set in motion, strategies that can be worked towards and refined along the way. It is the process by which all large organisations, business models and even national governments build their strategies.

Such a shift will be scrutinised and pushed back against.

Though with further fine-tuning and smart investment in development, not to mention the introduction of promotion and relegation and the possibility of changing the footballing calendar.

It could replicate the success that these two-competition models already enjoy in other leagues.

The added importance that the premiership would gain, the reality that every game matters, could alongside other strategies entice fans to more games, increase viewership and ticket sales, and create more dedicated fan bases. It works in other nations, very well in fact.

The possibility of two teams lifting a trophy, rather than one single event defining it all, sounds like a strategy that could deliver more engagement over longer periods of time.

Maybe Australian football doesn’t need to answer this question just yet. It is complex, difficult and it would require a great deal of work, including significant investment into the game, which is another issue entirely.

Yet as low attendance numbers persist in the A-League, even alongside increased media viewership, something needs to change for football in Australia.

The rise in popularity of this game and its dedicated community deserves bold ideas and forward thinking.

Ideas like this could eventually begin to change the landscape of the beautiful game in Australia for the better.

Football NSW Targets Female Coaching Gap with Twin Programs

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Image Credit: Football NSW

Football NSW has announced two new initiatives targeting the development of female coaches and coach education tutors, backed by federal and state government funding, as the governing body moves to address the longstanding structural absence of women across all levels of coaching in the sport.

The Future Female Coaches Mentoring Program, funded through the NSW Office of Sport’s Empower Her program, will select six female coaches holding a minimum AFC B Diploma for a structured mentoring program beginning mid-year. Participants will be paired with experienced mentors and receive three in-person visits including real-time observation and feedback, alongside regular online development sessions throughout the season.

Separately, Football NSW has opened expressions of interest for its 2026/27 Female Coach Education Tutor (CET) Program, supported by the Australian Federal Government’s Play Our Way investment, targeting C Diploma holders who want to move into coach education delivery.

Together, the programs address two distinct but connected gaps in the women’s football coaching pipeline- the progression from active coach to elite-level practitioner, and the transition from practitioner to the tutors who shape how coaching is taught.

The Pipeline Problem

The structural underrepresentation of women in football coaching isn’t a new observation. It is a documented and persistent feature of the game at every level, from community clubs to national team environments. Female coaches remain a minority in pathway competitions, and female coach education tutors are even more so.

One current tutor in the program described the environment she encountered when she came through the system. “My experience coming through as a coach, there was no females on the courses as participants and there was no females running the courses either,” she said. “That kind of inspires me to be someone that can hopefully make other females feel comfortable and confident to want to become coaches.”

“It is really important to have female role models because it shows that there is an opportunity or pathway for females,” said one program participant. “Traditionally it has been a male-dominated area and to know that yes, you can do it as a passion or a side thing, or you can actually make a career of it if you want.”

Removing barriers at the point of entry

The mentoring program’s design reflects an understanding that formal accreditation alone is insufficient to retain and develop female coaches in high-performance environments. Access to experienced mentors, observation in live coaching contexts and ongoing reflective practice address the informal development gaps that credentials cannot fill.

“Learning happens through coaching in real environments, and we recognise our role in providing both stretch and support to high-potential coaches,” said Edward Ferguson, Football NSW Head of Football Development. “This program offers tailored mentoring that complements formal coach education and enhances effectiveness in practice.”

Hayley Todd, Football NSW Head of Womens and Schools Football, framed the initiative in terms of long-term system building rather than individual development. “Creating sustainable pathways for female coaches is a key priority,” she said. “This program supports their development while also providing valuable insight into what is required to progress from state competitions into national and international environments.”

The barriers the programs are designed to remove are clear. The cost of accreditation, lack of access to mentoring networks, the absence of welcoming environments in coaching courses and the scarcity of female role models at senior levels all compound one another in ways that make progression difficult regardless of ability or commitment.

“You want to try and remove as many barriers as possible,” said one tutor involved in the program. “If you can start to remove those barriers, you actually get to engage with the females more consistently and build their confidence and competence in that space.”

A system investing in itself

The timing of both announcements sits within a broader national moment for women’s football. The AFC Women’s Asian Cup, currently underway in Australia, has delivered record crowds and sustained visibility for the female game at the elite level. The programs announced this week operate at the other end of the pipeline – building the coaching infrastructure that will determine whether the players inspired by that visibility have qualified, experienced and representative coaches to develop them.

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