Since the start of the A-League, we’ve had trouble developing strikers who can make it in European football. To show how big the issue is, let’s look at the total number of games played in at least a second-tier European league by our three most successful players in each position, for those born after 1984.

Strikers have performed the worst, with only about a third of the games compared to our next weakest group—goalkeepers. In total, Apostolos Giannou, Tomi Juric, and Kerem Bulut have played just 280 games. And yes, you read that right—Bulut, with only 52 games across multiple seasons, is our third-most experienced striker in Europe.

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The result of this dearth of talent up front is felt every time we try to break down a deep block. Yes, part of it is a lack of creativity in midfield in recent times. However, we still manage to get into dangerous areas quite a lot compared to football powerhouses.

In the Asian Cup, I looked at how many touches in the penalty area it took to score as a measure for how good we were at converting dangerous positions into goals. We were a measly 18th best in Asia, roughly half as efficient as powerhouses Japan and South Korea.

We actually do a reasonable job of converting shots into goals, since our goals scored is pretty reasonable compared to our xG. However, we have trouble getting the shots away in the first place as our forwards haven’t mastered the ability to gain a yard of space and are unable to get shots away quickly enough from awkward positions.

So what could be causing our lack of quality up front? I’ll give a couple of tentative answers.

Flaw in the national curriculum

In the national curriculum, all forms of striking the ball from shooting to crossing to passing are included in a mother category “striking the ball”. However, scoring goals is more than just striking the ball correctly, it requires specialised skills in how to create space for yourself and others and how to get a shot away quickly when you often have awkward body position and the ball is bobbling around.

It seems likely that the national curriculum underemphasised goal-scoring and has left us a little toothless in the final third. It is difficult to put all of the blame on the national curriculum however, the younger strikers that have been through the full skills acquisition phase do seem an improvement from a pretty low bar.

Mohamed Toure is playing every match when fit in Denmark and Tom Waddingham has broken records for number of goals by an u-19 striker in the A-League era. Max Caputo and Luka Jovanovic are also achieving more minutes and goals at their age than previous standout A-League strikers (Adam Taggart had the best early career).

Second, the strikers were underachieving compared to other positions before the national curriculum had a chance to make a difference, so our woes cannot be blamed on flaws in the curriculum alone. In any case, I think we do need a specialized section in our curriculum that focuses on goal scoring.

Foreigners taking too many attacking positions

We are one of four leagues in Asia that props itself up with marquees and foreign players. The other leagues that spring to mind are the Chinese Super League, the Qatar Stars League and the Saudi League. Glamour players tend to disproportionately take up attacking positions so there are fewer opportunities for A-League strikers to get game time during that crucial age of development.

It is interesting that Saudi Arabia was the only bigger nation who performed worse than us at turning touches in the penalty area into goals during the Asian Cup. China is not a particularly strong team in the best of times, to be fair, but they also finished the Asian Cup goalless.

So there is quite a bit of circumstantial evidence that the design of our league is hurting us up front. I am not sure how to fix this, however, I do wonder if a national youth league and a second tier can both help.

It is easier to trust a young player to take the place of an expensive foreigner if they are banging the goals in at a level in between the NPL and the A-League.

Looking ahead

The next generation of strikers do look better, and Bulut’s third place prize should be taken by John Iredale, Toure and Kusini Yengi before the next World Cup. So things should improve at least somewhat.

However, a gap seems to remain between the quality of strikers and our other outfield positions. In any case, I’m curious to hear what the crowd thinks. Why has striker consistently been a weak position for us in the A-League era, and what can be done about it?