This is a fascinating interview. We speak to the journalist, Aidan Ormond, who works as a freelance for the excellent Football magazine, FourFourTwo (http://au.fourfourtwo.com/). Aidan was invited by Nike to become "embedded" with the "The Chance" and cover the progress of the Australian players. Aidan had a lot of time to observe the entire process at close range and he shares his observations with the NPL. There just has to be a good movie or min-series script in this story!
The four young players from the Pacific region - Rogic is second from the left
Tom Rogic in action in the final game - make or brake time!
And this is where they layed the final game of the "The Chance". Wow!!
As you are aware, ACT Premier League (ANU) player and Futsalroo, Tom Rogic, was awarded a scholarship to the very prestigious Nike Academy.
By any measure in Football this was a remarkable achievement.
There is a lot to this story. Rogic was one of four players from the Pacific region (3 x Australian, 1 x NZ) to make it through to the final 100 players who sort to claim one of those final eight scholarships. From a baseline of 75,00 young talented players from all around the world. It was a stern test of a young man's resolve among so many other richly talented young players.
Just how much talent is out there? And how many young talented Australian Football players go unnoticed? Too many I reckon. And if it wasn't for the Nike Challenge, would young Rogic get a real chance at being as good as he wants to be? I'd like to think so, but I doubt we do anywhere near enough for the best of our young talented players between 17 - 20 years of age. It reamins "a tragic vacant space"!
Well done Nike! This program was very correctly titled "The Chance" and it is a programs that does something psotive in Football all around the globe and for us in the ACT, a local result!
Tonight’s program begins on a high note. The young ACT Football and Futsalroo, Tom Rogic has won a place in the prestigious Nike Football Academy in the UK. He was one only eight players, from a world wide baseline of 75,000 aspiring young football players, to win a scholarship to train at the Nike Academy. The process that saw him selected from many in Australia, then go to the UK to compete among a highly select group of finalists – is call “the Chance”
Well, it certainly is that for the young Tom Rogic – 18 years of age and looking at the world of football froma very lofty height.
The Nike Academy will provide an unrivalled opportunity for Rogic to make himself known to the prestigious football clubs in Europe. All things being equal, good timing and a good deal more hard work, Tom Rogic is on his way.
Tom Rogic picture and story made front page news for Football in the Canberra Times - now you don't see that every day of the week in ACT Football!
I do not know the detail of Rogic’s football story. I have seen him play a few games over recent years in both football and futsal. I wish he was playing for my club. In researching this story I have spoken to some who reckon they do know his story, but mostly I think they do not. One person who definitely does know is his immediate past PL Coach at ANU – John Mitchell.
So we begin tonight’s program with a short discussion with John Mitchell, Tom Rogic’s Pl Coach for the last two years. John brings us up to date with young Rogic’s success and makes the very important point, that Rogic’s success can be traced back to his football education from the age of 11 to 14 years, where he developed the good football habits pioneered here by Ron Smith.
Then we follow with a fascinating interview I did with John Mitchell about his work with ANU and the ANU Under 20 Elite program. The NPL has broadcast some part of this interview before, but given Rogic’s success, the finalisation of the Ron Smith Review and the very recent appointment of a new TD at Cf – this interview has a lot to recommend it. Mitchell’s ANU U20 Elite program was a bold initiative at the time, one that made other PL clubs stand up and take notice and change. Mitchell’s plan was to do something about what he refers to, in talented footballer development terms as a “tragic vacant space” for those of our ACT talented players between the ages of 17 to 20 years of age.
In so many ways, John Mitchell got it right and in doing so, provided Tom Rogic with exactly the football diet he needed to assist in his desire to break into professional football. The interview speaks for itself and merits careful consideration, particularly as we enter a period that fair bristles with the prospect and necessity for positive change concerning the development of all our young players. If we do what we have always done, we will get what we have always got.
We have a new TD about to take his post at CF and a comprehensive “football operational” style review by Ron Smith that points squarely in the direction of “are you serious”! Many in the Football community are waiting to see how it will all unfold in 2011.
As they say, we live in interesting football times. And Australia is in the semis of the Asian Cup.
The time for change couldn’t be better. The extravagantly talented young Rogic and energetic football ideas people like John Mitchell, show that we can change our player development environment here in the ACT for the better, for all our players. As they say, “Game On”!
Sometimes dreams come true. It has for Tom Rogic. Front page news in the Canberra Times today.
Others know the Rogic story in detail, I do not. I've certainly seen him play Football and Futsal in recent years. I do know that the path he walked to get the opportunity now before him was the hard way to do it. I also know that many coaches would have contributed in their way, along the way. But none more so in the last two years than his former PL League Coach at ANU - John Mitchell.
I wonder - would this have been possible if Mitchell had not got motivated and raise the ANU Under 20 Elite program? I prefer to think that Rogic's talent would have got him there anyway. You hope so.
The simple truth is that in 2009 particularly (and 2010) the ANU Under 20 Elite program provided Rogic with an unmatched opportunity to engage in high quality periodised training, like no other Club at the time in the ACT. John Mitchell raised the bar in the Premier League here in the ACT (outside the AIS and ACTAS) and many of the rest of the Clubs took the hint and have followed in their fashion.
Then their is Rogic's talent at Futsal, which got him to the Futsalroos. Strewth, can he play! That must have helped a lot.
The point I make is this - someone, somehow had to construct an opportunity for a young player outside the AIS, with no local A League Youth team to go to, to get a shot at professional football. I think John Mitchell and his ANU Under 20 Elite program was the essential input at the right time. There is a lesson here for those that conduct our development programs, if they look carefully. It was pleasing to see Mitchell referred to in the Canberra Time today.
There are a lot of clues in the ANU Under 20 Elite program (now defunct) for the way ahead with our talented young players - the best of the best at age!
Go back and listen to our interviews with John Mitchell on the NPL. Its all there!
The FourFourTwo article reads as follows:
ACT starlet Tom Rogic said he was stunned and elated after winning one of eight professional contracts at the Nike Academy in England announced in London on Saturday night.
At a function attended by former Arsenal and Barcelona star Giovanni van Bronkhurst, Rogic was the final name to be read out for the eight full-time contracts on offer.
“Words can’t describe it,” Rogic told au.fourfourtwo.com just moments after the announcement.
