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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Marie-Louise Eta makes history as new Union Berlin head coach

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Image credit: FC Union Berlin

In an historic appointment, Eta will take over as head coach of Union Berlin until the end of the season.

History in the making

Previously the first female assistant coach in Bundesliga history with Union Berlin, Eta will now take the reigns of the men’s first team on an interim basis.

Currently, the club sit in 11th place in the Bundesliga table, but with only two wins so far in 2026, relegation appears an all-too-real prospect, and one which the club is desperate to avoid.

“Given the points gap in the lower half of the table, our place in the Bundesliga is not yet secure,” said Eta via official media release.

‘I am delighted that the club has entrusted me with this challenging task. One of Union’s strengths has always been, and remains, the ability to pull together in such situations.”

Eta will begin as Union’s new head coach with immediate effect, and will be in the dugout for the club’s matchup against Wolfsburg this weekend.

 

A step into an equal future

Eta’s appointment signals a major step towards a more level playing field in the football landscape.

Furthermore, Eta joins other coaches including Sabrinna Wittmann, Hannah Dingley and Corinne Diacre who, in recent years, have blazed a trail for female coaches to step into the men’s game.

Wittmann currently manages FC Ingolstadt in Germany’s third division, and was the first female head coach in Germany’s top three divisions.

In 2023, Dingley became caretaker manager of Forest Green Rovers, and thus the first woman to lead a men’s professional team in England.

Diacre, now head coach of France’s women’s national team, managed Ligue 2’s Clerment Foot between 2014 and 2017.

 

Final thoughts

The impact therefore, is that Eta’s appointment will show future generations of aspiring female coaches that men’s football is an equally viable and possible pathway as the women’s game.

The time is now to level the playing field.

And while it may be a short-term role, its effect on attitudes towards equality and fair opportunities in the game will hopefully resonate long after the season ends.

“20 Years Ahead”: The System Quietly Reshaping Korean Football

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Image Credit: Goal.com / Getty Images

For all its consistency, Korean football has long carried an underlying tension.

On paper, it works. The national teams remain competitive, the player pool is technically sound, and the country continues to produce athletes capable of performing on the continental stage. But beneath that surface-level success, a more uncomfortable question has persisted about whether Korea has been simply maintaining its position while others evolve.

That question has driven the Korea Football Association (KFA) toward one of the most ambitious structural overhauls in modern football development: the Made in Korea (MIK) Project. Rather than focusing on short-term gains or isolated improvements, the initiative attempts to do something far more complex. It is rebuilding the foundations of how football is taught, understood and executed across the entire ecosystem.

Internally, the project has been described as having “brought Korean football 20 years ahead.” Whether that claim ultimately proves accurate remains to be seen, but what is already clear is the scale of the shift taking place.

From talent to system

The starting point was not talent, but structure. For years, concerns had been growing within Korean football circles about a lack of uniqueness in players, inconsistencies in long-term planning and an over-reliance on safe, risk-averse styles of play. The system, while producing disciplined and technically capable footballers, was not consistently producing players equipped to thrive in the most demanding environments. Environments such as Europe, where tempo, decision-making speed and adaptability define success.

Rather than attempting to patch these issues, the KFA chose to reimagine the system itself.

At the core of the MIK Project is the idea that high performance is not the result of individual excellence alone, but of an interconnected structure that allows that excellence to emerge consistently. Coaching, sports science, performance analysis, leadership and education are no longer treated as separate pillars, but as components of a single, integrated system designed to evolve continuously.

A new operating model

This philosophy is most clearly expressed through the project’s adoption of a cell-based operating model. In place of traditional hierarchies, the system is organised into small, cross-functional units, called “cells”. These cells are given autonomy over their work while remaining connected through shared frameworks and objectives. Each unit is responsible not only for delivery, but for learning, adapting and refining its approach on a constant cycle.

The intention is to bring decision-making closer to the pitch, allowing those working directly with players to respond faster and more effectively to the realities of the game. In an environment where marginal gains are often decisive, that speed of adaptation can be critical.

Closing the gap

Yet structure alone is not enough. The project is equally shaped by a clear-eyed assessment of where Korean football currently stands in relation to the world’s elite.

Comparative analysis has highlighted several consistent gaps: technical execution under pressure, the ability to operate at higher game speeds and effectiveness in decisive moments such as one-on-one situations. These are not deficiencies of talent, but of context. Korean players, while highly capable, have often developed within systems that prioritise control and precision over risk and spontaneity.

The consequence is a style that can become predictable under pressure.

Training for reality

To address this, the MIK Project has fundamentally shifted training methodology. Sessions are increasingly designed to replicate the intensity and unpredictability of real matches, placing players in situations where decisions must be made quickly, under pressure, and often in confined spaces. The focus is no longer on rehearsing ideal scenarios, but on preparing players for imperfect ones.

This approach reflects a broader philosophical shift that prioritises adaptability over perfection, and decision-making over repetition.

Evolving the Korean identity

Importantly, this evolution does not come at the expense of Korea’s existing strengths. Discipline, work ethic and technical proficiency remain central to the national identity. What the MIK Project seeks to do is build upon those foundations, combining them with the creativity, speed, and tactical awareness required at the highest level of the game.

It is, in many ways, an attempt to reconcile tradition with modernity.

A global ambition

The ambition underpinning the project is unmistakable. The KFA is not simply aiming to remain competitive within Asia, but to re-establish itself among the world’s leading football nations. That means producing players capable of not only reaching Europe, but succeeding there.

More than a project

What makes the MIK Project particularly compelling is that it does not present itself as a finished solution. Instead, it is designed as a system that evolves, adjusts and refines itself over time. In a sport where trends shift rapidly and competitive edges are constantly eroded, that capacity for continuous development may prove more valuable than any single innovation.

For other football nations, Korea’s approach offers an instructive case study. While many federations continue to debate philosophical direction, the KFA has committed to structural transformation, embedding its ideas not only in theory, but in practice.

Whether the project ultimately delivers on its boldest ambitions will depend on time, execution, and the unpredictable nature of the game itself. But one thing is already evident.

Korean football is no longer standing still.

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