Not content with setting the benchmark in the seniors this season, Brisbane’s Olympic FC want to develop the best juniors in Queensland – and they believe the National Premier Leagues are the right model to achieve their aim.

Olympic’s senior men have flourished in the competition’s inaugural season and are undefeated after their opening eleven games, however according to club Technical Director Gabor Ganczer it is the Olympic juniors that will reap the long term benefits of Football Federation Australia’s National Curriculum and National Premier Leagues programme.

While visibly pleased with the first team’s performances, Ganczer remains acutely aware that any future success depends upon adhering to the NPL elite player pathway and building a lasting club culture.

“In my view the National Premier League is not a new state league but an increased performance opportunity for talented players and coaches,” Ganczer said.

“Olympic is committed to delivering FFA's National Curriculum by adapting it to our own style. We firmly believe that the National Curriculum is not purely about the 4-3-3 system and pro-active possession based football but also aims to establish a football culture.”

The well-travelled Ganczer knows his fair share about football culture, working as a player, coach, journalist and club media liaison in his native Hungary – including a stint under World Cup winning German Lothar Matthäus as a member of the Hungarian men’s national team coaching staff.

”We are a family-oriented, multicultural football club,” Ganczer explained further. “Our motto is ‘Passion And Unity Through Football’ and that describes the enthusiastic and caring attitude with which we strive to service our community.”

That community includes nearly 1000 footballers ranging in age from 3 to 50 years old, with 225 of those forming Olympic’s NPL programme where they are guided by 30 FFA accredited coaches.

The club’s successful start to life in the NPL extends well beyond the seniors, with Olympic teams currently topping five NPL age divisions – including the boys and girls Under 14s, girls Under 13s, girls Under 15s and mens Under 20s.

As such, Ganczer views the NPL as a long term project that will benefit the sport as a whole in coming years.

“Our most important goal is to be the best development club in Queensland and in Australia. Our young players think about the A-League and W-League every night and we want to bring their dreams to life,” Ganczer said.

“Australia is on the right track and football will be bigger here once these young players become professionals and even bigger when they become mums and dads, business decision makers and politicians in the next few decades.”

Ganczer also compared the NPL favourably to similar development programmes in some of Europe’s most respected football nations.

“My motherland, Hungary, has a beautiful football culture and that led them to two World Cup finals, but history doesn’t pay the bills or score goals and that is why they run a similar programme to what FFA does in Australia.”

Helping Olympic’s youngest NPL players on the development pathway is senior team captain Danny Byrne, who coaches the boys Under-12’s team.

A former Liverpool FC junior and professional footballer in the United Kingdom, and now in his fifth season with the club, Byrne describes the NPL concept as being “a long time coming” and understands the importance of his role guiding the club’s up-and-coming talent.

“I wanted to coach the Under 12’s because it’s the first time the kids make the transition from a small field to the full-sized field. I want to give them the positional sense that they need to handle that change.”

Byrne, who has scored an impressive 13 goals so far this season, also understands the distinction between leading his teammates on the pitch and coaching his juniors from the sidelines, explaining the roles as “hugely different”

“Seniors is result based,” Byrne explained. “You sacrifice the way you play sometimes in order to get results, whereas with the junior base, as long as we implement the structures and play the right way, then the results should follow.”

“In a sense you can say that we do sacrifice some junior results so they can play the way we want them to play,” Byrne admitted.

However, Byrne also sees how the two roles can be complimentary in safeguarding the club’s future.

“I think it’s really important this year that we do win the NPL senior title. It will show that we are once again a powerhouse in Queensland football.”

“Football can be a very fickle sport, and I feel that next year, and many years to come, we will get more juniors coming to Olympic if the first team can get that sort of success because everyone wants to be associated with a successful club.”

Byrne continued: “This year we’re doing a lot of things right with juniors and the NPL. We are very fortunate to have a lot of major sponsors on board who put a lot of time, effort and money into what we do and that’s showing in the culture we’ve got at the club and also in the first team.”

The Olympic junior development ethos begins prior to the NPL divisions. Small Sided Director of Coaching Steve Konstantinou is responsible for guiding Olympic’s youngest footballers.

“With the NPL, the club has attracted a whole lot of new kids from the region,” Konstantinou explained. “Not only have we attracted kids to the NPL age groups but we have seen the younger siblings of those kids sign up with us as well.”

“What that means is that this year we have kids aged 10 and 11 who are, based on results and the way they play, pretty much the best on the south side of Brisbane,” he elaborated.

“We are in good stead and should be able to produce our own home grown Under 12 NPL team next year.”

“Then, with these right structures in place, in five or ten years we will start to see our own juniors that have been playing here from the start playing in the first team.”

“And if a kid that we’ve coached goes on to sign a professional contract or play for Australia then that’s fantastic and something to really hang our hat on,” Konstantinou enthused.

 

Words: Michael Flynn (Football Queensland) / Image: Olympic FC