Maybe it was the t-shirt that first sowed the seed of an idea – and 17 years later, a whole crop of coaches has grown in its wake.
The coaching alumni from Sydney FC’s title-winning side in the first season of the A-League has grown once more, with Mark Milligan on the bench as (temporary) head coach of Adelaide last weekend while his usual gaffer, Carl Veart, was laid up in hospital with pneumonia.
Milligan became the ninth member of Pierre Littbarski’s 2005-06 squad to have coached at an elite level, with five currently head coaches in the A-League (and Milligan an assistant), David Zdrillic an assistant in Serie A and David Carney head coach at Wollongong Wolves (where his predecessor but one was former Sydney teammate Jacob Timpano).
That list includes Dwight Yorke of course, currently holding the reins at Macarthur in his debut management role, and it was Yorke and Littbarski who presented every member of that Sydney squad with a t-shirt the night before the grand final in 2006.
On the front was two timepieces, a stopwatch for Littbarski and a diamond-covered watch for Yorke.
The subliminal message about seizing the moment – and, in Littbarski’s case, about discipline and playing to a plan – struck a chord then and now, with a whole swathe of leaders emerging from the team that won the first A-League title.
That isn’t confined to those coaching; Terry McFlynn was Sydney FC’s GM of football and then coach at Perth Glory before moving into player representation, while Robbie Middleby is a senior executive at Football Australia.
Milligan will be back in his usual seat on the Adelaide bench this weekend, thanks to Veart’s recovery, but undoubtedly has his sights set on a head coaching role eventually, while Aloisi has regularly been mentioned as a potential Socceroos head coach.
