In an A-League competition studded with young talent, these are the evergreens who can very much still cut it, writes Tom Smithies.
Age shall not weary them… the A-League oldtimers still pulling strings and showing they still have it, at an age when many of their contemporaries have long hung up their boots and sidled into retirement.
If the Isuzu UTE A-League has become synonymous with a plethora of emerging talent in the last couple of years, there’s a core of veterans still smiling at the impudence of youth – and more importantly, still demonstrating to the kids what it means to be successful.
The team that’s top of the ladder, Western United, have their own crop of exciting young talent, but also have a playmaker aged 38 and three team-mates aged 36, all playing most weeks.
Adelaide United, in third place, seem to have a production line of young talent – but also have a wily quartet of defenders and midfielders aged 35 and 36 directing traffic. United fans get to come for the kids, and stay for the class and poise of Isiais and colleagues.
Sydney FC began the season with the oldest squad but through injury and form have blooded a clutch of youngsters. Utterly essential to head coach Steve Corica, though, remains the leadership of captain Alex Wilkinson and evergreen stringpuller Milos Ninkovic, both 37. “Having the young players is fantastic, they’re enthusiastic but they’re still learning,” smiles Wilkinson. “To have some older heads around, they’ve seen it and done it.”
Nor do some of those older heads intend to stand aside, it seems, at least not willingly. Of the 10 players with most appearances in the A-League Men, six remarkably are still playing and still racking up more of those appearances most weeks.
Last season Andrew Durante became the first A-League player to hit 350 appearances, and Nikolai Topor-Stanley followed suit a fortnight ago. On current form and fitness, Leigh Broxham and Wilkinson could well hit that same milestone by the end of the season (and Wilkinson, it should be noted, has started in every single one of his 333 appearances to date).
Most of the top 10 look secure in it for now; of slightly younger players, only Scott Neville (who hit 250 this week) and Jason Hoffman could come close to breaking into it.
Certainly that top 10 for appearances is also a prodigious list for trophies won – 15 A-League championships, 20 A-League Premierships, seven FA Cups, one NSL title and a Joe Marston Medal. These guys aren’t just turning out, they’re turning it on.
After 17 years and with fewer clubs and shorter seasons, the A-League records don’t come close to the appearance tallies from the NSL, where Alex Tobin amassed 522 over 20 years. But as the A-League’s history grows by the season, there’s little doubt some players will go close to that eventually.
Both Topor-Stanley and Wilkinson acknowledge the contribution of others to that: the sports science and the foresight of coaches prepared to lighten training loads.
“I still feel capable and that’s a combination of things,” said Topor-Stanley. “Yeah, a lot of hard work. But, you know, a lot of preparation that’s been put in place by coaches for me. You’re only as good as the program you’re in, right?
“Like, some people I guess are naturally fit. But in your 30s, I’m telling you, it doesn’t come naturally. You have to put the work in and it has to be good quality work. So I’m grateful for the people that have helped me on the field to get into the right position to be able to do that.”
Wilkinson can chart the change in sophistication of training regimes since the start of the A-League, and even the last days of the NSL.
“I think that’s definitely got something to do with it in terms of the professionalism of the league, in the amount of resources a player has at his disposal,” he said.
“Training has changed quite a lot in terms of the amount of data they collect, and the amount of scientific evidence they use to structure training, workloads, and all those sorts of things.
“There’s always a role for experienced players, especially if there are a lot of young players in the squad coming through.
“Young players are fantastic to have in a sport and they bring enthusiasm. But at the same time, they’re always going to be up and down because they’re learning.
“They’ve only started their playing career and need players around them to sort of guide them in different match situations, or different environments.
“We can sort of help them along their journey.”
