Frank Farina has wasted no time in asserting his authority in the Sydney FC ranks. The highly decorated player and coach has been the subject of a lot of mixed criticism, with some of the Sydney FC faithful not seeing eye to eye with their administration on the move to sign him as head coach.
A highly accomplished player and coach, in my opinion Frank as more then his fair share of experiences to lead a club like Sydney FC. He has amongst his exploits NSL titles with Marconi Fairfield including the 1987 NSL Player of the year, 1988 NSL Golden Boot and the 1988 Oceania Player of the year.
Internationally Farina won a Golden Boot in Belguim for Club Brugge, also playing for Bari in Italy becoming the first Australian to play in the Italian Serie A, Notts County in England, RS Strasburg in France and finishing his playing career with Lille OSC in the French First Division.
He went on as a player/coach guiding Brisbane strikers to their first NSL premiership in 1997. He later coached NSL side Marconi and then the top job of coaching the Socceroos from 1999 to 2005. With the introduction of the A League Farina took the reigns at the Brisbane Roar but parted ways in 2009.
But most recently Frank used his wealth of knowledge to guide the Papua New Guinea national Men’s and Under 23 teams to impressive performances against their fellow Oceania federations. He has also been conducting coaching and mentoring clinics to improve the standard of football in PNG.
When Frank took the reins in 2011 Papua New Guinea was rated 203 out of a possible 207 countries in the FIFA rankings. The country had not seen international matches in a number of years and a number of promising players were giving the sport away. Since his time in charge PNG has slowly moved up the charts, up as high as 193, but has now settled at 195. It is important to note that the ranking are highly dependent on frequent internationals, so obviously those countries that play more matches have a better chance of holding onto their rankings, and also moving up the rankings.
Franks focus on youth and development opened the door for a number of young promising under 23 players to take the step up to the senior team gaining valuable experience and doing so with a new found confidence. Instead of promoting massive changes, frank built a strategy based on his player’s skill level and strengths.
He took the under 23 men to New Zealand and the signs of improvement were evident when New Zealand could only manage a 1 nil victory over the PNG boys. Although they did not make it out of the group stages, the wheels of an ever improving football nation were already set in motion.
It was in the Pacific Nations Cup in the Solomon Islands where the rest of Oceania sat back and took notice to the impact of Franks influence. For a country that had not seen the international stage for a number of years, one would say that the Fijians, New Zealanders and Solomon Islanders were somewhat in two minds as to how to approach this PNG side in the important Pool matches.
PNG put up a strong fight against the talented Solomon Islanders going down by one goal. Their next match got the whole pacific asking questions when they took on the might of the all whites. The commentator’s summed up the whole match in one statement, If you came from out of space and watched this match, you would actually think that Papua New Guinea were powerhouses of Football in the pacific and favourites to beat the all whites. PNG went down 2 goals to 1 in the end but the result could have easily gone their way. The PNG team continued on to the next match playing out a 1 all draw with an over confident Fijian side, as a result denying them the chance to move on to the world cup qualifying rounds.
To this day the Fijians are still reeling over the draw with Papua New Guinea, with some of their own sports journalists even calling for Fiji to take on a coach like Frank, in their words ”In just one year Farina has proved his worth. Get him before he embarrasses us further by leading PNG to victory over us at the next Pacific Games.” You can read more here. Seeing that PNG has never beaten Fiji in international football, this reaction really makes you admire the progress of Football in Papua New Guinea and appreciate the input of individuals Like Frank Farina.
As Frank is now taking on another challenge in his life, Papua New Guinea Football cannot afford to see this as a loss but as a challenge to continue on Franks work whether or not Farina continues to work with the PNGFA. With the recent success of Hekari united, the National Soccer League, overseas signings of players, Coaches like Wesley Waiwai mentored by Frank, Frank has positively contributed to setting the foundations for the pacific nation, and the responsibility is now on PNG to now build upon this new found success and develop further.
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