Does Phoenix head coach Ufuk Talay want the All Whites job? Photo / Photosport
Does Phoenix head coach Ufuk Talay want the All Whites job? Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
I actually don't think Ufuk Talay wants to be All Whites football coach.
Since his comments in a media interview on Saturday, it's been widely reported Talay has "thrown his hat in the ring" for the job.
I'm not sure his headwear - or any other garment - hasbeen tossed anywhere near the ring.
Even the follow-up questions put to him after Sunday's Phoenix game weren't exactly answered with the unbridled enthusiasm of a man who would drop everything to take charge of the New Zealand men's side.
Ufuk Talay is a week-to-week, on-the-grass type of coach.
He's at his happiest when he's working with his players day-in, day-out and plotting the downfall of their next opponent in the few short days between fixtures.
He drills his preferred tactics into his players, spending hours ensuring they all understand exactly what's expected of them and each other.
Wellington Phoenix coach Ufuk Talay talks to his players during a training session. Photo / Photosport
He's also a master recruiter of overseas talent, sifting through the hundreds of potential squad additions offered to him to find those best suited to his system. He has rarely, if ever, signed a dud.
The job of All Whites coach is a long way removed from that.
More time is spent on Zoom calls than training sessions, and opportunities to work in person with the squad are pitifully thin.
While promises have been made by New Zealand Football to increase the number of games the All Whites play, they'll - at the very most - be together half-a-dozen times next year.
Can Talay's itch really be scratched with so little actual coaching?
Like players, coaches are aspirational. They want to test and push themselves. They want to be working with players every day. They want to coach.
Of course, there's a precedent for being Wellington Phoenix and All Whites coach at the same time.
Ricki Herbert filled both roles from 2007 to 2013, during which time he guided New Zealand to the 2010 World Cup.
But times have changed, with the vast majority of New Zealand's top players now plying their trade overseas.
In the first three A-League seasons, Herbert worked every day with the likes of Shane Smeltz, Leo Bertos, Tony Lochhead, Glen Moss, Jeremy Christie, David Mulligan, Mark Paston, Ben Sigmund and Tim Brown, all of whom were in his 2010 World Cup squad.
In reality, Talay would only be working with a couple of first-choice All Whites in Wellington.
And in his role as an A-League coach, his major brief is to win football matches. If that can be done while developing local players, then great, but it's not mandatory. While the two might appear to go hand-in-hand, they don't share exactly the same objectives.
But in reality, this all comes back to how Talay wants to spend his days.
Does he want to oversee a team that assembles only sporadically or one that plays all the time?
