Decomposing Kevin

What with the first match played in Melbourne’s new football stadium being in his name, talk is bound to turn to the future of Kevin Muscat and how slow his legs have to get before his quick thinking can no longer compensate (or should that be overcompensate?) Even though next season has the lure of playing in derby matches, and the Asian Champions League again, he is going to have to retire eventually. As seen earlier last season, his absence is clearly a missing link in the chain that is the Victory.

A major part of Ernie’s [Merrick, the manager] game plan is to be able to counter attack quickly, generally with balls to the feet. For this to work well, the defence has to be very good at reading the play. This means that they can intercept an opposition attack and have the vision to start there own, all within a short space of time. Rodrigo and the Princess [Vargas and Leijer, the other central defenders] are alright at this although big Kev has had over a decade of experience at doing it, generally with a lot less time on the ball, and it shows.

The other main thing that Muscat brings to the (shoddy) table is his ability to infect other players with self belief and, possibly more importantly, his knack of riling the opposition and putting them off their game. The latter characteristic is seen by many as a fault, and I must admit I’m at odds with it at times, but the difference between Muscat and a true maniac is that he leaves it on the pitch... well, mostly. Like a race driver, sometimes his single mindedness pays off and he’ll look like a genius, and sometimes it won’t and he’ll appear to have a few screws loose.

Worryingly from a leadership perspective, there are really only two other players in the team with significant experience in Europe, and even then it wasn’t necessarily at a higher level. Archie [Thompson] and Brebner are good players but neither seems like captain material and Archie obviously can’t play balls to himself, try as he might.

On top of this Ernie and his mates are going to have a tough time finding a replacement because it is hard to imagine the future captain being a non-Australian unless they have the reputation of a deity... or they frequent all night functions.

Given that you would no doubt want around half a decade left in the tank of this new recruit to go with the experience, the age bracket is quite tight; late 20’s to early 30’s at a stretch.

So who does this leave as a potential new back seat driver? To my mind, there are two main candidates; Patrick Kisnorbo and Vincenzo Grella. Signing either of them for next season appears extremely unlikely, although you would hope that they are the type of player that is at least being sounded out for a return in a couple of seasons time. At least both of them are from Melbourne and Merrick has coached Grella before (although using that logic we might be able to sign Kennedy and Bresciano as well... errrr, yeah, it could happen.)

The other possibility is to hand Leijer the armband and wait until it fits him properly after a couple of trips round the sun. This wouldn’t be the worst idea as he already has a strong affiliation with the club and has many years ahead of him. If this happened I still reckon the Victory should be looking for an internationally experienced defender or defensive mid to add some balance to the squad.

If they weren’t earmarked as being captain they wouldn’t have to be such a long term solution either. Who knows? Maybe older players with a world of experience such as Edgar Davids and Samual Kuffour might be interested in starting a new and would add a well known name to the big V team sheet. Even players like Aaron Mokoena or Celestine Babayaro might do wonders for our defence with their worldly powers.

However such speculation is fanciful as they may have the same amount of interest in joining a team fashioned by Muscat as Christophe Dugarry would. But the point is that it’s the added experience that we need.

For now though, Kevin’s experience will have to do... even if he turns into a Zimmer wielding elder.

Skip to the end: A blog about Melbourne Victory captain Kevin Muscat. It may not make any sense at all to non fans, so, errr, sssssssssssssorrry about that.