Really interesting chat on Twitter between Adam Peacock and Nick Davis. Davis asserts that an AFL Player could play in the A League before/better than an A League player could play AFL.
What is your view?
Personally I think Davis’ claim smacks of the classic AFL Bubble/ignorance - I’ve done some thinking and the two biggest hurdles would be the AFL player learning soccer dribbling/ball skills/poise and the A League player learning the hardness. I find it very very difficult to imagine an AFL player learning to control, dribble and pass the ball (any more than 10 metres along the deck) to a level that would even get them to NPL/high Amateur level. A soccer player on the other hand would have learnt since young how to strike the ball and should have elite kicking on both sides (a la McKenna). I think, eliminating a Neymar/Dani Alves-esque player with no guts, there’d be plenty of players who could take the hits or play smart enough to get through.
I know this is not A League, but you can’t tell me someone like a Koscielny or Vermaelen couldn’t play an Ambrose role at CHB bullocking role in the centre. Alexis Sanchez at his prime playing the Zaharakis role at HFF would dominate. Bring the ■■■■ in.
It’s AFL arrogance to believe that AFL players could play any sport at a professional level.
A technical game like Soccer or Basketball, they’d get torn to shreds.
If you’ve ever seen a group of Aussie rules footballers, playing Futsal…. It is f*cking comical. They’re so top heavy, and when they lean into a challenge it’s a free kick every time.
After a while they get frustrated by the technical ability of the opposition, where they start hacking legs.
Many years ago when I was teaching, I coached the school footy team for one season. Many of kids from ethnic backgrounds played in both the soccer and footy teams. The most skilful players with the footy were the soccer players, and they were the most agile and had more explosive speed.
One went on to play for the Socceroos, and he could kick either balls with both feet, and kick both balls into a rubbish bin without missing from 25 metres every time. His name was Mendo Ritoski ( or something like that )
So I reckon that there is more chance of soccer stars transitioning to AFL than vica-versa.
Yeah, I played school footy with a bunch of soccer players, and they were insanely good kicks of the ball. Both sides of the body, and somehow could still hit targets even if the ball drop looked horrible.
Its each to their own. You’ll always get a kid who can excell at any sport thrown at him but once trained to play at an elite level then that sport is where they’re at. Both levels of rugby have had a player switch codes as has basketball but soccer? Different kettle of fish. Top,elite level that is.
Wow…is this some sort of hate AFL Players thread…multi talented players who crossover sports are pretty rare so I don’t se the reason to be belittling AFL players
Why is it that you think that any soccer player could pick up AFL?
FFS, there’s plenty of kids who have come through the various AFL academies who don’t make it to the top…and they have been brought up with the fundamentals of the game.
So just like AFL players would struggle with the transition, I’m pretty sure that the same could be said of soccer players coming the other way.
You could probably hide a soccer player on an AFL team and give him some basic duties. Might be a bit harder to do the reverse and not be a huge liability.
Either way, the thread title might go down in blitz history as the most poorly written headache inducing word salad.