Management changes at the Roar

Once again the Hyundai A-League has had a change in the coaching ranks this time at my club the Brisbane Roar, where head coach Rado Vidosic has taken a promotion to Technical Director while Mike Mulvey has been appointed head coach.

Screen shot of the members email we received last night

Rado’s new role as Technical Director is for the wider Bakrie Group and will see him working not only with the Roar, but also in Indonesia, Belgium and Argentina, those who can remember back to the turmoil when Ange Postecoglou was considering leaving the Roar will know he was offered this same position in an attempt to keep him with the Roar/Bakrie Group.

This really isn’t all that much of a surprise for die hard Roar fans as we are all well aware of Rado’s technical brilliance, and his weaknesses in man management as has been shown so far this season by the Roar’s on field form and Rado’s seemingly inability to make substitutions at the right times/for the right players/positions or sometimes at all.

Rado will focus on developing the Roar’s youth programme which has already come a long way this season with his input, as well as providing technical consultancy to the first team.  The change was apparently jumped on by Rado and was effective immediately which means we will not get the opportunity to farewell him properly as he won’t be in charge for this Fridays match against Perth Glory.

The biggest surprise out of this whole deal really has to be the fact the Bakrie Group have appointed Mike Mulvey to the role as interim coach which will be reviewed at the end of the season to see if it can be continued on permanently or not.

At the event I was at last night I spoke with 3 fellow Roar fans, and we all had the same reaction - a WTF? moment.

A-League fans will know Mulvey from his time at Gold Coast United where he guided the youth league squad to back to back titles before taking the role as head coach after the falling out between owner and fat man Clive Palmer and head coach Miron Bleiberg.  This was a short lived position with the FFA revoking the clubs licence at the end of the season only a few weeks after Mulvey’s appointment.

Mulvey also has titles in women’s football having guided the QAS women’s team to four titles, interestingly enough after Mulvey left Gold Coast he joined Melbourne Victory as women’s coach by this too has only lasted a few months as he is now “coming home” as it were to Queensland to look after the Roar.

Although all this looks great on paper his performances with Gold Coast weren’t anything to write home about, and out of all the available coaches floating around in Australian football I’m not sure he is the best available option, when you look at the likes of Branco Cullina & even Miron Bleiberg.

Time will tell if this is a good choice by the Bakrie Group or whether it has doomed the Roar to a bottom placed finish this season, and the potential of not making it into the ACL at all.  Lets just say the next few weeks and especially this Fridays game against Perth will be slightly different for those of us die hards in the stands wearing orange.

There is only one thing left to say – Is my “In Rado we trust” t-shirt now going to be worth a lot of money? & will we see hundreds of them in the stands on friday night?

This article will also feature on sportsfanAttic.co.nz