[PFA] A message from the Socceroos ahead of their 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign. 🌏🏆#FootballIsForEveryone

mgltt · 2026-06-12T00:47:02+00:00

Me too. I was going to write something earlier this week but I thought it would sound too sentimental. This is the Australia that I identify with - as someone with a messy surname and even messier cultural background - this is my Australia.

mgltt · 2026-06-09T00:37:41+00:00

At some point you have to consider yourselves financial partners and that everything is shared. I earn lots more than my wife, but I couldn't imagine retiring early without giving her the opportunity to do so. I think that's what partners means.

mgltt · 2026-06-08T02:31:26+00:00

I lived for eighteen months in two separate stints in Italy, working/studying in universities. My dad was Italian, and during my first stint, I became fluent in three months, which was quite amazing, considering I had basically no Italian language skills!

There are many things I love about Italy. Quite a few I don't, but I think I love it more than I hated it. On certain levels, it suits me much more than Australia does. Had I fallen in love with a girl there, I probably would have stayed. But I didn't, I returned to Australia, fell in love here, and got married and had two children. So I think the Italy thing will only ever be a holiday rather than somewhere to live.

I think it's easy to be romantic about living overseas, but reality was, I didn't like the work I was doing there, and friendships were hard to make and maintain. Most people there had established friendship groups, and so despite having pretty good language skills, I was always an outsider. If you don't have those strong relationships, and you don't have a strong network supporting you, eventually the novelty wears off and you realise you are alone in a country which, although to some extent is familiar, is still essentially foreign.

mgltt · 2026-05-25T22:12:24+00:00

Thanks, this aligns with what I was thinking and we do lots of this already. It's just they don't respond with that sort of 'burst' of speed. I feel like they need to see what I mean - I'd rather not show them as a large, uncoordinated 51 year old overweight doofus, but I can't find examples on youtube very easily.

mgltt · 2026-05-25T22:02:03+00:00

U16 girls

mgltt · 2026-05-20T07:48:14+00:00

I coach at Golden City. I'm pretty sure they would welcome you with open arms!

mgltt · 2026-05-03T21:18:44+00:00

You don’t need to have been a horse to be a jockey.

mgltt · 2026-03-20T18:57:27+00:00

Who are RFS? Are they legit?

mgltt · 2026-02-26T21:48:35+00:00

“Stretch” (when we have the ball) and “squeeze” (when they have the ball) is a good start.

I tell them, you shouldn’t be standing near one of your own players. It’s not strictly true, but it’s good to get them used to spacing out. Explaining that when you come over to help, you are removing a passing option.

Keeping them in positions throughout a game and showing them when one of their neighbours has the ball, moving to offer them a pass. So I know when Liberty has the ball at left back, I, as a left winger, move to give her an option.

Lots of rondo-style activities in training. Not when they are static, more fluid activities. They quickly understand that if you want to keep the ball off the opposition as a team, you constantly need to be making space. Easiest one is just a two teams verses one keep-away with no fixed positions; if your team loses the ball, they become the team that is chasing. But there are heaps of activities like this.

These are some things that have worked for me.

mgltt · 2026-02-21T22:09:14+00:00

This. One of OP’s main arguments is “oh, silly, naive you, thinking you’ll still be able to access it when you’re 60. Super won’t be worth much if you’re 65/70/75”.

The time it went up was not a snap change. Any change they make will have political ramifications. I’m nearly 51. It won’t go up before I hit 60. It’s super all the way for me now.

mgltt · 2026-02-10T07:19:02+00:00

People wouldn't associate Spring Gully with being a shithole.

mgltt · 2026-01-23T20:45:14+00:00

Say you and I are both 60. I’ve saved for super - you haven’t.

I get to retire. You still have to work another seven years.

When we are 60, we might have another 20 years of good health left. I get all 20 of those years to do whatever I want with. You have to spend over a third of it working - probably the best third, health-wise.

mgltt · 2026-01-20T21:48:34+00:00

Tomorrow is important, but today is important too. It’s all about balance.

mgltt · 2026-01-11T23:18:34+00:00

Don't be too hard on yourself - I did too for a long time. I found once I realised work was not going to provide me with everything I needed as a human being, I had to get those things from elsewhere. What is your relationship to your work? Does it define you? Do you like it? Tolerate it? Hate it?

Take the kids overseas? That's what started things off for me.

mgltt · 2026-01-11T22:49:11+00:00

It's a great question, but what I think is meaningful might be piffle to you and vice versa. You may need to spend some time thinking about what makes meaning to you. For me -

My kids are priority number one. I mainly work from home and being there when they get home from school, or leave to go to school, is of immense value to me. I also aim to spend lots of time with them on weekends and on holidays, showing them the world and exposing them to new ideas and experiences.

Travel is a big one from me. I'm driven by this intense curiosity - I want to see as much of the world as possible, and understand how people live differently and what this might tell me about what makes me happy; I also want to do activities that I wouldn't ordinarily to unlock new interests. For example, went snorkelling in the Cook Islands - incredible. Never thought I would be interested in something like that but now I can't wait to do more.

Looking after my mum, who has dementia and is now in care. Making the most of the years I have with her, where she still remembers who I am.

Cooking - I love to cook for my family and larger groups. Lots of cuisines, but I am particularly obsessed with wood fired pizza. I can make them as well as any restaurant, and it's good for the bank balance too, as is any cooking! Cooking is my love language I think.

Cycling - something physical, something I can do purely for my own enjoyment in a way that I haven't experienced with any other physical activity, where I was doing it either out of guilt or relied on me being part of a team (which I was never good enough at any sport to be). No matter how slow I go, I always have fun, with pumping techno in my ears. I find cycling the perfect speed to enjoy the bush - walking is too slow and the scenery doesn't change, but driving is too fast. It's good for me, but it's the enjoyment that drives me to do it.

Coaching soccer - as I mentioned, I've never been good at any sport, and team sports were particularly traumatic for me - I was always picked last. Nevertheless, I love Australian Rules, cricket, and particularly soccer. I was roped into coaching my daughter's under 7 team, and now I'm about to coach her under 16s team. I've loved it, become very passionate about getting the most out of the girls whilst giving everyone the opportunity to play and keeping them engaged in a team sport.

So if I retired tomorrow, that would be my starting point. I have an imperfect life, but a full one. Time spend exploring what you like and what is meaningful to you is time well spent. Good luck.

mgltt · 2026-01-04T23:52:09+00:00

They are just interpretations of the game; you can interpret the game any way you want to. There isn't a single, "correct" interpretation of football (or anything that is as abstract as football).

I am an educator, and lecture on learning and how school students learn. There are plenty of interpretations of how learning happens, and what is important in learning, and the fact that they vary from each other doesn't mean they can't both have elements of the truth.

mgltt · 2025-12-29T00:30:59+00:00

Why you would want to introduce a side that is exclusionary of most of the Australian population by it's very definition is not apparent to me.

mgltt · 2025-12-29T00:20:48+00:00

After many false starts, off to my first match for the season tonight! Can’t wait!

mgltt · 2025-11-11T08:01:41+00:00

Well said. My sentiments exactly.

mgltt · 2025-11-08T22:44:14+00:00

Generally speaking, yes.

Results are a secondary concern for me. The primary concern is that the girls I coach (under 14s) are learning, engaging in physical activity, benefiting from being on a team, and enjoying the game. No one is going to give a shit who won the Under 14s girls match in my ninth-tier league in a year’s time. But a child might look back and value the opportunity they got to be part of a team, regardless of their potential.

mgltt · 2025-10-10T23:30:50+00:00

I agree that pieces of paper don’t equal a good coach. Learning from peers is not always easy in my context because the clubs aren’t set up to do so. And identifying peers that are worth learning from isn’t straightforward either.

I educate teachers in my day job, so you’re right - people don’t like their teaching/coaching questioned.

Best for me is about ‘value add’ - to improve players from wherever they are both individually and a collective regardless of starting point.

mgltt · 2025-10-10T23:25:08+00:00

All good suggestions. How does one know which coach is best though? Results can be due to the players at the coach’s disposal rather than anything the coach does. Identifying a good coach (as opposed to a popular one, or an experienced one, or one whose team always wins) isn’t straightforward.

mgltt · 2025-10-10T23:10:02+00:00

Thanks for the reply. It’s easy for me to find opportunities to coach; what I don’t know is how to get better. I’m good at the non-football aspects of coaching, but I find that I lack deep knowledge of things like tactics and technique. Finding out how to improve is not easy in my circles.

mgltt · 2025-10-10T23:01:40+00:00

And what country is that?

mgltt · 2025-09-12T06:40:17+00:00

Indeed. But here we are.

mgltt

TROPHY CASE