It could well be the best move any A-League club has made and may well have many asking the question why did no one do it earlier. We are talking about Melbourne City signing Danish goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen.
Sorensen has just turned 39 and has signed a two year deal with Melbourne City. Yet he was still involved in the English Premier League last season with Stoke City albeit is a back up keeper. Prior to that he played at Aston Villa and Sunderland.
Sorensen has over 100 caps for Denmark in an international career that spanned thirteen years.
The A-League in recent years has been a closely fought competition due to the fact that very few teams are able to sustain a run of winning results. A world class goalkeeper could change that.
It was the late great Brian Clough who explained why he paid at the time a massive amount to take Peter Shilton to Nottingham Forest.
“I was asked by someone on our board why we should bother to spend so much cash on a guy who might not be in the game for 85 minutes,” he said. “Shilton was the deciding factor. I’d have paid almost any price. A team with an OK goalkeeper is always looking over its shoulder. At the back of its mind, it’s thinking ‘it doesn’t matter what we do – the fella between the posts might make a mistake’. With Shilton in goal, it gave everyone else more confidence. It spread throughout the side. We were full of ourselves.”
Sorensen is likely to give Melbourne City that exact same feel that Shilton gave Nottingham Forest and as we all know they went on to great success.
The A-League needs ‘keepers who are dominant and can organise their defence, and two of the best are Eugene Galekovic and Michael Theo. Some will say Danny Vukovic is too, but based on the amount of saves he had to make last season for Perth Glory to help win them games one has to question how organised the defence in front of him was.
Sorensen will have an aura about him having played at the level he has. Being late 30’s he will have learned where to position himself to perfection. He could be the key to Melbourne City’s success and if he is don’t be surprised if other A-League franchises look to sign a top drawer goalkeeper.
Goals may win you games, but in a league where goals are fairly frequent reducing the number you concede is the key to success.
A good or even excellent ex player does not necessarily make a good coach, and indeed, he may not feel inclined or motivated to “pass on knowledge”. Even if he did, its not likely to revolutionise the goalkeeping abilities of a few young Australian keepers. The best way to learn is to take part in the game, and to do that, you have to be given the opportunity.
Richard, I totally agree Australia has a rich history in producing keepers but sadly many are not the complete package these days. In my opinion there have been some very poor keepers in the A-League in recent years. Many are purely shot-stoppers, they are not good in the air, or their positional play is not what it should be ad they do not organise well at the back. I would think that a young keeper training with a Sorensen would benefit a great deal and learn a lot and possibly blossom.
Australia has a long and justifiably proud record of producing keepers, quite a few of which have gone onto the world stage and had tremendous careers. This is one playing position that we don’t seem to have many problems with in producing quality players. I really don’t see the value to a club, or indeed the game by importing a 40 year old player who is not match sharp and with his best days well behind him. Well, certainly not at the expense of denying many aspiring youngsters who are absolutely baying for an opportunity to further develop.