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New York Times
11 minutes ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Football Architects: The England DNA behind the pursuit of tournament-winning teams
This is the fifth of a six-part series looking at figures who have played a pivotal role in a modern football success story. The first piece, on the rebuilding of Ajax, can be found here. Part two, on Belgium becoming No 1 in the FIFA Rankings is here. Part three, on the rise of Croatian football is here. And part four on the sport's data pioneers is here. Each article comes with a related podcast, which can be found here on The Athletic FC Tactics Podcast feed. The rationale is simple, John McDermott says: 'Under pressure, players often revert to type.' He is explaining why, in December 2014, just six months after England had finished bottom of their World Cup group, Dan Ashworth and Gareth Southgate announced the 'England DNA' at St George's Park. Ashworth was the director of elite development at The FA and Southgate had just completed his first year as England Under-21s men's head coach. Advertisement The DNA was an overarching term for their 'approach to elite player development' that applied to England age-group teams from under-15s through to the men's under-21s and women's under-23s. It laid out the vision for future internationals to be exceptional across four 'corners' — technical/tactical, physical, psychological, social — and contained five core elements. Best practice for coaches was outlined, expectations for the 'future England player' were listed and the FA said holistic support would be provided. They articulated how age-group teams should play, which would be 'the strongest demonstration of the England DNA'. A focus was placed on a two-way understanding of heritage and culture in an increasingly diverse country. Over the next decade, England's senior men had their greatest spell of sustained success at tournament level, reaching successive European Championship finals in 2021 and 2024, and a World Cup semi-final in 2018. The senior women went even better, winning the Euros on home soil in the summer of 2022, finishing as runners-up at the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, and then retaining their Euros title in Switzerland this summer. The notion of 'proper England' became a buzzword that powered them to the title. Success in age-group football has been abundant: the women's under-17s were Euros runners-up last May; the men's under-21s won the Euros again this summer, like they had in 2023; the men's under-17, under-19 and under-20 sides have all won continental or world silverware since 2017. The England DNA project was an important moment, comprehensively covering how to instil cultural change at the same time as catalysing technical and tactical evolution. 'Traditionally the Dutch, and more recently the Spanish, have very clear playing identities,' McDermott says. Advertisement He has been the technical director at the FA since early 2021 — having been Les Reed's assistant previously — and first worked there in 1995. McDermott coached the under-16 through to under-21 national teams in the mid-2000s, and worked in the academies of Leeds United, Watford, and Tottenham Hotspur. 'A player isn't going to change profile in a World Cup final into something which they aren't at their club,' he says. 'There's got to be a reflection (within England teams) of how they play at their clubs, in the Premier League, the Champions League.' The DNA was intended as the foundation of the FA's quest for tournament-winning teams. In 2014, though, England's senior men's side were on a run of eight major tournaments where their ceiling was the quarter-finals. The pressure kept compounding and players kept crumbling under it. So where did they look for inspiration? 'I would think we're all probably magpies,' McDermott says. 'If you were to speak to Pep Guardiola, you'd hear about the influence that Johan Cruyff had on him, the influence Rinus Michels had on Cruyff, and the influence that Vic Buckingham had on Michels. 'There's not this ivory tower where somebody comes up with this formula that nobody's ever thought of.' Consequently, Ashworth started close to home, visiting national training centres in France (Clairefontaine) and the Netherlands (Zeist). 'You speak to a lot of people. We're trying to get as many experiences as we can. You go to America, see what's happening in other sports, and ask: 'What do we do next? What's the evolution of the DNA?'. 'There's this curiosity where we're trying to look and then mould ideas into the English way, to make sure that's aligned with how the league is and where the playing system is.' 'I remember being at a FIFA conference and one of the speeches described how in senior football you're winning the next game or the next tournament, while in youth football it's about winning the next 10 years. I thought that was really clever, but there are subtleties.' Advertisement As such, they were not prescriptive with formations like Belgium (4-3-3), the Netherlands (4-3-3) and Italy (4-diamond-2) can be. 'It's less about the specific system and more about how it looks and how the players perform, playing the style that we want — expansive football, dominating the ball, playing through the thirds.' It is why the 'how we play' component of England DNA included transition as a phase of the game — counter-attacks and counter-pressing were given as much emphasis as build-up and defensive shape. 'The principles around in-possession, out-of-possession, transitions and set plays, I'm sure Alf Ramsey (England manager between 1963 and 1974) was talking about that. The examples and language changes. 'Have those principles been honed? Have they been better presented? Is the teaching better now with young players? Yeah, it probably is. 'One of the mantras we have is 'unearth, connect, develop and win'. Again Howard (Wilkinson) would have had that, and Dan (Ashworth) would have that in different words, but it's updating the wallpaper, updating the furniture.' It is an area where McDermott feels they have made progress but are still not perfect. He talks about 'footballing culture' and how players arrive at national team camps in the technical and tactical moulds of what their club coaches want. This was 'quite apparent' to McDermott when he started his current role. 'You'd see the Leeds players under Marcelo Bielsa, the Manchester City players under Pep Guardiola, some of the Liverpool players under Jurgen Klopp, and they'd want to do slightly different things — Leeds players going to man-to-man, Manchester City players wanting to stay on the ball, Liverpool players wanting heavy-metal football.' England DNA was therefore not just a blueprint but also something to unite players, who might spend so much of their season playing in different systems and styles to one another. He points out that, with age-group teams — whom the DNA was actually for — players can come from different levels of the English footballing pyramid. Increasingly, they are venturing into other major European leagues too. McDermott is talking via video call from Slovakia, where he was with England's men's under-21s at the European Championship. He was speaking mid-tournament as Lee Carsley's side defended their title from 2023 with an almost completely different squad, beating Germany 3-2 in the final compared with the one that was victorious over Spain two years prior. Advertisement Aidy Boothroyd once said that, if being the senior head coach was an 'impossible job' then being under-21s head coach was 'utterly impossible'. Trying to win tournaments and keep progressing talent to the senior side, he felt, were at odds with each other. For McDermott to say 'it's not win at all costs' feels almost ironic, considering the relative recent success of the under-21s and other age-group teams. 'There's a way in which we want to play and there's a way in which we want to get to those finals and win. It's finding that right balance between winning and developing — the two are very closely interlinked.' In 2008, England's men failed to qualify for the European Championship, and, the very next year, the under-21s were beaten 4-0 by Germany in the age-group final. Does the unreliability of memory mean that year is misremembered as the nadir from where change stemmed? 'There was not one day when it all happened. To say that this all began in 2008 disrespects some of the brilliant brains we've had in the past. It's definitely an evolution.' Success, as the saying goes, has many fathers. For McDermott, how you view the progression 'probably depends on who you speak to. I guess I'm steeped in FA history'. He namechecks Bobby Robson, who managed England's men's side for 95 games and took them to the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Dave Sexton also gets credit from McDermott. He was twice England men's under-21s coach and led them to Euros wins in 1982 and 1984, back-to-back winners like Carsley's teams. McDermott traces things all the way back to Walter Winterbottom, England's first ever men's coach from 1946 to 1962. 'Followed by Allen Wade and then I worked under Charles Hughes. They all had their principles of play or how they saw the game being played,' McDermott says. Advertisement He is not sequentially listing England coaches, but figures who were inspirational in shaping — for better or worse — English footballing identity. Wade became the FA's director of coaching in 1963 and wrote The FA's Guide to Training and Coaching in 1970; Hughes was Wade's assistant — he'd later hold the role himself — and coached the Great Britain Olympic football team for a decade from 1964-1974. 'Charles was probably epitomised quite wrongly,' he says while squinting, as though digging into his subconscious to remember correctly. 'He wrote a book called The Winning Formula around direct play. He probably didn't sell his ideas as well (as he could).' Hughes is best known now for building on the work of Charles Reep, who was one of the earliest statistical analysts in English football. Reep collected data by hand in the 1950s. It must be remembered that this was innovative at the time, even if by modern standards the notational methods were simplistic and the findings over-reductive. Reep identified that most goals were scored from sequences of fewer than four passes, half of all goals were following opposition-half regains, and one in 10 shots were scored. The problem, as future research showed, was he did not adjust for frequency in a low-scoring sport. There were fewer goals from long passing sequences or deep build-ups because these happened less. Hughes, lauded by Robson in his autobiography, spun this into a concept he called the position of maximum opportunity (POMO); this stressed the importance of flooding the box with crosses and always having a player in line with the back post. Hence English football developed a reputation as direct and agricultural, perhaps cemented by the poor-quality, muddy pitches that it was often played on, which did little to facilitate intricate, short passing. Advertisement McDermott describes 1997 as 'a landmark,' with Howard Wilkinson, four months after being sacked as Leeds United manager, becoming technical director at the FA. He says it 'turbocharged' the development of English football. 'That was the start of the academies, starting to get full-time coaches. Before that we had centres of excellence. Howard was very much about the facilities and the time spent (coaching).' Wilkinson authored the Charter for Quality, a 90-page document of 32 aspects that outlined how the FA would maximise player potential, with specific demands on facilities and coaching, and proposing an action plan for small-sided games programme for players aged seven to 10. 'After Howard, there was Trevor Brooking. Trevor concentrated around improving techniques that built upon Howard's work. He brought in a document called The Future Game.' That technical guide, published in 2010, was three-times as big as the Charter for Quality, In it, Brooking outlines a vision of developing players who are technically excellent and innovative coaches who train them into existence. The backdrop of the time was England's age-group teams underachieving compared with European counterparts, with game-time for English players in the Premier League on the decline. McDermott explains that developing technicians was Brooking's 'passion,' owing to Brooking himself being physically lacking but two-footed and technical — he made over 500 appearances for West Ham between 1966 and 1984, twice won the FA Cup, and played 47 times for England. 'The EPPP (Elite Player Performance Plan) came in around that time (2012) within the academies. It turbo-boosted the initial work that Howard did — more investment came into clubs.' Wilkinson, McDermott feels, built the foundations for Brooking to try and improve players from. From that, 'Dan (Ashworth) came in and brought the DNA we now work off. Maybe because I've been around a long time and I've known a lot of the players, I don't see milestones.' The crowning moment for the England DNA on the men's side was at Wembley in summer 2021, nearly seven years after it was announced. England were 2-1 up in extra time against Denmark. Nothing says pressure like being one goal ahead in the 116th minute of a European Championship semi-final on home soil. Advertisement They had been dropping deeper and deeper and restoring to defending the box — reverting to the England type of old. But then something clicked. Denmark had used their subs and had to chase the game with 10 men when an injury hit. Raheem Sterling picked up a loose ball after England cleared a Denmark corner, and the two and a half minutes that followed were everything Brooking once dreamt of. England did not score. They did not have a shot. They did not cross the ball. What they did do was stitch together 53 passes, the longest possession of the tournament. An exhausted Denmark were pulled left and right as England went up and down the pitch and from side to side. There were one-twos, triangles, even an audacious switch from centre-back Harry Maguire to marauding right-back Kieran Trippier. England captain Harry Kane said 'that was a great sign of what we're about, that shows the unselfishness of the team. We ended up keeping it for a good few minutes and killed Denmark off. It was our night tonight.' They ended up being penalty kicks away from becoming a tournament-winning team, losing against Italy in the final. That England team, managed by Southgate (he stepped up to the senior team in 2016) manifested into the very blend of everything that he and Ashworth explained the DNA was in 2014. Parts of Southgate's team were stereotypically English, being so defensively strong and compact — they only conceded twice in seven games and neither were from open play — and yet they made a first tournament final for nearly 60 years by keeping possession. They were, to borrow McDermott's term, 'cosmopolitan'. England's player of the tournament, Sterling, was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in Wembley. McDermott says that there are some age-group teams that can have a majority of players with multiple nationalities. Advertisement 'I don't remember really having competition on recruitment,' he says of the early 2000s. 'Competing for young talent (now) is probably more similar to competing for talent at a club than it was 20 years ago. 'The question also becomes an ethical one as they get a bit older. What I'm always aware of is giving somebody one or two caps, but they might have got 50 or 60 caps for another nation. Making good judgements in the interest of the player becomes a dimension.' But despite England's age-group success, McDermott still thinks of those who might have slipped through the net. One mention of Belgium's futures teams — which run parallel to their age-group sides and are for late-developing players — prompts him to bring up the relative age effect. That is the term to describe the overrepresentation of players born earlier in the year (academic year in England, calendar year elsewhere in Europe), because they tend to be the first to physically develop. 'It's always fascinated me. Quite early on, I didn't see the talent of Ashley Young when I was at Watford, we didn't offer Ashley a contract at under 16. Thankfully he stayed on. That was a near miss that I had very early in my career.' 'We are trying to get our coaches to be aware of that — it's something we do within all of our recruitment meetings. I don't want our coaches to be frightened of playing a younger player or a physically immature player just in case we lose.' He cites stats from the under-19 Euros where just 17 per cent of players were fourth-quartile babies (i.e. the youngest in their year groups). 'That includes a lot of countries that have been looking at futures projects for some time,' McDermott points out. 'It probably balances off a little bit as you get older and sometimes those August birthdays are probably more resilient because of it, because they've survived. We had quite a few when I was at Spurs: Kane, (Ryan) Mason, (Andros) Townsend were all late in the year. 'If I had a magic wand that'd be one thing I would probably look to address, especially in this country but across world football as well — it's everywhere.'
New York Times
17-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Football Architects: How Croatia became world football's great overperformers
This is the third of a six-part series looking at figures who have played a pivotal role in a modern football success story. The first piece, on the rebuilding of Ajax, can be found here. Part two, on Belgium becoming No 1 in the FIFA Rankings is here. Each article comes with a related podcast, which can be found here on The Athletic FC Tactics Podcast feed. Croatia is a nation of fragile talent. 'You have to understand — there's three and a half million of us,' says Romeo Jozak, a man who, over the past 25 years, has held almost every significant role in Croatian football. 'We have some talent, but we don't have a huge pool of talent, right? 'So when we see a fragile talent — a talent that might not reach its full potential if it's not cherished — we have to nourish it. We had a tolerance for their mistakes. Advertisement 'We're not like France, we're not like Germany, we're not like the UK. When he was growing up, we didn't have 10 of Mateo Kovacic. We only had Mateo. We had one Luka Modric. We had one Mario Mandzukic. 'We had to look after them. This is what we had.' In 2018, Croatia became the first team with a population under 10 million to reach the World Cup final in sixty years. Four years later, they reached the semi-finals. They are knockout-stage regulars — one of international football's great overperformers, whose successes eclipse many larger, better-resourced European neighbours. Now, still in its infancy, Croatia has become synonymous with its elite talent — the likes of Modric, Ivan Rakitic, and Ivan Perisic — and a fierce, indefatigable personality. Perhaps Croatia is a nation of fragile talent because, for the beginning of its history, Croatia was a fragile nation. It is a country that has been shaped by conflict, only declaring independence during the brutality of the Yugoslav Wars — which killed an estimated 130,000 people — in 1991. Modric, the nation's greatest-ever footballer, saw his grandfather's body brought home, having been executed by Serb rebels while shepherding his goats. Dejan Lovren, Croatia's long-time centre-back, fled Bosnia as a three-year-old with his parents. Both grew up as refugees. A remarkable number of players — including Modric, right-back Sime Vrsaljko, and goalkeepers Danijel Subasic and Dominik Livakovic — are from the coastal city of Zadar, one of the front lines of the war. When the war started in the early 1990s, Jozak was an 18-year-old trying to make it as a professional player. Though he played for HNK Orijent, a first-division club from the western city of Rijeka, his career was ultimately ruined by a succession of left ankle injuries. Advertisement 'I'd have been playing top-tier football, but I'd have never made the national team or played for Dinamo Zagreb,' says Jozak. 'I'd have been close, I'd have been OK, but I would never have been the top player.' Instead, he went on to hold several of the top jobs in Croatian football — heading Dinamo Zagreb's academy and becoming technical director of the Croatian FA, before returning to Dinamo as their sporting chief. Arsenal noticed — attempting to hire him as academy director in 2013 after the retirement of the legendary Liam Brady. But Jozak opted to remain in Croatia, where he had worked his way up from coaching Dinamo's under-11s to literally writing the nation's player development manual. Having worked alongside all of Croatia's modern greats, his tenures have coincided with the most successful footballing period of the nation's history. 'I was 18 when the war broke out,' says Jozak. 'I was quite old enough to be conscious of what was happening. I was raised on the Yugoslavian anthem, with a red star on my flag, and so it was strange — but obviously things weren't right. I was lucky I wasn't drafted by the army, which I easily could have been. The war was brutal. My close family were not affected, but some in my broader family were, or even killed. 'Later, when I was the technical director, these experiences were a factor. People were fighting for Croatia, people in living memory had fought for our freedom in a brutal, unpleasant way. And our team was made up of kids from that time — who had seen planes go over, dropping bombs, people being shot and killed. It was something we were processing. 'And so there was a patriotism factor, it did boost our motivation, make us the way we were. Yes, we had genetic talent, we were a passionate nation, but I'd say seven out of 10 players had this drive inside, and this hunger — a subconscious passion. We learned that you go beyond when you need to do something.' One of the country's first significant moments as an independent nation came in the 1998 World Cup, when Croatia finished third. Their run included a 3-0 win over Germany in the quarter-finals, and a 2-1 victory against the Netherlands in the third-fourth play-off. 'After the war, we did not know how talented we were, or how good we'd be,' Jozak explains. 'Croatia — a new country. What was that going to be? It took me almost 10 years before football helped me take it in — when we finished third, I realised: 'Oh, listen — we're a country'.' But the players in that team — the likes of Davor Suker, Slaven Bilic, and Zvonimir Boban — had all grown up as part of Yugoslavia. The incipient country's FA recognised the need for a uniquely Croatian pathway of talent development. For several years, results did not live up to the nation's early promise — Croatia did not qualify for Euro 2000, while they failed to escape the group stages at their next three major tournaments. Advertisement But at the academy level, beginning in the 2000s, players were beginning to come through. In 2001, Jozak was working as the head coach of Dinamo Zagreb's second team when a 16-year-old Modric arrived at the club. 'Did I notice something, did I see something?' says Jozak. 'At 18, he wasn't one of the most talented prospects, we couldn't say: 'We knew the guy'. I didn't. Nobody knew. He was just a young, skinny blond guy. 'But the one thing that was inescapable, that is fact, and that is a key part of his play now is that he was so protective of the ball. When he was playing as a No 6, in defensive midfield, we subconsciously knew that he was not going to lose the ball. He could be pressed in the back by two guys — where if you lose the ball, you'll likely concede — and he was always switching, turning to the side, and wiggling out. In his first touch, he perfectly set up his body position — and he's still doing it now, at nearly 40. 'And at that time, I remember being concerned when we played away — he was 17, we were Dinamo, and there were some big guys who wanted to be aggressive. But he'd just calm everyone down — not with fancy moves and touches and dribbling, but with his running, his reliability, his aggressive defending. We still see each other and speak about these times — I'm so privileged to be at least one puzzle piece in his own big picture.' But Modric did not emerge from a vacuum. Over the course of the 2000s, Croatia had been implementing a series of youth reforms to help develop players — aided by several useful pre-existing conditions. 'Croatia is a serious football environment, but not the most serious football environment,' says Jozak. 'This means that the first division is strong enough for young players to be developed, but weak enough that the kids actually get a chance.' When Jozak was the academy director at Dinamo, youth development was the club's lifeblood — both in producing first-team players, and eventually funding the club through their sales. As the most historic and successful club in Croatia, Jozak would try and tempt the country's top young talent to the capital. Advertisement 'In terms of having players who could impact the national team, one huge criterion is internal competition,' explains Jozak. 'Never mind 11 — if you have 20 players in a squad fighting against each other on a daily basis, they have to improve to survive. 'So we wanted to bring the best talent to Dinamo to create the most competitive internal competition against each other. And when it was not sufficient to play against the other Croatian teams, we would put them in to play against the higher age groups — the under-16s against the under-18s, the under-18s would play the under-20s, and so on. We artificially created these conditions. 'Sometimes, when I was at Dinamo, people complained that we would sign a starting player from another team, and they would be on our bench. But he would be fighting in training sessions, the starting players would be feeling pressure, they'd both be producing their best. So we'd bring in the best under-16s to strengthen the top talents like Luka or (Josko) Gvardiol.' In particular, the competitiveness gave birth to a glut of talent in one position in particular — midfield. In the 2018 World Cup squad alone, Croatia boasted Modric, Rakitic, Kovacic and Marcelo Brozovic, four elite players at Champions League level. This was no coincidence — rather, Croatia's strength across the team stemmed from a holistic obsession with the position. 'Vrsaljko was a right-back, and we knew he was going to be a right-back,' says Jozak, of the former Atletico Madrid defender who won 52 international caps. 'But for most of his time in the academy, when I was director, we got him to play defensive midfielder. 'Why? When you're at No 6, you have to play from all four sides — defending, attacking, left, right, switching, switching, switching. It helped him massively. (Vedran) Corluka, the same. Advertisement 'Not many people know this, but Gvardiol played as a No 10 until he was 16 years old. He was tall, left-footed, and that's why the guy has amazing technique. And then he grew to 190cm, was aggressive, fast — and that's why he's such a good defender. 'But we always tried to push them towards the middle. It would improve your reactions, positioning, tactics, mentality… you'd physically be running the most. And then, even if you aren't good enough to play central midfield professionally, you will probably be good enough for your primary position.' This level of competition meant that those players who did survive as central midfielders — that central quartet from the 2018 World Cup — had been tested against the nation's best since their early teens. 'When you take the talented wingers, right-backs, centre-backs, and place them artificially into midfield, the specialists have to be so much better,' says Jozak. 'You know your own position will be in question if you don't strengthen. 'Once, at Dinamo Zagreb, we had open tryouts. Kids came from across the whole of the Balkans. We had 25 of the most talented boys, they all came onto the pitch, and when the coach asked where they played, 24 of them said they were midfielders.' Powered by their team of midfielders, the Croatian team began to fly. The tiny nation were runners-up in the 2018 World Cup, bronze-medallists four years later, and have established themselves as a regular force in the knockout stages. Compared to the other nations of the former Yugoslavia — Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Kosovo — Croatia have had remarkable success. The other six have just three knockout appearances at major tournaments between them — Serbia at the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000, and Slovenia at Euro 2024 — and have never won a knockout match. Croatia alone have 14 (with seven wins). Why are they so much more successful, given their similarities in size, culture, and history? Advertisement 'It's a tricky question,' replies Jozak. 'And I can ask the same question back — why have Serbia done so much better in basketball than us? We've struggled since Drazen Petrovic's time in the 1990s. But I think the answer is the same — from 2000 onwards, we've had a clear structure of football governance and strategy in the country.' After moving leaving Dinamo to become technical director of the Croatian FA in 2013, Jozak impressed the importance of five criteria in becoming an elite side: To this end, he literally wrote the country's coaching manual — identifying over 100 technical traits for coaches to spot and develop. These lessons are still being used — and are producing a new generation of Croatian players. Alongside Gvardiol, Dinamo Zagreb midfield products Martin Baturina and Petar Sucic are two of the most promising. Jozak is now working for the Saudi Arabian FA as technical director of the Future Falcons, a national project to produce a squad of outstanding domestic players for the 2034 World Cup. Historically, one of the development stories that Jozak prides most is that of striker Mandzukic — the perfect example of a fragile talent. 'I was coaching the under-17s at Dinamo Zagreb, and they were already serious guys — most of them were in the national team,' he explains. 'But we had a tournament in Germany scheduled, and so I decided to trial some local guys from the area. And people told me: 'Listen, there's this under-17, a little shorter, but an amazing talent.' 'And so he comes with us — and he looked like a 13-year-old. He came up to my waist. I'm not exaggerating. I asked him to confirm he was born in 1986. He was literally 40 centimetres smaller than everyone else, but he was buzzing around like a guy on a motorbike, like a mosquito. He was just short. Advertisement 'So when he came back to Zagreb, I told him that I couldn't take him now — he would not have played at that level, but to stay at his other side in Zagreb. And he did, he grew big, and we have the Mario Mandzukic we know today. (He scored 41 goals in 81 Dinamo appearances after being signed three years later.) 'You have to predict the talent, anticipate what the conclusion could be — and, after maybe Davor Suker, he became the greatest Croatian striker of all time.' Of course, Croatia lost the occasional talent. In 2015, Jozak led the delegation that attempted to convince Christian Pulisic, of Croatian descent, to opt for the Balkan nation over the United States. 'One of our age-group sides played a friendly against the United States,' he remembers. 'We lost 5-0, which was a surprise, because we were a strong team — but they were all big guys except for one. He was the No 10, and we spotted his name was Pulisic. I got goosebumps, because it was a Croatian name on his back. 'So I immediately spoke to his father, who explained that the boy's grandfather had moved to the United States. And the grandfather wanted Pulisic to play for Croatia, and the father was half-and-half. And so we spoke to Christian, proposed he played for Croatia, and offered him citizenship. At the time, the UEFA rules were that you could not play in Europe before 18 if you did not have an EU passport. 'One day, on my table, I had a request from the Pulisic family to issue Christian's passport. We said, 'OK, let's do it', because we can say that we need this talent for Croatian football. And as a federation request, we were able to make it go faster. So I speak to the father, and ask if it was because he wanted to play for Croatia — and he said, 'No, Borussia Dortmund are after him'. 'So we gave him the passport even though we knew he wasn't going to play for us. We really fought, speaking to the father, to the grandfather, and I remember the grandfather saying: 'The kid just wants to play for the U.S.'. And you have to respect the decision. Rakitic was playing in Switzerland all his life, and he suddenly said: 'I want to play for Croatia'. So we gained one and lost one.' Jozak's squads were still strong enough. One of his proudest achievements was how, at the beginning of his tenure at the Croatian FA, they were the world's only team to qualify for the under-17 World Cup, under-20 World Cup, and senior World Cup. At major tournaments, the team's calling card became their ability to emerge from tight games. During the 2018 World Cup, they made their way to the final after two penalty shootout wins and one in extra time — though people forget their 3-0 win over Argentina in the group stages. Advertisement In those games, psychology can be the key difference — something which had been central in Jozak's mind when hiring manager Zlatko Dalic in 2017. 'He fully understood the chemistry, the passion, the patriotic side of Croatia,' says Jozak. 'He has huge social intelligence, huge emotional intelligence, and a super understanding of our football. He's connected with daily Croatian life — and all that means he was the perfect psychologist for Croatia's circumstances. And then, of course, he had that squad in their prime…' This was Croatian football's high point — arguably the most surprising World Cup finalists in history. Late in games, their midfield, forged through competition, took them over. 'They were more than team-mates,' explains Jozak. 'Modric and Kovacic are godfathers to each other's kids. Brozovic and Rakitic are similar — all huge friends. 'And so at Croatia, we may have developed super talents playing in top teams — but they would fight for each other so much more than regular players. They would step in and fight for each other, because of what they've been through together, because they're family. They'd go beyond. The feeling was always this: 'If I have a bad day, I know you will step in and save me'.' (Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Simon Stacpoole/Offside, VI Images via Getty Images)
SBS Australia
15-07-2025
- Business
- SBS Australia
Turning a heritage five-foot hawker into a global success
SBS Indonesia ha conversato con Ms. Hana Tania, CEO of Ayam Penyet Ria for Australia, to delve into the fascinating story of their growth and the obstacles they've overcome to achieve such significant success. Hana Tania - CEO Ayam Penyet Ria Australia Credit: Ayam Penyet Ria Ms. Tania shared insights into the company's journey, highlighting the strategic decisions that propelled them from a local favorite to a global player. Ayam Penyet Ria South Melbourne branch Credit: Ayam Penyet Ria She also elaborated on her personal path into the family business, revealing that it wasn't her initial career aspiration but ultimately became a fulfilling endeavor. Credit: Ayam Penyet Ria Listen to SBS Indonesian every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 3pm. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram , and don't miss our podcasts .
Gulf Business
12-07-2025
- Business
- Gulf Business
HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum
F or nearly four decades, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum has been at the helm of one of the most remarkable success stories in global aviation. At the helm of the Emirates Airline and Group since its inception in 1985, Sheikh Ahmed has shaped Emirates into the world's most profitable airline and a flagship of Dubai Inc's rise as a global hub for trade, tourism, and finance. In FY 2024–25, under his leadership, the Emirates Group recorded its best-ever financial results — a pre-tax profit of Dhs22.7bn, revenue of Dhs145.4bn, and record cash reserves of Dhs53.4b. Emirates alone carried nearly 54 million passengers, launched a $5bn retrofit programme, and prepared for delivery of new Airbus A350s and Boeing 777 freighters. The group declared a dividend of Dhs6bn to its owner, the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD) — a testament to the strategic value it continues to generate. Sheikh Ahmed's aviation career began as president of the Dubai Department of Civil Aviation, the same year Emirates was launched with just two leased aircraft. Today, Emirates operates over 260 aircraft, serves over 100 destinations. The transformation of Dubai International Airport into the world's fourth busiest, the creation of Dubai World Central (DWC), and the rise of flydubai — all bear his imprint. His influence extends well beyond aviation. Sheikh Ahmed chairs Dubai Airports, Dubai Holding, Emirates NBD, flydubai, and the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority. He also plays a pivotal role in shaping Dubai's fiscal and investment strategies and serves as a global ambassador for Dubai's economic ambitions. A graduate of the University of Denver, Sheikh Ahmed has been recognised by institutions such as the Royal Aeronautical Society and serves as a patron of several charitable causes. Despite overseeing a vast portfolio of entities, his leadership is anchored in clear principles: long-term value creation, customer-centricity, talent investment, and unwavering resilience through global headwinds. As the Emirates Group gears up for a future shaped by new technologies, infrastructure, and expansion, Sheikh Ahmed remains one of the Gulf's most iconic and enduring chief executives — a symbol of Dubai's bold vision and its global aviation leadership.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Young Aussie earning $300,000 a year in job reveals reality of 'mind-boggling' salary
A young Aussie worker has shared how he went from not making a cent for six months to earning close to $300,000 a year. The real estate industry can be an extremely lucrative one, but it involves a huge amount of sacrifice and hustle before you can see the big bucks. Ethan Forbes has been working as a real estate agent on the Sunshine Coast for the past two years. The 24-year-old told Yahoo Finance he earned $300,000 last financial year, including superannuation and taxes, but it was a tough ride to get to where he is now. 'I wasn't making any money for six months and I was basically broke, had no money to my name,' he said. RELATED Aussie earning $300,000 a year in job after completing three day course Woolworths payment change hits dozens of supermarkets today Superannuation 'red alert' for millions as $1 billion in retirement savings feared lost Forbes completed a three-day course to get into the industry. While he said this initial course was "pretty easy", the work it takes to stay in the industry and move up wasn't. Forbes worked 12-hour days, seven days a week, for the first year of his real estate career. He said his job involved a lot of rejection and knocking on doors for hours to put himself out there and try and find sellers. 'I went really hard in that first year. That was the year that I was like, I've got to make this work and I was working seven days,' he said. Unlike most jobs where you receive a base salary for your work, real estate agents are paid on commission, so if you don't list or sell anything, you don't make money. 'I love it like that. Because for me, if I'm not getting a base salary, if I don't get my ass into gear and work then I'm going to starve,' he said. 'It's more risk and more reward.' Forbes ran his own lawn mowing business after he finished school and said this was what gave him the work ethic and drive he needed to become successful in the real estate industry. While Forbes said the long hours meant his family, friends, hobbies, and health had to 'take a backseat', he said his sacrifice was now starting to pay off. 'I'm only now starting to see the fruits of the labour from all the days where I was just out for 12 hours knocking on doors and no one knew who I was,' he said. Forbes recently went viral after sharing he was earning nearly $300,000 a year after only being a real estate agent for two years. For this financial year, he said he brought more than $500,000 in gross commission income, which he splits with his agency LJ Hooker. 'It's insane for me. This is the most money I have ever earned in my entire life this year. It's quite mind-boggling,' he said. Forbes' average sale price is between $800,000 and $850,000, with his most expensive sale being $1.302 million. The average number of properties he has sold per year is 28. Commissions vary and are negotiable, with Forbes noting his commissions usually sit between 1.95 to 2.7 per cent. Forbes said his income varied hugely month to month. In December last year, for example, he generated $250,000 in sales after listing 12 properties. From that, he took home $125,000. "[December] was the best month I've ever had in a long shot, probably by like three or four times," he said. "But then the first three months of 2025, I brought in $0." While Forbes said he is happy all his sacrifices have now paid off, he said he did experience burnout while trying to get ahead and the work took its toll on his mental health. 'You lose a listing here and there and you might not sell one, or it'll withdraw. A lot of that plays on your mental health and you've got to be really careful,' he said. 'Then it's the constant rejection. You're constantly talking to people who don't want to talk to you. There are a lot of negative things. You go through really high moments and really low moments as well.' Forbes said things had slowed down a little bit now and he was trying to strike a better work-life balance and do the best job he could for clients, while also being there for his family, friends and self. He is still working six days a week from Monday to Saturday and is available to clients 24/7. But he said he isn't putting in 12-hour days anymore, and instead tries to work between eight and nine hours. Forbes said he has made a conscious effort to try and be honest and transparent with people. 'My least favourite thing about being a real estate agent is that I'm a real estate agent," he said. "A lot of people don't like real estate agents, and I get it. You see the standard one, they are everywhere, the dude in the suit and tie who is a bit uppity and arrogant. 'I understand that. I'm a larrakin, I'm just a bloke, I'm 24 years old and I'm just here to help people.'Sign in to access your portfolio
