Ron Smith (football coach)

Football manager infobox
playername = Ron Smith


fullname = Ronald Smith
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1949|5|5
cityofbirth = London
countryofbirth = England
position = Manager
currentclub =
years = 1966
1968-1971
1971-1972
1972-1973
1974-1975
clubs = Tottenham Hotspur
Borough Road College
Kingstonian
Southall
South Melbourne
caps(goals) =
manageryears = 1979
1986-1995
1995-1997
1998-1999
2005
2006-2007
2007-
managerclubs = IBK Keflavik FC
AIS
Johor FC
Sabah FA
Australia "(Interim)"
Perth Glory
Australia U23's

Ronald (Ron) Smith (born in London, England) is an Australian football (soccer) coach. Smith's most recent position was as coach of Perth Glory FC in the A-League.

Playing career

Smith played as a junior for North London team Tottenham Hotspur before injury forced an end to his top flight football ambitions. He then went onto play for a number of non-league teams in England before emigrating to Australia to play for South Melbourne SC in 1974.

Managerial career

AIS

Smith worked as the Assistant Coach of the football (soccer) program at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra from 1982 to 1986, and then as Head Coach from 1986 to 1996. During this period he mentored a number of players including Mark Viduka, Craig Moore, Lucas Neill and Josip Simunic.

Malaysia

Smith coached Sabah FA in 1996 and 1997 and Johor FC in 1998 and 1999 in the Malaysian Super League. Smith served as technical director to the Football Association of Malaysia between 1999 and 2002.

Perth Glory

In July 2006, Smith resigned as full time Technical Manager with the FFA to take on the vacant coach's job at Perth Glory FC although he still keeps a part time role with the national team. [ [http://www6.sbs.com.au/a-league/index.php?pid=st&cid=73640 Smith Grabs the Glory] "The World Game", July 2006] [ [http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=374416&cc=3436 Glory's Smith 'best coach in Australia'] , ESPN, 26 July 2006] David Mitchell serves as Smith's assistant and the two planned to rebuild the squad for the 2007-08 season.

On November 3, 2007, Ron was sacked as Perth Glory's coach, after 11 matches without a win this season and 5 points adrift at the bottom of the A-League table. This poor run when combined with the previous season meant that Perth Glory under Ron Smith had gone 18 matches without a win, one of the worst records in any top flight managerial history. [http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22697180-5003412,00.html] The club sent him to Bali afterwards for a well earned holiday.

Technical Manager

Smith spent time in 2003 at Liverpool FC assisting Gérard Houllier with video analysis before returning to his adopted Australia in 2004 to serve as Technical Manager to the Australian national football team.

"My function with the national team is to provide information to the coaches. To be able to break a game down into pieces and to say if you want to quickly look at all of the possession that a team has, then you can. One thing that I found from looking at isolated parts of the game is that you can see patterns emerge very, very quickly, because it is happening more frequently than in watching a normal game over a ninety minute period."

In June 2005 Smith was appointed interim coach of the Australian national team until the appointment of Guus Hiddink when he resumed his position as Technical Manager. Ron Smith uses "Sportscode" digital video analysis software that allows coaches to analyse football video by breaking the play down into its component parts.

References

External links

* [http://www.ozfootball.net/ark/Players/S/SI.html Oz Football profile]