What to make of Carl Veart’s reign as Adelaide United coach?

As Carl Veart departs Adelaide United as the club’s longest reigning coach, Round Ball Australia takes stock of the ups and downs of his half decade in charge.

Strong player development

With a history of working in Football South Australia’s development program, it is little surprise that one of Carl Veart’s defining strengths during his reign as Adelaide United’s Head Coach was providing professional pathways for South Australian players.

This fact was evident from the beginning, where Veart blooded the untried Taras Gomulka in the heart of his team’s midfield in the COVID-hub to great success after taking over from the departing Gertjan Verbeek. Since then, Veart has been able to blood players such as Musa Toure, Nestory Irankunda, Alex Popovic, Jonny Yull, Ethan Alagich, Panagiotis Kikianis, Luka Jovanovic, and Panashe Madanha, to name a few.

Importantly, for the club’s financial health, Carl Veart has provided a platform for many of his players to earn a move overseas while also netting the Reds a transfer fee. While the league is beginning to trend in this direction, Carl Veart’s Adelaide United helped pioneer the way, and it will hold football in South Australia and the state’s representation on a national team level in good stead.

Bridesmaid syndrome

While Carl Veart rides into the sunset as Adelaide United’s longest-ever serving coach, he also has to own the title of the first full-time Reds head coach since John Kosmina’s second reign to serve a term without winning silverware.

While Josep Gombau, Guillermo Amor, and Gertjan Verbeek each made one final and won it, Marco Kurz also managed to win a final after an initial defeat the year before. Carl Veart, on the other hand, never managed to win an A-League Grand Final or Australia Cup Final. His side was always a step away from the big day.

Veart’s spell at Adelaide United ends with his side making three A-League Semi-Finals and one Australia Cup Semi-Final. While Veart and his side must be congratulated for their consistency in an inconsistent league, reaching the edge of the pantheon on so many occasions without earning the right for a shot at greatness surely hurts everyone involved with the club.

The appeal of attack and the dread of defence

Adelaide United have not been without their attacking woes throughout their history. With the Red Army used to praising regular goalscorer “Ow(e)n Goal” and central defender Dylan McGowan even winning the club’s Golden Boot, effective attacking football has not been a constant presence in the City of Churches.

Carl Veart changed that, and for the entirety of his reigns, regardless of whether his team was in or out of form, one thing was guaranteed: goals. In his first two regular seasons, Veart’s side scored 38 and 39 goals, respectively, before taking a massive jump to 53, 52, and again 53.

While those numbers are impressive, the Reds did not receive attention from neutral fans because they were the only team doing the scoring. While Carl Veart’s side was scoring heavily, it was conceding just as much, with his five seasons ahead seeing his side concede 41, 31, 46, 53, and 55 goals.

At times, it almost felt that the Reds had to score heavily just to keep up with the goals they were letting in. While the wins felt sweet, losses, especially in the final months of his reign to the likes of Melbourne Victory and Macarthur, tasted just as bitter.

While attacking football often kept the Reds hanging with the big hitters on game day, their defensive ineptitude kept them away from the head of the pack and, subsequently, silverware.

A proud and clear South Australian identity

The COVID-19 pandemic pause and Gertjan Verbeek’s exit really mark a crossroads for Adelaide United. A club within an organisation that faces its own mortality, it is only natural to sit back and consider what it stands for.

Amid the 2020 chaos, the Reds’ introspection, involving multiple club stakeholders, revealed that a proud local identity was paramount. Systems were put in place to angle the club in that direction, and Carl Veart’s success as interim manager in the New South Wales hub, which got him the job permanently, contributed to that image.

Five seasons later, there is no question about it. Adelaide United is a club that unapologetically promotes local and looks to provide pathways to the higher echelons of the football world for its young talent. This approach has led to exciting football and crowd numbers that are the envy of the majority of the A-League competition.

Any success that follows through Veart’s successor surely has to be partly attributed to the road he has helped pave.

Let down by finances and squad building

Squad building is not easy, nor is it meant to be. Putting together the right mix of talent, profiles, abilities, and personalities is an unenviable task. Add a cash-strapped club in a cash-strapped league to the equation, and the difficulty metric grows considerably.

Dropping the age of your squad by a considerable amount is a calculated risk. For that risk to pay off, the experienced players surrounding your young core must be difference-makers. Unfortunately for Carl Veart and Adelaide United, that has not been the case.

While experienced campaigners like Craig Goodwin, Zach Clough, and Stefan Mauk have made a consistent difference on the pitch, other players have not been able to make the same impact. Isaias and Javi Lopez were both those kinds of players in their prime years in the league, but as they have started winding down their careers in the past couple of seasons, their influence has understandably diminished.

Meanwhile, someone like Ryan Tunnicliffe has barely been used since arriving in Australia, making Reds fans envious when looking around the league and seeing the impact other visa players are making. Even someone like Bart Vriends has been unable to add the consistent defensive steel this side has sorely lacked.

When a club is admittedly short of money, the big moves it makes simply have to work, or holes begin exposing themselves throughout the squad. While there is much conjecture about Veart’s achievements and use of particular players, it is only fair to reflect that his squad could have been better equipped for the job at hand.

Final Reflection

Even Veart’s harshest critics have to admit that his reign at the club has been a success. He has shaped Adelaide United’s identity on and off the field, and the fact that he leaves as the club’s longest-reigning manager is no coincidence.

While the Reds had one of the worst defences in the competition, the attacking side of the game evened out the negative, but it was not enough to achieve silverware.

Adelaide United will hire its next manager using metrics that Carl Veart solidified. Whoever that may be, they may just enjoy the fruit of Veart’s labour.

Veart leaves the club as a crowd favourite, with his playing and coaching days holding him in good stead and forever linking him with the club. It will be a surprise to no one if, like the club’s first Head Coach, John Kosmina, he ends up holding this position again in the future.