SWANSEA, WALES - MARCH 11: Swansea City manager Brendan Rogers celebrates victory with Garry Monk and Gylfi Sigurdsson (L) after the Barclays Premier League match between Swansea City and Manchester City at the Liberty Stadium on March 11, 2012 in Swansea, United Kingdom. (Photo by Scott Heavey/) rodgers.jpg

Breaking the stereotype ... Swansea City's Brendan Rodgers. Photo: Getty Images

There is a man 17,000 kilometres away who has become an extremely important example for the Australian game.

His name is Brendan Rodgers. You would have heard of him by now, manager of Swansea City in the English Premier League, a team that is performing feats of football wizardry on a fraction of the budgets of their competitors.

And Rodgers's team is doing it in style, passing their way into the hearts of neutrals and proving what can be achieved with the right vision, courage and methodological tools. Swansea have four of the top 10 passers in the Premier League, have out-possessed and outplayed all of the glamour clubs including past masters Arsenal, and are sitting a lofty eighth on the table. Along the way, Rodgers has proven and provided many lessons Australia should acknowledge and apply as there are parallels in what Rodgers is achieving, and what we are seeking to achieve as a nation.

Firstly, he had to overcome a culture, as do we. One that tends towards a bash-and-crash, end-to-end game that fundamentally rejects the importance of keeping possession and the centrality of passing the ball to both style and results.

Secondly, he has proven the rule by being the exception, simply because Rodgers's passing football is so out of place. This is instructive to witness, because we see clearly the prevailing cultural understanding and beliefs which used to be our own. As Rodgers has moved forward and rejected the past, so have we.

Thirdly, he has proven that a British manager can become a coach and produce high quality, passing football. Of course, anyone can with the right education and vision, but for Rodgers to do so is particularly laudable because the cultural pull is so strong. The same applies here. Australian coaches can produce outstanding football when educated to do so but the prevailing wisdom and much of the game commentary is still opposed to this style.

The important point about Rodgers is that in Spain, Holland or Italy his football would not be a contradiction. The discussion would only be about the quality, not the style, whereas in England it is seen as something worthy of wonder.

And it is, for the fact that Rodgers's more patient style is difficult to implement in a country where the fans place value on seeing the ball travelling from end to end, not side to side. Rodgers has talked about the importance of Swansea's fans understanding and accepting what the team are trying to achieve, another lesson for Australia about the value of literate fans.

In football, you must be careful what you wish for and mindful to place value on elements that are both exciting and enjoyable as well as fundamental to building a high quality, technical game, and this is why the football media has a critical, educational role to play.

One that it is yet to accept because much of our media remains respectful to, and thus perpetuates, the football that Rodgers has rejected. Swansea's football has also been produced with a team devoid of superstars, to put it mildly, and proves once again that coaches who complain about the inability of their players to perform or play a certain way simply lack the competence to produce it.

Time and again, we see examples of outstanding football being produced from relatively average groups of players, Atletico Bilbao being another case in point, and this golden rule of football is yet to germinate in our own football culture where players are too often seen as the problem. This goes for our state academies, junior national teams and A-League clubs as well. We cannot yet play like Barcelona, but a high-quality coach can produce excellent possession football just as they are.

Accepting this rule would accelerate Australia's football development 20 years, by placing pressure on every coach to learn how to teach, not simply manage by personnel. But perhaps the most interesting point about Rodgers, particularly for a country like ours that has traditionally relied on a British vision of the game, is that Rodgers was educated under one of the finest continental coaches in the the game, Jose Mourinho, at Chelsea.

Rodgers called his time under Mourinho like attending a "Harvard of football", and it is this that is perhaps most valuable for Australia, as it vindicates the change in direction and methodology towards a more technical view of the game.

Rodgers is a wonderful guide for Australian football because he did so many things that we are trying to do. He moved away from his own British culture, achieved excellence with a relatively modest group of players and proved that anyone with an open mind can learn a different way. It is precisely because his football is so counter-cultural, that proves we are on the right path.

For these reasons, Rodgers has my congratulations, my admiration and my thanks.