Football Federation Australia release the second edition of the national football curriculum The Hyundai A-League is back for its ninth season, with fans set for another feast of football across the summer of 2013/14. There's hope for the future, but patience will be needed. THE Socceroos will soon be competing with the giants of the football world, all it takes is a bit of patience. Decades of patience, to be more precise. But Han Berger, Australian football's national director, insists it will be worth the wait. Speaking at the announcement of the second edition of the national football curriculum, Berger explained that Australia needs to go through a "fundamental transformation" before it's able to compete at an elite level. That transformation involves moving away from a physical, direct style of play in favour of adopting a more modern, possession-based approach. Think Spain, Germany and Barcelona. Now think of the recent successes those teams have enjoyed. It's a long-term process and one Berger admits is difficult to sell, but he believes it's the only way forward. "I'm convinced that only a consistent, structured, long-term approach will help us to develop consistently generations of players that can make Australia competitive at a top level," Berger said on Friday. To really make it happen, we call it a fundamental transformation, there needs to be a shift and change in culture and mentality. Those are processes that do not happen overnight. But the simple fact of the matter is we look at the big picture. At top level it's impossible to think you can ever be successful consistently with a physical, direct playing style. Yes, Celtic beat Barcelona in a one-off in the Champions League. But on a consistent basis the direct, physical play is not the way to go because modern, top level football has moved away from that. Football Federation Australia will look to implement the modernised playing style from the grassroots up, but Berger believes there are already signs of improvement. He's noticed positive changes in the A-League, but it was during the Young Socceroos' recent Under-20 World Cup campaign that Berger found the most encouraging signs. "The first two years (of the tournament) we were only there to make up the numbers - we were nowhere near the required level," he said. This time we were very competitive. We amazed a lot of our opponents and experts with our style of football - totally different from what they expected from us. The only thing is it just was not good enough. I think we are almost there, we just need to play more games at that level because we still make too many naive mistakes and you immediately get punished for that at that level. Berger says the success of the initiative stands or falls by how much it will be embraced.