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Pim’s comments post-match are a bit rich in expressing disappointment with the 0-1 loss to China last night in saying; “We have 70,000 people in the stands and they want to see more chances, they want us to score goals.”
The trouble with having ‘mercenary’ foreign coaches for the national team is, despite their football expertise, they have no interest in the national interests of the game in a country not of their birth or cultural background.
It said a lot that China, in contrast, fielded their first team despite being already knocked out of the world cup, ostensibly to salvage “national pride” whereas at home, Pim had sent all of his B-Team ‘stars’ on holiday and fielded a ‘C-Team’ for a kick and giggle in front of 70,000 fans in Sydney, including many names and faces unrecognizable to most of the spectators.
Clearly “national pride” for Australia was nowhere on his agenda, nor was furtherance of interest in football in our nation, and really, let’s be honest, it is Pim’s decision alone that forced 70,000 mercurial Sydney siders to watch the Socceroos lose a game they should have won at canter.
Pim has emerged as being a pragmatist of epic proportions, purely focussed on one goal and one goal only, that of qualification for the world cup, and gives no consideration, even as a secondary agenda, to what is in the best interests of football in Australia, ie fielding a recognizable squad of Socceroos, and beating what is only the 79th ranked team in the world, at home.
Walking to my car with the crowd outside ANZ stadium, I heard a father trying to explain to his 8 year old daughter, “don’t worry, the game doesn’t mean anything”.
The upset bewilderment of his 8 year old was hardly dispelled by an attempted explanation of the intricacies of the qualifying system for the fourth round of world cup qualification and the fact that we didn’t need to win this game competition-wise, and I suspect the same applied to most of the 70,000 spectators, most of whom are still to be really won over to the round ball code.
But at least in the case of one man standing the the Socceroos dugout, her father was right. The game didn’t mean anything, at least to Pim.
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