The FFA serves the ‘bad China’ and we want answers
Roar Pro By The Bear, 19 Aug 2008 The Bear is a Roar Pro
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- A-League, China, football, Football Federation Australia, Glory, Graham Arnold, Perth Glory, press conference, South Africa
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There is a time for building confidence in your FFA and there is a time for accountability to be the cornerstone of that confidence. After the Olyroos’ performance at the Olympics, this is one of those times.
Bonita Mersiades, Public Affairs of the FFA has said, “people are entitled to their view and for every person who thinks that the team played poorly at the Olympics, there will be another who says that it played well.”
“We did not say that we are champions of the world. All we said was that we would like our teams to win, which is not unreasonable. Why else would we go there?”
Well, Bonita, and the FFA, many of us saw these Olympics as a chance to put on our best performance and best team in a very tough group.
None of this was attained.
Even by your own standards for this tournament, by failing to get a medal, you have failed. And now you are back-peddling.
Football Federation Australia, as your employers, the Australian Public, we would like to arrange an appointment with you. We would like a report as to how our Olympic team failed to win a medal, not even clearing the group phase.
We were told confidently how we had a good chance for a medal. However, many of us noticed that some great talent was left out, and the eventual team had very little semblance to the team that got us into the Olympics in the first place.
I even recall the strut and nonchalance of the FFA’s manager in the pre-Olympic press conference. It was a serious medal assault, not a development luxury, so we were told.
You looked us straight in the eyes and said that a medal was the benchmark for success. You assured us that the best team had been assembled. It is only fitting, then, that your appointed coach be present to explain these details.
Many of us saw the warning signs.
We started noticing that our captain was being played out of position in the lead-up games, and that another notable defensive player seemed destined to be sitting on the bench, replaced by a new recruit.
We actually had a wealth of talent, defensively, in the squad already, and then we had been told that the over-age North was to be joining the lads in China as well.
We could have been building our own Great Wall, it seemed, if required.
There were many head scratching moments with the forward line, as well.
A player freshly drafted in from the Perth Glory started in two of our three group games, despite being told he was earmarked for a bench role and to be used only in cases where a game needed something different up front.
A lot could be said of the tactics, but I feel it would be unjust to ask questions before your manager, Graham Arnold, had the opportunity to be present himself to face the music.
The selections, alone, imply a manager not up to the task.
It is only fitting that we arrange this appointment soon as we all have much work to do. We have a World Cup in South Africa to prepare for, and another Asian Cup (we want a much better effort and result, then last time) ready to kick off in the New Year.
And I think you shall find that these words are not unduly harsh, nor unrepresentative of the majority of Australian football fans.
We are not interested in repeating the mistakes of the past, so let’s hear it.
Give us all something to be confident about. The credibility of Australian Football is at stake.
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August 19th 2008 @ 11:00am
jimbo said | August 19th 2008 @ 11:00am | Report comment
True Tah,
I’m sure Arnie is a top bloke and would love to have a beer with us, but . . .
You Rugby guys have tasted the success of a 2 World Cup victories, Super 12 titles, Bledisloe Cups, which are the pinnacle of world Rugby.
We football supporters are still waiting to even get to a final in any of our major competitions, including an Asian Cup or even an Asian Champions League game.
So we are getting very critical of failure and need to push our administrators very hard to do the very best to improve our game.
When you do worse at a competition than you did last time and your Olyroos team is not a joy to watch even in defeat, then you have to demand change to get that required improvement.
August 19th 2008 @ 11:03am
jimbo said | August 19th 2008 @ 11:03am | Report comment
Slippery,
I’d love Arnie to be coaching the Canberra girls, I’ll see if Doris wants to have a run . . .
and I’d love Gary Van Egg to be given the Assistant Socceroos job . . .
August 19th 2008 @ 11:31am
dasilva said | August 19th 2008 @ 11:31am | Report comment
Ok the performance at the Olympics were shameful. Not because we lost most of the game and only have one point but because we played poorly for 2 and a half games (excluding the first half against Ivory Coast). It was a dismal performance. We don’t expec the team to beat argentina or even to out possess the team (which is more difficult then beating them) but we expect them to try and keep the ball against them instead of launching long balls to Archie and Nikita. To me that was the critical failure of Arnold.
The selection would have been acceptable if Arnold said that Burns and Djite were admitted for them to play for new clubs. however Dario Vidosic omission were bit puzzling especially when he played well in the qualifiers.
I actually believe that Mark Milligan has potential as a DM as he played ok against Ivory Coast and a few A-league games for Sydney for that position. its the only position he can play considering that North and Spiranovic were better options in the back. He certainly went off the rails recently and played poorly in the first two games but I think that was because of him instead of being a DM. He would have played just as bad as a central defender
August 19th 2008 @ 11:33am
Slippery Jim said | August 19th 2008 @ 11:33am | Report comment
I don’t know about all the hysteria. It was inevitable no matter what happened in Beijing, due to the vicious media feeding frenzy when it comes to Arnold. I am one of those weird people who respects and enjoys watching a good defensive performance, and I feel we gave one of these in the Olympics. All three teams in our group were far superior to us technically, but tactically I felt we matched them. We were never going to get through, bar a miracle from this group, but the game plan we followed (as opposed to the personnel) was our best shot. Just to qualify for the Olympics was a great feat in itself.
August 19th 2008 @ 11:42am
Slippery Jim said | August 19th 2008 @ 11:42am | Report comment
dasilva, falling back on the old “long ball” cliche for the Argentina performance is faulty. I watched the game closely and we tried to play the ball out of defense and keep it on the ground. Argentina themselves employed several long balls in that game. Let’s not rewrite history. The first game was shocking, brainless long ball tactics, but the performance against Argentina was totally different.
August 19th 2008 @ 11:57am
dasilva said | August 19th 2008 @ 11:57am | Report comment
the performance against Argentina was 10 times better than the match against Serbia in keeping the ball and I saw some possession football in patches in the first half but I would still classify the performance was still more long balls then possession style. It really determines what kind of standard we want to set for the team in how to view that performance. I’ll will admit it was a more mix style of play. I honestly think Farinas performance against Argentina in the last olympics was better then the current Arnolds side. Our performance improve as the olyroos played but still i thought there were too many long balls in all of the matches.
I wouldn’t call it good defensive football. The italians defend by not giving the other side the ball. Now i don’t expect to do it like the italians but we got to try And even without the ball it wasn’t that great defensive football when we actually the other sides created a fair amount of chances on goal due to Mark Milligan and the full backs having a poor defensive game in the matches creating pressure for our defence again and again. Now spiranovich and North did the best they can at the circumstances and have a good defensive match but I wouldn’t call it a good defensive performances from the team. If there were better finishing with the same quality of defending no one wouldn’t call it a good defensive performances.
August 19th 2008 @ 11:59am
dasilva said | August 19th 2008 @ 11:59am | Report comment
Also if Arnold team played well (keep the possession) for all the matches and lost all of them we would see praise from the crew of SBS. I don’t really believe there is a media ambush, just that the criticism matched the performance. They are not going to criticise Arnold no matter what and they have praise him before for a good performance when we lost to Uruguay in a friendly in home soils wher we did a good job keeping the ball even though we lost.
August 19th 2008 @ 12:05pm
Slippery Jim said | August 19th 2008 @ 12:05pm | Report comment
dasilva, our major weakness was finishing, I agree that if djite had been in the squad we might have scored some of the chances we had…
August 19th 2008 @ 12:12pm
dasilva said | August 19th 2008 @ 12:12pm | Report comment
Yeah I agree that was the most crucial failures in terms of results was the poor finishing. We might of actually defeated Argentina if the finishing was better (although we wouldn’t have deserved it though). I just don’t believe that our defence was that great either.
August 19th 2008 @ 12:59pm
The Bear said | August 19th 2008 @ 12:59pm | Report comment
We created very little, as well. To say our Olympic campaign suffered from poor finishing, is akin to saying that the Democracy in America fails because people are not legally required to vote. The midfield was absent, in function and presence. That has to be self evident.
All the other teams we played most recently (and in the warm up games, bar NZ) had at least twice the opportunities to score in each game…and the all eventually did. That is a credit to our opponents (incl China, Korea et al). They all had superior attacking build ups (buckling our defensive efforts).
We had nothing much on offer, to put these teams under pressure, let alone genuine chances on goal.