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Who told Australia’s football aficionados that Northern and Eastern Europeans know everything about football? Why do we make a virtue of ignoring the Latin way? The Latins play the game better than anybody else. Their supposedly flighty ways are not just easy on the eye. They know how to win.
My first lesson for Graham Arnold is this: he should have taken Johnny Warren’s advice and looked to South America for guidance.
For some reason we are suspicious of Latin football.
Forget that Brazil have won five World Cups, Italy four, Argentina and Uruguay two each. Forget that most of those tournaments have been played in searing summer heat, not unlike what the players experienced in China.
No, instead, concentrate on beep tests and physical fitness.
What made you think high energy European style football was going to work in high heat and tropical humidity? How would Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo have faired on a beep test?
Ronaldo, I’m guessing, drives his car down the drive to pick up the morning paper. Ronaldinho covers more distance on dance floors than football fields. Somewhat rotund perhaps, they nevertheless managed fifteen goals between them in a single World Cup!
News flash – being fit, dogged and determined is not enough. You need some balance.
Which leads to the second, closely related, lesson: football is more art than science. It always will be.
Even the Germans have worked that out.
Science plays it part, more so than ever before, no argument there. However, it does not and never will, completely dominate this game. Every team needs its artists. The artist provides the balance and supplies the fine, decisive brush strokes after the artisans have primed the canvas.
Forget the controversy about Bruce Djite’s omission, how on earth did Arnold determine that Nathan Burns wasn’t worth a ticket to China?
How could you think Nikita Rukavytsya a superior option?
Burns is the best young player in Australia. His second season was tough. He was a marked man and lost a little confidence. But he’s got so much talent he doesn’t know where to put it. He could have scored or made a few goals for us in China.
Dropping Burns was ludicrous.
He is exactly the type of player you need for the tournament format. He’s the indispensable maverick. The tie-breaker. The man who can change a game with one sublime touch, weaving run or curling cross. The man you can call on with twenty minutes to unleash on a tiring defence.
He’s Leonardo or Michelangelo or Raphael. The fine brush stroke man.
How could you make this mistake?
The history of the World Cup tells us that these so-called luxury players are a necessity. The lazy, physically imperfect wizards have weaved their magic for decades, mocking the proponents of a purely scientific approach. Italy’s Robbie Baggio, Croatia’s Robert Prosinecki and Zvnonimir Boban, Bulgaria’s Hristo Stoichkov, England’s John Barnes and Paul Gascoigne, Cameroon’s Roger Milla, Romania’s Gheorge Hagi.
C’mon Graham!
What were you smoking when you made the decision to omit Burns? The Germans, make no mistake, would have picked Burns.
The only rational explanation is that they were both punished for their decision to desert the A-League, which I sincerely hope is not true.
The third lesson is the most important: the ethos of Australian teams is to have a go. To try to win.
What the hell were we doing against Argentina?
I understand that all out attack would have been suicidal. But what was that?
I will be honest, after seventy minutes I started supporting Argentina. I would have been embarrassed if we had held on for a draw, mortified if we had nicked a winner.
I don’t think Topor-Stanley and North made it out of our box.
There were two teams on the field. Unfortunately, only one was playing football. How apt that the Argentines’ winning goal, a gem of a creation, should be created by three artists – Messi, Riquelme and Lavezzi.
Three men guaranteed not to excel in a beep test.
Lavezzi supplied a clinical finish and it spoke eloquently for the history of football: elegant, powerful, technically sublime and decisive.
It arrowed into the net like a dart. A fatal blow.
Australian football will prosper and thrive. Graham Arnold’s coaching career will not.
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