By sportsfanslife.com -
March 8th 2009 @ 7:39am
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The Kuwaiti Experiment, and other football failures
You need have only taken a passing glance at Socceroos‘ Coach ‘Aussie’ Pim Verbeek’s face after Thursday night’s Asian Cup pool match against Kuwait to know that the depth in football in this country is the equivalent of a kiddies pool.
Now, perhaps it was his accent, and perhaps it is perfectly normal in Holland for a coach to look and sound like he has just spent 90 minutes consuming as much schnapps as he possibly could to ease the pain of watching his ‘hopeless’ (his words, not mine) A-League charges.
Seriously, this was a man who obviously came to another stage in his realisation that coaching our national football team wasn’t all koalas, g’day mate’s and thongs.
I have to say that my budding football supportership (it’s a word, google it), is in its infancy. My knowledge is a work in progress and I still have no clue on the finer points of ‘The Beautiful Game’.
So if I could watch a game and point out how appallingly ‘un-beautiful’ the Socceroos were in patches (that became more and more frequent as the game wore on unfortunately) surely must be a testament to the quality, or lack thereof, of their play.
This was a game that was in the bag. We were playing Kuwait, whose national sport is drilling for oil, and we can’t crack it for a goal?
Our best chance came early on, with Archie ‘I love Pim, no really, even after he called me hopeless and I got up on stage to mock him after the Grand Final, I am not phased by that comment one little bit’ Thompson missing somewhat of a sitter in front of an open goal, and from there we resorted to long balls, blazing shots from outside the box (most of which ended up on the roof of Parliament House) and two misses from Mitch Nichols, who continued his wayward touch from the A-League Grand Final Qualifier (great player, but the idea is to stick it in the back of the net Mitch!).
Meanwhile the Kuwait side showed more speed, commitment and energy on their way to a deserved (albeit shocking) victory. This has once again raised the question of playing A-League only squads for these sorts of matches.
I am not sure what the possibility is of getting the European based players back for an Asian Cup pool match, but something tells me the Euro-boffins atop Everton aren’t letting Tim Cahill out to play park football against a Middle Eastern minnow. Same goes for Lucas Neill, Harry Kewell (who would no doubt be injured and unavailable anyway) and our other foreign based heroes, so in a lot of ways, perhaps FA’s hands are tied and ol’ PV will have to make do.
My biggest disappointment was the impact on people’s perception of the Socceroos. How many people are going to turn out for the next A-League-only National side, if that is the performance they will be expecting?
It’s fine to bring the big guns over for the biggest games, and have the crowds flock, but if I am not mistaken, we are still going to have plenty of games where that isn’t possible and the local stars will be turning out in their place.
I know I would think twice had I paid my money to watch the Canberra match and was considering attending another.
After all the progress and good work FA has done with the A-League, not to mention firmly hammering the game and the National squad into the consciousness of most Australians, it’s a shame that the product that many people within the governing body have worked so hard to build, took a backward step due to the very thing it is relying on to grow in this country, the caliber of it’s players….
Let’s hope it was merely a blip on the radar.
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Dickroo said | March 8th 2009 @ 10:40am | Report comment
Like what the other Asian national teams are doing, FFA need to send a 24-strong young A-league team to tour Europe (the Netherland maybe?) training together with the fringe Euroroos and have as many friendlies as possible from now to November.
That the only way to fill the gap to the elite Socceroos.
There’s no budget way to do football business, FFA.
Slippery Jim said | March 9th 2009 @ 9:59am | Report comment
This game was never in the bag, sportsfanslife.com (suggestion: use an actual name, and – this is the clever bit – use it as a hyperlink to whatever sight you feel is worthy of our attention. Using a webpage as a username is a sure way to come across as a shameless self-promotor) Kuwait have always had the wood over Australia historically if you run a casual eye over the head to head stats. The fact that we also set out with an inexperienced A-League squad was an experiment that was only ever going to end in tears. Remember the China match?
sportsfanslife.com said | March 9th 2009 @ 10:34am | Report comment
Thanks for the tip Slippery Jim, and duly noted. Can I assume your birth certificate reads Christian Name: Slippery, Family Name: Jim? None the less, as far as shameless self promotion goes, I’m guilty as charged! I am also guilty of not having a frikking clue about the hyperlink point you made, but I will have my minions look into it.
My point was that anywhere a team is playing another team ranked around 100 places lower in the FIFA World Rankings, the higher ranked team, that being Australia, would be expected to win. You are right about the Kuwaiti’s being up in the head to head, my reference was based on the World Rankings.
Either way, thanks for reading! Cheers….
Towser said | March 9th 2009 @ 2:26pm | Report comment
Lots of these Kuwait things since Thursday. However as sportsfanslife has bothered to write an article I will give a point of view on what it appears the crux of his article is:-
“My point was that anywhere a team is playing another team ranked around 100 places lower in the FIFA World Rankings, the higher ranked team, that being Australia, would be expected to win.
Whilst this point has merit & should essentially be true in 99% of cases,in this case the coach/FFA were negligent.
My view after a long lifetime of football is that whenever a football team runs onto the park it is the coaches responsibility to make sure that that team can perform to the expectations of the only group who really count in professional football,us the fans.
Clearly with 10 players with no or next to none International experience (some kids) for Australia this was not the case.
Funnily enough I said the same thing about Frank Farinas selection for the Roar(Fan of myself) in the finals game against Adelaide when he chose Mitch Nichols who choked on the big occassion. Yet Pim chooses him again against Kuwait.
Many succesful teams across the globe have youth policys for developing players & are extremely succesful.The most noted being ManU. But if sir Alex pulled a youth player with no experience from his youth squad to play in the ECL & the kid crumbled ,the world at large would have his balls.
No Sir Alex & other smart operators & operations make sure that that kid is slowly “ripened” into an ECL player gradually,Unlike us who see the sharks waiting with open mouths at the end of the jetty & throw in “:Spotty” Jim(no offence Slippery).
The bottom line is sportsfanlife that in the broader world of International football the FFA is no more out of its infancy than yourself:-
“I have to say that my budding football supportership (it’s a word, google it), is in its infancy. My knowledge is a work in progress and I still have no clue on the finer points of ‘The Beautiful Game’.”
So just join them on the learning curve. This is a prime example of how far we have to go to match the’Old world football”savvy of European & South American nations & it seems some Asian nations.
Towser said | March 9th 2009 @ 2:47pm | Report comment
“You need have only taken a passing glance at Socceroos’ Coach ‘Aussie’ Pim Verbeek’s face after Thursday night’s Asian Cup pool match against Kuwait to know that the depth in football in this country is the equivalent of a kiddies pool.”
Also theres no problem with depth in football in this country its the quality of footballer & his professional training in that depth that is at fault. I dont wish to be misquoted on this but I’m sure Simon Hill said last Thursday that Kuwait (pop 3 million)
had only 8,000. registered football players. Thats not what I call a deep pool of players,but the quality of their coaching & depth of football knowledge passed on therefore must be far superior to ours.
Also regarding the 100 places below us on FIFA rankings at one stage they were ranked 24 in the world a position we have never been in. FIFA rankings in my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.
The Bear said | March 9th 2009 @ 5:15pm | Report comment
From all reports it was a spectacularly ordinary performance by Australia. Fortunately I missed it. Anyone on here that know just how riled up I get when Pim throws together a shoddy preparation and performance, and typically gets away with it due to a lucky goal, or Schwarzer’s consistent heroics…well it is better for us all that I missed the game and the replay!!
So no surprises that the non-FIFA dates will be a scramble to get results, let alone rhythm and style into the team. But Pim probably won’t be here post 2010, so what does he care? Nada.
Green n Gold 2010 said | March 10th 2009 @ 8:33am | Report comment
BRING IN TROUSSIER!!!!!!!!!
bRING BACK NICKY CARLE!!!!!
Green n Gold 2010 said | March 22nd 2009 @ 1:54am | Report comment
Sack PIM!!!
Even Robert Mugabe could run the A league Roos better!!!