Job done, so when will Aussies warm to Pim?
Columnist By Mike Tuckerman, 2 Apr 2009 Mike Tuckerman is a Roar Expert
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Australia took another step towards the World Cup finals thanks to a comfortable 2-0 win over Uzbekistan in a wet and windy Sydney overnight. The Socceroos are all but assured of their place in South Africa. But despite that the question remains: when will Australian fans warm to coach Pim Verbeek?
At the time of writing the outcome of Bahrain’s clash with Qatar in Manama was undecided, but even allowing for a win to either side in that game, there’s no way that the Socceroos won’t cruise through to a second consecutive World Cup appearance.
I say that because I paid close attention to Japan’s clash with Bahrain in Saitama last weekend, and on their current form, the Blue Samurai can’t hold a candle to Pim Verbeek’s side.
Certainly there was some cause for concern at a rain-lashed ANZ Stadium in Sydney, but despite some notable defensive lapses early in the first half and late in the second, Australia’s performance was one of consummate professionalism.
Much of the credit should go to coach Pim Verbeek.
Clearly dissatisfied with Australia’s patchy first half performance, the laconic Dutchman introduced the powerful Josh Kennedy for Scott McDonald on the hour mark, and he reaped the rewards when Kennedy headed home the opener soon after.
Australia benefited from a soft penalty decision to go 2-0 up soon after, and despite Uzbekistan being slightly unlucky to have a goal ruled out by an offside flag in stoppage time, it was the Socceroos who clearly deserved to take three points.
Nevertheless the question remains, will World Cup qualification be enough to silence Pim Verbeek’s critics?
After all, the Dutchman was hired to guide Australia to the World Cup finals.
He’s done that with ease, yet Verbeek has failed to win over some Australian fans by failing to win in style.
Perhaps it’s worth remembering another Australian coach who failed to win in style – the ill-fated Terry Venables.
The fast-talking former England coach was hired by then Soccer Australia supremo David Hill as part of an attempt to overhaul the game in Australia.
But despite being 2-0 up in a World Cup qualifier against Iran with twenty minutes remaining at the MCG in 1997, Venables appeared paralysed when Karim Bagheri pulled a goal back in the 71st minute.
Iran scored again five minutes later, and all the substitutions in the world after that – Venables made three in quick succession – wasn’t enough to rescue a shell-shocked Australia from the most stomach-churning of World Cup exits on the away goals rule.
Even the deification of Guus Hiddink deserves further scrutiny.
Certainly the current Chelsea and Russia coach was integral in steering Australia to the World Cup finals in 2006.
But given that Italy played forty minutes of their second round clash with the Socceroos in Kaiserslautern a man down following Marco Materazzi’s send-off, surely Hiddink could have done more than to introduce a single substitute in the form of John Aloisi?
That’s not to say that I don’t rate Hiddink as a coach. Nor is it to suggest that I’m a card-carrying member of the Pim Verbeek fan club.
It’s just that I think Verbeek deserves more credit for steering Australia through the supposed “unknown” of Asian qualifying without so much as a bump in the road.
Maybe it’s because I’ve seen Channel Nine’s leading sports anchorman Ken Sutcliffe refer to the Dutchman as “Tim Verbeek” for the past two nights in a row.
But in terms of achieving his goal, the man more commonly known as “Pim” can hardly be faulted.
Whether he fires Australia to World Cup glory in South Africa remains to be seen.
But for now, Pim Verbeek and his all-conquering Australian side deserve our congratulations.
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April 2nd 2009 @ 10:21am
Millster said | April 2nd 2009 @ 10:21am | Report comment
I was at the game too guys and didn’t feel a single drop of rain. In the first half that was due to nervous tension and worry. In the second, sheer euphoria. And I haven’t slept since as I stayed up for Bahrain-Qatar (boo) and then France-Lithuania (yay!).
Kazama’s point about WC qualifiaction being seen as mandatory rather than a miracle… my own worry is that too many of the general public have already made the switch, far far too early. They don’t consider that wer are barely a top 32 team in the world, that we have only ever won one WC finals game in our entire history, and that we’ve only been there twice in total. As I’ve written elsewhere its only around 2022 that I’ll hope for anything more than us just getting there…
And yes, I second Wallythefly’s total endorsement of Phutbol’s post above. Whatever us armchair critics may say, the Socceroos of 2008-09 are delivering big-time, and at the absolute pinnacle of what we have ever achieved in this magnificent sport.
April 2nd 2009 @ 10:23am
StiflersMom said | April 2nd 2009 @ 10:23am | Report comment
Meh, I liked to see the side turn on a polished performance evertime they played but no side is that good, but a side who goes through the second round of qualifying undefeated and with a clean sheet has got to have something good going for it.
Praise be to Pim.
April 2nd 2009 @ 10:29am
Jeremy said | April 2nd 2009 @ 10:29am | Report comment
Probably one of Pim’s big issues is that this is our first time in Asia and, aside from a couple of games where luck has been on our side, it has been pretty easy so far. I was actually pretty glad to see Australia not do well at the Asian cup because there was a lot of arrogance about it before hand (Niell saying we should win it undefeated) and if we had have won it then the cup would become pretty worthless in Australia’s eyes because it was too easy to win. Since we got a bit of humility put into us it means that next Asian cup will have more interest around it because we know it will be a challenge.
The fact that our ride so far in WCQ has been pretty smooth gives the appearance that this route is actually much easier then we thought it would be, hence why people give Pim a lot of stick. If we had been trying to get through Asia for 32 years unsuccessfully and then Pim came along and did what he has done this time we would all be over the moon. As Kazama said we won’t know what Pim has done until we see how hard qualification can be in the next couple of campaigns
April 2nd 2009 @ 10:59am
martypb said | April 2nd 2009 @ 10:59am | Report comment
It’s funny how at the outset we were nervous about qualification through asia saying that it would provide stiffer opposition. We were still pretty sure we could get through, but if someone had said we’d be topping the group, i don’t know if anyone would have stopped to question what style we were doing it in..
I think we’ve only been to the world cup once in my life time. I’d like to go again. And again. And make a regular habit of it! I think some fans put a higher value on our players than is warranted, really. To be fair, we lack any truly world class players.
We scraped in last time. It’s nice to arrive in some style with matches in hand this time. As far as world cup qualifying is concerned, faulting Pim amounts to a lot of nit-picking and angsty worrying about what everyone will think of us at the world cup finals… He’s done well.
April 2nd 2009 @ 11:35am
Kazama said | April 2nd 2009 @ 11:35am | Report comment
The concept of qualification being a necessity for me stems from being of Italian background – for my Azzurri-loving relatives it is never in doubt that Italy will qualify for a World Cup, and I guess I envy that. Due to cutthroat games against opposition we are hardly expected to beat we have never had the chance to be in that position – until now.
Pippinu makes a good point that in Asia there are more quality nations going for a finals berth, but without trying to be arrogant we are clearly one of the best teams, if not the best team, in this region. There is no excuse for not qualifying from our current group, where only Japan can make claims to being an equal and there are 2 spots up for grabs. Having to play Argentina for a spot in the World Cup would be a tough ask even for the Brazils of the world. Having to knock over Uzbekistan, Bahrain and Qatar is not. So, I think we cannot say it is a miracle to make it this time – it is in fact expected of us, for the first time, and I hope this becomes the norm. It’s one of the main reasons we joined Asia.
Millster, I agree, we are barely a top 32 team but nonetheless we have shown we deserve to be there representing Asia. I have no such fear regarding a shift in the mentality of the general public – pressure on the players to make the World Cup is a good thing. It shows also that many people who used to joke about the state of Australian football are now taking the Socceroos, and thus the sport, much more seriously. So if we are already at a point where John and Jane Citizen demand World Cup qualification instead of thinking ‘here we go again’ when we had to line up against Argentina and Uruguay, I think that’s great. I think it also adds to the legend of that night against Uruguay, which is something Aussies love to have for each sport.
Now the finals – that is a different matter. If people expect us to make it out of the group regardless of who we play, then I think we are expecting too much too soon. But if / when we get there, it will be very interesting to see how we do. Personally I’d love for us to draw the Italians for two reasons 1) revenge!!! and 2) because the Azzurri are notoriously slow starters.
April 2nd 2009 @ 11:53am
Pippinu said | April 2nd 2009 @ 11:53am | Report comment
Kaz
I too follow the Azzurri (not as close as I used to) – and they have had some close shaves in the past!
In 1978 they only just fell into the WC on goal difference against England!
In 1982, they were absolutely cruising (winning their first four games all 2-0) and in all the return games they fell into a big hole and didn’t win any of the final four games! (limped into the WC, scraped through the first round – and then won the whole deal! like only Italy can do!)
April 2nd 2009 @ 11:55am
Millster said | April 2nd 2009 @ 11:55am | Report comment
Kaz – Maybe I’m too much of a pessimist. But if you give me the list of ‘Asian powers’ – Japan, Sth Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nth Korea and Australia and asked me to rank them I would most certainly not at this stage rank Australia #1. Rankings aside for example, I simply do not believe that Australia is either as tactically astute or technically proficientt as the Japanese.
But yes where I agree is that we are rightfull in that group of 6 from which 4 (or 5 via Oceania playoff) will go through.
I also think there’s an issue of calibration of the level of competition globally in football for “John and Jane Citizen”. I think to balance a growing expectation that we mandatorily deserve to make WC finals, those people also have to quickly learn that the measures of success once we’re there are different than for our other sports.
Put more plainly, in the world of football all things considered, making it out of the group stages (ie being a top 16 team in a World Cup) is probably as big an achievement as making the final of a Rugby World Cup, or being world champs in many of the other sports that we more traditionally have played. I don;t think thats disrespectful and if anyone takes offense I’m sorry; all I’m saying is that I hope the public learns to appreciate the full standard and complexity of the world of football, and to measure Australia’s achievements in relation to our history and ‘place’ in that world. For me personally, as I’ve written before, just to make the finals is all I can hope for and I don’t have any fixed expectaitons beyond that. If we focus the next 10 years onreally deserving to be one of the ‘chosen 32′ then to me that’s awesome.
April 2nd 2009 @ 11:57am
Albert Ross said | April 2nd 2009 @ 11:57am | Report comment
>> Having to play Argentina for a spot in the World Cup
Not necessarily… Bolivia 6-1 Breathless
April 2nd 2009 @ 12:22pm
Joe FC said | April 2nd 2009 @ 12:22pm | Report comment
Well said Mike.
April 2nd 2009 @ 12:22pm
Kazama said | April 2nd 2009 @ 12:22pm | Report comment
Those were before my time Pippinu! Before I was born! Since then I think Italy have had it easy, apart from maybe the France 98 campaign when they had to playoff against Russia, but still easier for them than for us keeping in mind that we are not in the same class. Even for Italy it would have been a tough assignment to play Argentina for a finals spot, Bolivia result not withstanding. The Argies clearly don’t like being taken out of their comfort zone (see also World Cup 2002). Maybe we should have played the home leg in the middle of the outback in blazing 48 degree heat.
Millster – yes, I don’t want us to bite off more than we can chew too quickly when it comes to finals expectations. Could have been a poisoned chalice if we’d beaten Italy, beaten Ukraine and made the semis in Germany. Lucas Neill saying we want to be a top 10 nation is a bit much IMO. We should concentrate on establishing ourselves as WC perennials first, a bit like Japan have, then worry about going to the next level, being a regular in the final 16. If you don’t want to say we are #1 in Asia I don’t have a problem with that, it’s a matter of opinion, but you’d have to say we deserve one of the four / five spots from that group. We’re not a world footballing power, no way, but nor is any other Asian team IMO, and we’ve shown we’re certainly good enough to beat anything we come up against in Asia. There’s no excuses for not qualifying if we don’t even have to beat one of the nations you mention to make it to South Africa.