Socceroos still have a lot of work ahead – World Cup or not

 
Jesse Fink Roar Pro

By , 2 Apr 2009 Jesse Fink is a Roar Pro

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Australia celebrate their win over Uzbekistan in their World Cup Asian Qualifying match in Sydney, Wednesday, April 1, 2009. Australia defeated Uzbekistan 2-0. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

I started off my column last week mentioning Michael Cockerill and his curious column urging the Socceroos to go all out and “entertain” us against Uzbekistan, and he deserves another mention this week for doing a complete 360-degree turn on that on national television, saying he was a “results first” person and that qualifying for South Africa is more important than playing with style.

Jeez, Mike, please make up your mind, will you?

But at least Cocko knows who Pim Verbeek is, unlike Ken Sutcliffe, Channel Nine’s face of sport, who called the Australian national-team manager “Tim” in the evening bulletin before the game.

Walkley Award-winning stuff from the Who’s Who of News.

Hardly award-winning football, either, from Verbeek’s side, and you could tell our Dutch boss wasn’t happy with what he was seeing, grimacing on the bench like he was suffering from wind and agitatedly pacing up and down the sideline.

I doubt there was anyone at Stadium Australia other than the most inebriated Fanatic who liked what they were seeing up until Josh Kennedy pulled a rabbit out of hat in the 66th minute and sent the crowd into paroxysms of delight and Harry Kewell made it two to the good with a penalty in the 73rd .

Yes, the conditions were awful but that was no excuse for Australia being outclipped for a large part of the match by a group of Central Asians with mullets who were suffering jetlag.

The fitness levels of the Socceroos have to be questioned – or at the very least what they are doing in training.
But Australia has the three points it wanted and, depending on the result of Bahrain vs Qatar today, we could be on our way to the World Cup in South Africa.

Congratulations to Verbeek, his assistants Henk Duut and Graham Arnold, and the entire playing group. To qualify for the World Cup with three games to spare is a tremendous achievement.

I’ve asked it before, though: How are we going to go when we get there?

What presents to me as the Socceroos’ most urgent problem is striking options. Scott McDonald just doesn’t seem to have what it takes at this level and last night appeared more effective when he trailed off to the wing than he was as a target man.

The Socceroos need a world-class striker, a Mark Viduka or identikit of one, badly.

In defence, too, the selection of Michael Beauchamp was a worry when it was announced – and he lived up to expectations. Not that the Aalborg defender is a bad player, but he just never plays well for the national team and he was caught out a number of times in the first half because of poor positioning, dereliction of effort and lack of pace. Other than his height, what does he offer the team? I’m not trying to be mean. It’s a legitimate question I think needs to be answered.

The habit of just picking a player because he’s getting game time with his club – something Verbeek favours with McDonald, Beauchamp and Hull’s Richard Garcia all being picked for the starting XI – clearly doesn’t always guarantee form or the attacking chemistry required to get that “result”.

It wasn’t until Kennedy came on (arguably the most out-of-form, out-of-favour player in the entire squad) that the Socceroos looked consistently dangerous and took the game to the tiring Uzbekis. So a lot of unanswered questions for the Socceroos.

We got the “result” but at the World Cup we’re going to need to get results with style to get beyond the first round.

Like everyone else, I’m just waiting for that elusive alchemy to come.

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