What do we want from our Socceroos?
Columnist By Mike Tuckerman, 20 Oct 2009 Mike Tuckerman is a Roar Expert
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Australian player Vince Grella (right) during the Socceroos pre-match training session at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. AAP Image/Luis Enrique Ascui
It was Karl Marx who claimed that religion is the opiate of the masses, but in this day and age, he may as well have been referring to sport. No matter the catastrophes that befall us, from financial crises to terrible acts of nature, many of us perk up when the topic returns to sporting endeavours.
Not surprisingly, Australia’s plodding 1-0 win over Oman in last week’s Asian Cup qualifier conjured a complex set of emotions.
From vexed consternation to a spot of hand-wringing to good old fashioned white-hot rage, Socceroos fans were treated to the whole gamut of frustration.
No one was more frustrated than ex-Socceroo midfielder Craig Foster, who rued the style of football on display in a withering piece for the Fairfax Sunday papers.
Foster is an easy target for the boo boys, who dislike his seemingly hectoring tone and penchant for negative appraisals.
Yet, as far as analysts go, he’s our most vigilant watchdog – constantly willing our team to success, desperate to see the Socceroos reach a higher plane.
He’s perfectly entitled to claim that “(p)assable results do not hide the fact this team (is) destined to fail.”
But by whose definition of failure are we reckoning with?
Talk to Pim Verbeek, and he makes it perfectly clear that his job description was to steer Australia to the World Cup finals in 2010 – and what’s all this hubbub about the Asian Cup?
Unfortunately for the results-driven Dutchman, we Aussies are a determined lot – more “in it to win it” than “just happy to be here,” and at the moment we look like a team struggling with Plan A, let alone one that has an obvious Plan B.
Australia may have qualified for the World Cup finals at a canter, but as Foster suggests, currently the Socceroos don’t look like controlling the game against the kind of top-class opposition they’ll meet in South Africa, let alone supposedly weaker Asian teams.
However, all this desire to control games and subdue perfectly capable opponents makes me wonder if we’re not suffering from some kind of major superiority complex.
Of all the good-natured jibes used to describe Oman’s veteran coach Claude Le Roy – did he look like the sort of foppish cartoon villain you might find in one of Hergé’s classic “Tintin” comics to anyone else? – not much was written about his CV.
Here was a coach who has achieved success with a variety of African nations, has coached at club level in his native France and England – to say nothing of stints in the UAE and China – and who knows a thing or two about qualifying for major tournaments.
Should we really have expected to trample all over an Oman side looking to qualify for its third successive Asian Cup?
Judging by the outpouring of frustration from fans, of whom just over 20,000 bothered to show up at Etihad Stadium, the answer appears to be an unequivocal “yes.”
If that’s the case, how will Australian fans react to another dogged but technically limited performance in South Africa?
Will it be recognised that a team of purportedly honest grafters has done well to be mix it with football’s elite once again, or will we pine for the days when we played England off the park in 2003, and dominated Nigeria in 2007?
Or will a nation so used to international sporting success, often in fields dominated by only a small handful of countries, demand style as well as substance in our quest for international glory.
In short: what do we want from our Socceroos?
If football is as much about philosophising as it is about on-field action – and let’s face it, there’s only so much one can say about that performance against Oman – what do Socceroos fans, both committed and casual, think about the current state of the national team?
I’m interested to hear what you think.
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October 20th 2009 @ 11:50am
Realfootball said | October 20th 2009 @ 11:50am | Report comment
What do we want from the Socceroos?
Possibly this is more a question of what we need from the Socceroos, which is to play football that people – particularly the people not firmly committed to the code – want to watch.
Those who maintain the tired old mantra that the result is all that matters are missing the point in a market dominated by other codes. In this respect, Verbeek’s appointment, puzzling from the outset, has been a major setback for the code in this country. That was what the hard reality of just 20,000 people at Etihad Staduim was all about. Yes, Oman was a factor, but under Verbeek the Socceroos are tedious and predictable in the extreme. I have been a diehard fan since childhood and for the first time in my life I feel no desire to watch the team play. Like the missing 10,000 at Etihad, I would rather watch Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC.
Verbeek has coached the national team to the World Cup Finals, yes, but so would have many other coaches. While I do not underestimate the difficulties involved, nor the achievement it represents, Australia’s group was relatively soft and the team made hard work of it, with considerable luck running their way.
What I find most difficult to understand about Verbeek is his obstinate refusal to acknowledge that this is not Europe and that he has, as our national coach, a responsibility to the development of the code in this country. His arrogance, for a man with a limited coaching cv, is perplexing, and its effect has been resoundingly negative.
Most disappointing of all in has been his refusal to play a more open game when the results actually do not matter. His obdurate intransigence and reactionary responses to criticism are not strengths, but rather symptoms of limitations that have found him, like a nineteenth century remittance man, eking out a living in the colonies, having failed to rise to the top at home.
History will show, I fear, that it has been to our code’s great misfortune that Verbeek’s journeyman career included our national team, our game’s most precious asset, now significantly devalued as a national sporting currency – with the sparse crowd at Etihad a measure of its decline.
October 20th 2009 @ 12:10pm
Lmacca said | October 20th 2009 @ 12:10pm | Report comment
I think there’s been somewhat of an over-reaction to the recent results. When we beat Ireland 3-0 with most of our stars out, people were claiming we’d make the semis, following on from the 2-1 win over Japan in Melbourne. Now, after a loss in Korea, followed by a dour draw and a scrappy win, people say we won’t make it out of the group stage. I think we’re in between.
We’ve shown enough to suggest that we have the capability to get results against most of the tough teams we’ve played – Japan, Netherlands, Ireland (how good they are we’ll find out next month vs France). But the Verbeek era has also been marked with some shockers – Iraq (away) and China (home and away) spring to mind.
So I think we might be able to grab a spot in the Round of 16 – if we were to draw any team from CONCACAF or Africa then I think we’d fancy ourselves about getting 3 points. As last WC showed, 4 points can get you out of your group, even if you draw Brazil.
In terms of style, it clearly won’t always be pretty, but Verbeek is pragmatic in seeing that the Aussie team’s technique is not phenomenal. That said, we do have enough to pass the ball and play skillfully, so it’s these talents that I hope are focused on. Because it seems to me we’ve pretty much figured out how to lump it into the box and hope Timmy C gets the scraps!
Looking beyond South Africa, there will probably need to be a big injection of youth/pace if we’re to have any chance at the Asian Cup.
October 20th 2009 @ 12:27pm
Soccer Superstar said | October 20th 2009 @ 12:27pm | Report comment
Foster needs to distinguish between the necessary long-term strategy for Australian football and the required short-term tactics for this particular Socceroos team. In the long term, he is absolutely right: Australia does need to develop a more technical, cerebral approach to the game. But in the short term, he is living in cloud cuckoo land. These Australian players are simply not good enough to play a technical game.
Let’s be realistic: how many of these Socceroos would make the England team? Zero. Lucas Neill might edge out Matthew Upson for a spot in the squad as fourth-choice centre-back, and Tim Cahill might just about make the squad, but neither of them would have a hope of ousting Terry/Ferdinand/Lampard/Gerrard in the XI. Gives you pause for thought, eh? And then consider that this England team which no Socceroo would get into was itself played off the park by the Spanish last year. Capello will almost certainly play a solid, counter-attacking, Verbeekesque game if England comes up against skilful Latin opposition in the World Cup.
So there is a serious lack of genuine talent in the Socceroos and Verbeek has to develop tactics appropriate to that lack of talent. It is interesting to note that Trapattoni’s tactical approach with Ireland is almost a mirror of Verbeek’s with Australia. Trapattoni has concluded that the Irish players are simply not good enough to play a possession-oriented game, and so he sends them out to defend, be strong, and run. So far, it’s worked – just like it’s worked for Verbeek. And Trap too, of course, has been criticised by pundits who don’t have to worry about achieving results.
Foster reminds me of John Barnes. The ex-Liverpool man was full of wonderful ideas about how football OUGHT to be played – remember his crazy 4-2-2-2 formation when he took over at Celtic? – but completely clueless about the real business of football management, which is to take the (often mediocre) talent you’re given and develop a system that makes the best use of that talent. Incidentally, Barnes just got sacked by Tranmere.
If we want the Socceroos to be competitive and tough to beat in South Africa, then we’ll get behind Verbeek. If we want them to chase fool’s gold and get thrashed 5-0, then we’ll listen to Foster.
October 20th 2009 @ 12:59pm
Mike Tuckerman said | October 20th 2009 @ 12:59pm | Report comment
I think it’s a fair stretch to suggest that players like Tim Cahill and Harry Kewell wouldn’t make the England squad!
October 20th 2009 @ 1:24pm
Realfootball said | October 20th 2009 @ 1:24pm | Report comment
Come on, Mike, to suggest that Kewell would make the current England squad is pure fantasy. Tim Cahill would, I am sure, make the squad, but I couldn’t see him starting – his alround game is too limited. He’d be an impact player off the bench. But Harry? 2006, certainly, but not now. In full flight 5 or 6 years ago he was glorious to watch, but his pace has utterly gone. That was your heart speaking, not your head.
But S Superstar, I do not agree that Verbeek has developed tactics to suit the players. He coached exactly the same strategy with Korea, and it made him wildly unpopular with the media, fans and, if reports are to be believed, with the players who orchestrated his dismissal. In fact, there is a good argument for the current Australian squad being more suited to playing two strikers – the team has certainly played better on the rare occasions Verbeek has played that formation. Verbeek is defensive by nature, not by circumstance.
October 20th 2009 @ 1:28pm
Pippinu said | October 20th 2009 @ 1:28pm | Report comment
Hard to say – the England NT has experienced some massive ups and downs the past two years.
There have been times where the NT manager has been scrounging for players out of the Championship!!
Timmy would have to make the squad.
I think ‘arry’s time ‘as passed.
October 20th 2009 @ 1:31pm
AndyRoo said | October 20th 2009 @ 1:31pm | Report comment
Even if we could get players in the squad, and personally I would rather have Schwarzer than James or Foster, Soccer Superstar makes a pretty good point.
Where nothing special this time around.
Mike might be wrong about Kewell but I support him
October 20th 2009 @ 1:43pm
GazGoldCoast said | October 20th 2009 @ 1:43pm | Report comment
“we Aussies are a determined lot – more “in it to win it” than “just happy to be here,” …”
I think that nails it right there. We Aussies are not going to the World Cup to make up the numbers, we are going there to WIN THE ****ing thing!!! We nearly did it last time, and would have had a good chance of at least coming second if not for diving Italian cheats. This time, once again, the bar is set as high as we can possibly raise it.
That’s who we are, and that’s why we excel at so many sports. The Kiwis are not much different, and will be pushing us all the way if they can.
October 20th 2009 @ 1:43pm
Midfielder said | October 20th 2009 @ 1:43pm | Report comment
I find it funny / sad / strange / that people seem so focused on what the current senior team is doing… when as some above me have said it is all about the juniors…
Everything that the the late and great JW wanted has happened… all the foundations stones are in place… we have a youth league based on skill improvenment … we have a national talent identification system in place … we have an U 14 international team as well as state U 14 teams to identify our best and stop them leaving to other codes… there are currently four academies under construction with the intention of skill development … we have a coaching skill sytem in place… small sided games…set path ways and training methods for each age bracket in place ….. we play in Asia … we have a strong and growing domestic competition… averyone I know in a management position in football over the last 10 or more years has been about skill development…
So where is the problem …… HHHHHHHHHmmmmmmmm ….that is the answer their is no major problem… there are heaps of ways to improve things … nay heaps squared BUT everything is in place… it’s now about fine tuning…
The Socceroos for the vast population that watches them are going OK… and AFL or NL or RU crosscoder does not know football to anywhere near the degree some are saying we must achieve…
As I said earlier … win I am happy… loose and I am not ….
October 20th 2009 @ 1:49pm
Realfootball said | October 20th 2009 @ 1:49pm | Report comment
Midfielder
If ever there was a human activity that was just as much about means as it is about ends, it is sport, because first and foremost sport is entertainment and entertainment is all about enjoying the journey. It is mean to be fun, to thrill and delight. That is what entertainment does. Do any of those words bring to mind the Socceroos under Verbeek? I think not. Which is why only 20k turned up at Etihad.
It is not just about results. Not ever.
October 20th 2009 @ 2:06pm
Lmacca said | October 20th 2009 @ 2:06pm | Report comment
Midfielder – yes the juniors/future looks bright. But that doesn’t excuse wanting performance now – and as has been pointed out, results alone don’t always satisfy, a bit of style makes it much nicer!
Wenger at Arsenal has done great things in building for the future – but playing 17 year olds doesn’t always satisfy the fans who are wanting results AND style. The fact that Arsenal haven’t won a trophy in 4 years has been tempered by the fact they play great football – so if they’re building they need to do so stylishly.
Australia may have bright prospects, but if we’re going to have to wait a while, then we’ll need to see some results, and with some style. A mighty big ask – but Aussie fans are nothing if not demanding! Was a time we’d be happy with 0-0 with Holland – I for one am glad we’ve moved on from there!
October 20th 2009 @ 3:16pm
whiskeymac said | October 20th 2009 @ 3:16pm | Report comment
1. Love Wenger. Arsenal are a benchmark now for all the right reasons – and much better to watch than boring boring arsenal of old. although trophies would be nice (and have been tantalisingly close) for me at least it’s great to see the way they play. Good teams finishing second still get remembered and admired- Holland in the 70s Brazil in the 80s etc.
2. there’s always the mantra that a star team beats a team of stars. So as other teams will know us already, are we such a complete machine that the sum of our parts make up for our negatives? some variety, less of a reliance on a few players (injuries/ suspensions undo the best laid rigid plans) would be a comfort. We have the professional players to do well… but as the posts have indicated with the england examples, a lot of other teams have the same professionalism (if not more) and structures to do well – with the added benefits of depth & indiviudal skill in their respective squads.
October 20th 2009 @ 3:23pm
Midfielder said | October 20th 2009 @ 3:23pm | Report comment
Real & Lmacca
See their you go again… who said I was not about style (however that is defined) .. I just finished playing at the World Masters in the over 50′s top division…
I am all for improving the technical aspects… But the match against Oman by your judgement it was a poor performance or an unexciting match… For me it was neither Oman on a number of times got behind our defence and it was heart in the mouth stuff .. and we could not finish some of the work that we created… Being as honest as I can be .. it was not a great game …NOR was it a poor game…
The Holland match we where totally outclassed … but can you think of any time in the past where an Australian side could take on the number 3, when the number 3 came to play…
The 20, 000 crowd was affected by a number of factors chief IMO would be the traditional media seeing Oman as easybeats, and giving it almost no media or presenting Oman as anything other than and easy beat team… Thus not to win easily is a failure … and partly because every comment coming from some commenter’s is how crap we play and how crap the coach is… meaning why go and what a crap team…against a weak and nothing team…
To put it simply the bar of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable has been lifted well beyond on what anyone could do… So anyone who takes the job of national coach will fail….
Those who have risen the bar so high say things like … this is how football nations think and this is how we should think … otherwise we will never evolve …. I say that logic is pure BS as we live in Australia and have three other codes well entrenched and cross coders who understand football at a very simple level…It also ignore’s our past history and 50 years of mismanagement …. We will get better a lot sooner if rather than a constant attack on style … we say lets see how we can use the academies and what is being done at youth level… As an aside I still await five years now for Fozzie to say anything about the Mariners investing over 60 million dollars in a training academy complete with relationships with local universities, hospitals, associations, clubs & local government…
I remember once when I was working in New Zealand and the project manager gave a indication of our performance which was quite low and every moth we where praised for doing things right… Another management team who where doing a better job than us but who’s outcomes where expected to be higher where being judged as poor as they did not meet what was expected…
The same for the Socceroos… that we go out and play football in the …””””right style “””…. whatever that is and don’t make the WC …. or make the WC ….””” BUT with the wrong style”””….
Whoever is setting the bar and creating unrealistic expirations that when not lived up become a failure is doing a lot more harm than good … heaps more harm…
Just in closing … do you guys honestly think that those people running the A-Leagues clubs, and people like Archie at FFA & Frank Lowy do not understand the style thing … and are doing nothing about it … me things the style police are off on their own importance… It’s like Fozzie / Slatter / Kossie / Arnold / Farina .. somehow think they are football in this country and their all wrong .. just wish they would report what is actually happening and realise we live in Australia…
October 20th 2009 @ 3:44pm
Realfootball said | October 20th 2009 @ 3:44pm | Report comment
Midf
World Cup qualification is a furphy in this argument. We did not qualify BECAUSE OF the football we played. We qualified IN SPITE OF the football we played, which was almost always awful to watch and led to us being completely outplayed by, among other football giants, Bahrain.
We would have qualified anyway with a coach who was prepared to play an open game. It was a soft group and we had players from the best leagues in Europe. If you had any real knowledge of past world cup campaigns, you would know that we did not fail to qualify because we were trying to play like Brazil. Anything but.
You implication that playing the way the team does under Verbeek was the reason we made the finals simply does not hold up. This is not about unrealistic expectations on any level. Quite the contrary, it is about being realistic about what we need to advance the code in this country.
October 20th 2009 @ 6:41pm
Midfielder said | October 20th 2009 @ 6:41pm | Report comment
Real
I played for over 50 years, coached for a number of years, looked at football every which way , I cannot understand this style police argument … When everything that can be done to improve within existing budgets is being done.. and has been so for years ….
My tho’s as I expressed earlier is who sets the standard?? who is the God of what is good play…
The very simple plain truth is a team with only Timmy playing in a top team in a top league against a team with players all from top clubs… and we draw when they come to play … We did not play well in attack and played very well in defense … So what football God says that great defensive play is not skillful …
As I said people some folk have raised the bar well beyond anyone’s reach and therefore deemed failure… It’s like a kid wishing it was Christmas tomorrow …. well it’s not Christmas so we fail no matter what we do on the day…
For me as I said it’s simple … we win or draw and I am happy … we loose and I am not happy…
October 20th 2009 @ 8:50pm
Realfootball said | October 20th 2009 @ 8:50pm | Report comment
Midf
Absolutely agree that it is all in the eye of the beholder BUT the eye of the beholder does indeed have a measure – attendances, and they are falling alarmingly for the national team.
What the attendances show is that many people are not happy with winning or drawing alone. That much, no matter what you personally feel, is indisputable. There is no argument. People are increasingly staying away from Socceroos games, though the team is overwhelmingly either winning and drawing. Why? Because the team is boring to watch. I come back to the inescapable point that for most people sport is entertainment, and frankly if it is much more than that to someone, then they haven’t got enough going on in their life.
Talk to any sports administrator, and they will tell you that what they after is a share of the entertainment dollar. This is where Gold Coast have fallen over – they have asked for a share of that dollar that the Gold Coast public are not prepared to give. Because there’s competition – other codes, bands, nightclubs, restaurants, gambling. It all comes out the same pool of personal finance and that pool is finite. The Socceroos under Verbeek do not deliver value entertainment, and so their share of that finite dollar is falling.
Verbeek either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care, perhaps both. He comes from a very different culture, and plans on leaving as soon as he can. In the meantime he is a one man disaster for the code in our particular, idiosyncratic culture with its multiple football codes, all stronger than our code.
October 20th 2009 @ 3:29pm
keeper11 said | October 20th 2009 @ 3:29pm | Report comment
the irony is had the socceroos played ‘pretty’ but failed to qualify for WC10 …the knives, shovels ..you name it would have been out for Pim, the players and especially ..the code.
Can you imagine the news-limited hound dogs rejoicing in burying the game with doom and gloom predictions about the ‘death’ of the dreaded sockah for the next 4 years…..
yeh..was ugly..but much to the chagrin it seems of many in the agenda driven media….we QUALIFIED. End of
October 20th 2009 @ 3:47pm
Realfootball said | October 20th 2009 @ 3:47pm | Report comment
And again we have it. This idea that we qualified because of the horrible way the team has been playing. How does that make sense on any level? Somebody, please explain to me the correlation between playing badly and getting points. Where is the inexorable cause and effect relationship?
October 20th 2009 @ 4:14pm
dasilva said | October 20th 2009 @ 4:14pm | Report comment
To be fair on Pim
Even though we played poorly at times and to our high standards
We were only really outplayed, Bahrain and Japan away and Iraq at home with a full strength team ( I personally thought that we were unlucky to lose to Iraq away from home).