By AAP
November 15th 2009 @ 3:12am
Related coverage
Gutsy Socceroos move closer to Asian Cup finals
The 10-man Socceroos have scored a stunning 2-1 Group B qualifier victory over Oman on Sunday to put them in pole position to make the Asian Cup finals in 2011.
Australia were forced to play one man short for 75 minutes after losing defender Rhys Williams to a red card, as well as fight back from a goal down.
But a first-half goal to Luke Wilkshire and a late winner to Brett Emerton with eight minutes left secured the Socceroos an unlikely victory to put them top of the group with two matches remaining.
The top two teams in the group qualify for the tournament finals in Qatar.
The Socceroos’ hopes looked grim when Williams was marched for a clumsy challenge on Oman striker Emad Al Hosni just 15 minutes into the match.
The young Middlesbrough defender, a surprise inclusion at right-back, clattered into Al Hosni’s back to concede a penalty and drew a red card from Chinese referee Sun Baojie because he was the last man in defence.
Khalifa Ayil netted from the spot, but only after goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer had saved the first attempt and forced the Omani to bang in the rebound.
But Wilkshire netted an equaliser with two minutes left in the second half, bundling in a Mark Bresciano cross.
The Socceroos then had to survive a second half filled with chances for Oman to win the match — a result which would have severely dented the Socceroos’ hopes of making the Asian Cup finals.
Schwarzer twice made important close-range saves from Al Hosni and Ismail Al Ajmi, Wilkshire cleared an Al Hosni header off the line, and Craig Moore blocked a Hashim Saleh shot.
Then the Socceroos made the Omanis pay for their goalmouth butchery with an unlikely winner.
Substitute David Carney got free down the left and crossed for Emerton to thunder home a half-volley to secure Australia all three points.
The match ended amid ill tempers and a firework being thrown from the crowd narrowly missing Carney after he and Oman defender Mohammed Al Balushi were involved in a sideline skirmish.
The Socceroos now sit atop Group B with seven points, three clear of Oman.
Australia’s next match is against Kuwait in Kuwait City on January 6.
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megatron said | November 15th 2009 @ 5:45am | Report comment
How lucky were the Socceroos! Let’s hope it continues into 2010.
midfield general said | November 15th 2009 @ 8:13am | Report comment
Hats off to Pim and the boys. HK upfront was a good idea, at last someone who can hold the ball up front, and Wilkshire provided a bit more energy in the middle compared to Valeri and Jedinak. Oman was a quality side, but perhaps lacking experience.
whiskeymac said | November 15th 2009 @ 8:13am | Report comment
a relief
Rusty0256 said | November 15th 2009 @ 8:45am | Report comment
How good is it to have Emmo back.
With those typical storming late runs into the box with the ball coming across there is only one place it is going to end up.
dasilva said | November 15th 2009 @ 9:08am | Report comment
They dominated the match with little to show for it due to the poor strikers and mark schwarzer
We then score the winner when there is a clear offside from David Carney
Really, I don’t think there’s anyway we can say we deserved a victory there but we take it
This is an even greater robbery then the Bahrain match as at least the goal at the end there was legitimate.
cab711 said | November 15th 2009 @ 4:54pm | Report comment
If Carney was called offside it would not have been consistent with all the other bad calls.
David said | November 15th 2009 @ 9:19am | Report comment
Wilkshire is a gun.
Our team lacks pace but man whenwe come againsts a fast team that can shoot we are dead.
Kewell in the front is the best idea it frees up another defender spot
I hope rhys doesnt get dropped i reckon his got a bright future i would like if he went to the WC.
Chippers is to slow should be replaced by Carney
Moor and neill are way to slow one we come againsts a speedy striker like Torres we are gone.
Our team have termendous character, with 10 men down a penealty against them, a sockingly terrable ref and a home crowd we battled to victory againsts all odds hats off to them =)
DiCanio said | November 15th 2009 @ 9:23am | Report comment
Can’t praise the socceroos enough here, showed real character to pull a result out of a typical AFC racist moron of a referee and the cheating, rolling, flip floppers of Oman who can’t put the ball in the back of the net even unless its from 2 yards out.
Claude Le Roy looks like my Grandmother.
dasilva said | November 15th 2009 @ 12:49pm | Report comment
The referee was incompetent no doubt but you can hardly call them racist especially when Australia was the beneficiary of a clearly offside goal.
cab711 said | November 15th 2009 @ 5:02pm | Report comment
Yes he is not a racist, but im getting quite fed up with this bias of the Socceroos being regarded as an overly physical team. It is quite obvious the referrees have been instructed to stamp this out. Yet its a shame the ref tolerates the theatrics, this is not what we want to see in the game. The ref is the only one on the field capable of controlling this.
dasilva said | November 15th 2009 @ 6:48pm | Report comment
Yeah the funny thing about the over-physical reputation was that it was an omani player who were thuggish that match. His stouch with David Carney should have been a red card.
md said | November 16th 2009 @ 11:52am | Report comment
Your Grandmother just wrote you out of the will! Poor woman!
Joe FC said | November 15th 2009 @ 9:42am | Report comment
It was a gusty effort from experienced professionals. David I would agree that Neil looked rusty but I thought Moore was solid & composed.
Midfielder said | November 15th 2009 @ 10:19am | Report comment
Das has a point … always remember TIPS … and we are lacking the S .. speed … time for some of the young guns to put their hand up.
Luke W said | November 15th 2009 @ 11:08am | Report comment
Quite simply, we cannot take Craig Moore or Scott Chipperfield to the WC. They are too slow. Fantastic saves from Schwarzer and terrible finishing has gotten us results, but like David said, against a half-decent striker at the WC we will get torn apart. I think Kisnorbo deserves a better shot at the other central defender position, as I have not seen him put a foot wrong in any of the substitute appearances he has made. Hopefully Carney can get some match time at left back for his club, because we need him to develop quickly so we don’t have to rely on Chipperfield at the WC.
cab711 said | November 15th 2009 @ 5:07pm | Report comment
Agree, dont know why Chippers kept trying to overlap into attack when he wasnt prepared to track back and defend. When Carney came on it plugged up that hole quick and there was far less penetration off that wing. Took Pim 60mins to figure that one out? Putting a little too much faith in Schwarzer my friend.
BTW, who reckons Schwarzer is world number one keeper ATM? Maybe Gigi Buffon but no other name comes to mind. He was incredible.
dasilva said | November 15th 2009 @ 11:15am | Report comment
I’m sorry but Moore was faster then Neill in this match.
Moore played well it was Lucas Neill who struggled
Carney is a good option as a winger but I still think Chipper is the better left back option. I think bresciano has to watch his spot in the first XI due to Carney not Chippers.
Chipperfield still has good technique and is much more stronger then David Carney. He can outmuscle other players and he rarely loses possession with the ball. Carney doesn’t have the physical build to be a decent left back for Australia. .
danny said | November 15th 2009 @ 12:09pm | Report comment
i agree that moore was quicker than neill. however, with neill getting more game time with everton and moore not getting any younger, i think that the situation will reverse come next june. i don’t think we can justify not sending neill, but i think he needs to be partnered by a younger, more mobile player. i think milligan has earned another chance (will probably feature in the remaining asian cup qualifiers) and i’d love to see spiranovic get a go as a smokey – would be interested to see if he could get a call-up against kuwait, even though it’s a non-fifa date he’s obviously out of favour with the nurnberg coach. unfortunate that williams got the card, i was looking forward to seeing him have another full run at right back. also an opportunity missed to give shane lowry a go at left back – would like to see what he can offer there. a serious possibility for mine, especially as chippers was frequently caught out of position last night.
The Bear said | November 15th 2009 @ 12:07pm | Report comment
How lucky is this team? Great fightback, tho, well done to the ‘team’. Strange but effective subs from PVB. Thought Chippers was going to get dragged…but Carney showed his talent.
Realfootball said | November 15th 2009 @ 1:23pm | Report comment
Verbeek is a rubbish coach. The team plays worse with time under him. It should be the reverse. He must be the luckiest coach in world football.
Of course now he’s untouchable when he should be fired, full stop. The best thing about the end of the World Cup finals will be the fact that this arrogant, dull and limited Dutchman – who has consciously made no attempt to understand the cultural and sporting context in which the team exists in this country – will no longer be the coach of our national team.
All we can hope then is that we once again have a team worth watching. And I don’t mean this as criticism of the players. This is purely about the current coach.
Horza said | November 15th 2009 @ 1:26pm | Report comment
On what planet do you spend most of your time?
Realfootball said | November 15th 2009 @ 1:27pm | Report comment
This one, Horza, and a lot of people feel the same way as me. And if you really think this team is playing well under Verbeek, the real question is what planet do you live on.
Horza said | November 15th 2009 @ 2:09pm | Report comment
Ask yourself: would we have won that game in 2007?
You remember 2007, don’t you?
Realfootball said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:07pm | Report comment
Horza, hypotheticals like that are a completely pointless exercise.
What counts is how this team is playing now. The undeniable fact remains that except for extraordinarily bad finishing from Oman, Australia would have lost this game by 3 goals.
So here’s an idea, Horza: if you like hypotheticals, ask yourself – if a player of Kewell’s quality had been up front for Oman, would Australia have won? (God forbid if they had someone approaching Luca Toni’s quality as a finisher.)
No way. We would have been done like a dinner.
Horza said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:22pm | Report comment
The point I was making was one of coach comparison. You seem to think it’s all the players and Verbeek is dragging on them – counterpoint: Graham Arnold. Same players, lucky to even draw with Oman. This time we clawed one back inside half time and went on finish them off.
We were organised, constantly seeking to get forward and I thought both our starting lineup and the subs were spot on. We could easily have been shanked in this game. What that has to do with Pim I’m not sure – he wasn’t bellowing for Willliams to body-check, and our vulnerability to fast-breaking Gulf sides is a constant, structural problem which Verbeek has handled better than his predecessor.
To be honest, I don’t know where this negativity comes from – I would have thought most fans would be pretty chuffed at a gutsy ten man win away, especially against a side that has form in slicing us open.
dasilva said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:18pm | Report comment
In 2007 we drew a match where we had no right to
In 2009, if there wasn’t for the referee blunder where we had scored an offside goal it would have been the same result.
Really this performance was no better then the 2007 match against Oman and arguably even worst.
Also remember that in 2007, Arnie has coached an a-league team and defeated Kuwait at home. this is a task thatt Pim Verbeek found too hard to do.
In any case, I do believe that Pim is a better coach then Arnie. However I just don’t think that’s the standard we should be expecting.from out manager.
Horza said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:47pm | Report comment
The differences being that some people seem to only count the ‘ifs’ when the other side has them – we were solidly ahead of Oman at home, in posession and chances – streaks ahead of our 2007 performance.
There seems to be this attitude, still, that these teams are just slightly better than Vanuatu, despite the defeats and near-humilitations they’ve inflicted on us. I don’t understand that.
Kuwait haven’t stayed static – their 2009 side is better than their 2006 side while the A-League team assembled (brace yourselves, I’m about to criticise Verbeek) was an abortion of a side, featuring Dean Heffernan the left-midfielder. That’s clearly one area where he needs to clean up his act, and soon.
As for standards and expectations – I think in general they’ve both risen, but the latter has soared through the roof, without a lot of justification. We have a good manager, who has guided us through a long, difficult, hazardous AFC WC qualification process with great results, beating sides that had skewered us in the Cup only a year ago.
That’s what was expected of him. That’s what he delivered. Somehow along the way though, people seemed to decide that because we were winning these games we should be winning all of them, in style and denying the opposition a shot on goal. That our conservative, safety-first qualification formations were shackles on a team that had previously played flowing, one-touch, high scoring football.
This team doesn’t exist outside of a highlight reel. But apparently it would if Verbeek would just play two strikers or one DM (he has, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t). Our Asian Cup campaign languished and needed urgent rescuscitation — but we just did that, after a horror start and yet some are hanging shit on him.
There are better managers out there – they’re also a buttload more expensive and unwilling to take up what is effectively a middle-ranked side from a weaker confederation with some big logicistical problems when it comes to assembling a full squad. The other coaches we were after shafted us or went off to coach 3rd tier Japanese club sides before retiring a month later. In comparison I think we got the right guy.
dasilva said | November 15th 2009 @ 4:15pm | Report comment
Fair enough Horza
I’m not exactly anti-pim but I’m not pro-piim either.
I do believe that Australia were unlucky to lose away against Iraq and the criticism he got for that match was unfair (it was a much better performance then the victory at home).
I also thought the performance against China at Kunming wasn’t bad.
I also agree that Australia had outplayed Oman at home.
However it just that we had Pim for 2 years and I’m expecting some degree of fluency to develop when the team is attacking.
However I don’t really see any real progress in that area
Really, our plan is mostly get the ball to the flanks and do some deep crosses to kennedy whilst he takes advantage of asian teams aerial weakness
Sure that’s going to work in Asia but can Pim adapt the style of play for better opposition.
The Oman game would have been a good test for that as the goalkeeper was excellent dealing with crosses.
Unfortunately the sent off robbed us the opportunity of seeing where we are with that.
dasilva said | November 15th 2009 @ 1:55pm | Report comment
I’m not really a fan of Verbeek
however we played reasonably football until the send off. Harry Kewell was looking a good option up front
It’s a bit harsh to judge a team on a performance with 10 men. Only then were we dominated..
Nevertheless we have been playing pretty average football long eefore this match.
midfield general said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:40pm | Report comment
Can’t really make up my mind whether Pim’s actually a good coach or just lucky. What the socceroos recent games show is there seems to be little difference in standard between teams at the pointy end (Holland) and teams like Oman and Kuwait. It’s a cliche but there’s no easy games in international football anymore. Unless you’re in Oceania.
Rob said | November 15th 2009 @ 1:45pm | Report comment
RF, you have 100% agreement from me
Joe FC said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:32pm | Report comment
I certainly disagree with the view that Verbeek is a rubbish coach. Like all of us he has his strengths and weaknesses. Coaching is a results oriented game and to date he has been successful. Last night we took our chances & Oman did not. That involves both skill and luck.
dasilva said | November 15th 2009 @ 3:44pm | Report comment
I do understand when people say that if you take your chances then you deserve to win (although saying that, one goal should have been ruled offside, so at most we can say is that we deserved a draw if we are going to disregard the amount of possession and chances)
However as much as we can say Australia deserves to win because we took our chances. How does that reflect on Pim’s ability to coach.
Pim’s coaching ability has no influence on Bahrain players missing clear cut chances.
Pim’s coaching ability is reflected from how fluent the team is playing, how many chancesdid we restrict from the opposition due to good tactics, how many chances the team created. These are the things that Pim can control not that the Bahrain team are poor finisher.
For the performance indicators that can be influence by the coach. there is a question mark over Pim’s coaching.
Realfootball said | November 15th 2009 @ 8:08pm | Report comment
Point about Verbeek remains: the team consistently plays poorly under him, outplayed by teams from countries with tiny populations so far below us in the rankings that there is many days of light between us and them. Oman, with half decent finishing, would have won by several goals. To infer that Verbeek influenced this result is self evident nonsense, as dasilva has pointed out.
Verbeek has had everything – time, resources and plenty of games. Neither Farina nor Arnold had these luxuries. If we look back the games in the Verbeek period, how often can we say Australia deserved to win? Asian teams are chronically poor finishers. Verbeek’s CV has been a MAJOR beneficiary of this weakness in the Asian game. The team is awful to watch – slow, ponderous in transition, failing to create more than a few chances per game (luckily our conversion rate reflects the leagues the players play in from week to week). My point is that the players are better than this – just the leagues they play in supports this view.
This is a chronically underperforming team in every aspect of the game except results. And I do not believe that in this country, dire, ground-out results are enough. I believe Verbeek is harming the code in this country and that he did so earlier in Korea, which is why he was fired. Apart from that, what has he done to justify his astonishing level of conceit? Nothing. We got the coach we paid for, I suppose is all you can say. If you consider that what he dishes up is worth 2.5 million per year. I don’t. That is obviously a personal view, but it comes from someone who has done everything to see our national team play since I was a kid, long ago, and for the first time in my life I really would rather not. And I put that down to a dour, baselessly arrogant coach who has not done the work he needed to do to understand the context of the code in this country.
Horza said | November 15th 2009 @ 8:37pm | Report comment
Realfootball, there was a team once that believed it had a divine right to progress to the World Cup, because of it’s great history and footballing pedigree – it was ranked #18 and had to qualify against a team that was a lowly #49 – do you remember what happened to that team?
Tom said | November 16th 2009 @ 8:04am | Report comment
‘This is a chronically underperforming team in every aspect of the game except results.’
Just so you know, this is the kind of statement that makes it difficult to take you seriously.
Realfootball said | November 16th 2009 @ 8:34am | Report comment
As I said Tom, a personal view. I am old fashioned and perhaps idealistic in believing that in football results aren’t everything – particularly not in Australia, where we compete with NRL, RU, AFL and cricket.
Thus, from my perspective, the team is underperforming, because if you take out an extraordinary series of wins that can only be put down to our opponents poor finishing, the team under Verbeek plays the most boring, uninspiring football I can remember an Australian team playing.
I actually don’t care whether you take me seriously or not: your views do no impinge in any way on my universe, nor mine on yours. I simply think that Verbeek is defensive, unimaginative mediocre coach who has our national team playing in his image and after Hiddink I think that is a real lost opportunity for our game. Not only that, I believe that in the end, unfortunately, the tv ratings and more recent crowd stats indicate that a great many people agree with me.
The Bear said | November 15th 2009 @ 8:13pm | Report comment
You are right das, a ten man performance makes it hard to judge the fluency of what could be a possible first eleven team. I was surprised that Chippers didn’t get dragged, that is the coaches perogative…but it was baffling that he played the game out, imo. But the subbing for Cahill/Bresc for Holman was either a tactical masterstroke that undid Oman, or he was counting on Emerton having the hunger to put this game beyond a draw. Holman offers some harrassing as a striker cum defensive forward, but perhaps more importantly he offers a great decoy in the 18 yard box. That is perhaps PVB’s masterpiece of tactics. One can speculate. And yes, I agree we are certainly playing below our promise.
md said | November 16th 2009 @ 12:18pm | Report comment
AAARGH. People. The break 50 metres down the beach always looks bigger than the one you are surfing at. It’s something to do with the Grass. Greener. Fence. Apparently.
Replay the Oman game in your head briefly. Then ask how you think the Socceroos would have responded to the same situation under Frank. Graham Arnold? Or even under Gus. Then think how they responded to that situation under Pim. Oh shit. Somewhere in the last 2 years Australia became a side that passed the ball halfway effectively, and managed to score goals against fast, technical teams by ball movement and player movement. Even playing with 10 men. Away. That’s 2 away goals. In a must-win game. Against an agile and well coached team. Boasting the only other world class keeper in Asia. With a shocking ref and a malevolent crowd.
Hmmm?
Still don’t believe me?
Ok, count the actual long-balls we played last night. Not the clearances under pressure, the actual long balls. Now poke yourself in the eye with the two fingers you are holding up. Because you deserved that. When your sight returns, go and take a good hard look in the mirror.
Cheers
md
dasilva said | November 16th 2009 @ 1:24pm | Report comment
Kewell playing up front negated the long ball options. If I do give credit for that match, we certainly kept the ball on hte ground and before the send off, we were playing good football.
I mention before that Pim should neither be criticised for this match. You can’t really judge a fair performance with 10 men
However Md. one of our goals was offside and the oman had plenty more chances on goals.
We were lucky to pim. this ;ucly victory was neither to the detriment or to the credit of Pim Verbeek
In any case, most of the complaints about Pim Verbeek is referring to previous performance from the socceroos.