Verbeek silent despite rumours of his depature

By Sam Lienert, 12 Mar 2010 Sam Lienert is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: 2010 World Cup, football, Pim Verbeek, Socceroos

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Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek says his future beyond the World Cup will soon be known, but no final decision has been made.

Verbeek is widely expected to leave the Australian national team to take up a club role after the June-July event in South Africa.

But he refused to outline his plans on Thursday as he sat alongside Football Federation Australia chief executive Ben Buckley at a launch for the Socceroos’ May 24 friendly against New Zealand at the MCG.

“We have to make a final decision, I think we should leave it until then,” Verbeek said.

“Everything you read or hear is just speculation and the only people who know what’s going on are the two people sitting here.”

An announcement was expected soon.

“I like Ben and we like to have a cup of coffee together but to do that for the upcoming three months is a little bit overdone,” he said.

“We’re going to make a final decision sooner, as soon as possible.

“Not in the next 48 hours, like I’ve read.”

If he is leaving, the clash with fellow World Cup qualifier NZ at the MCG will be both a send-off for the Socceroos and All Whites and Verbeek’s last match in charge on Australian soil.

The Dutchman, whose two-year stint guiding the Socceroos to the World Cup and Asian Cup has earned him a reputation for producing results but not necessarily spectacles, said there would be a focus on entertaining.

With the match coming 20 days before Australia’s Cup campaign kicks off against Germany, Verbeek said it would be more about farewelling fans and auditioning fringe team members than a full dress rehearsal.

“In the end it’s a pre-match, it’s not the World Cup itself, the World Cup is most important,” he said.

“So we want to use this game to again entertain fans and try to win of course and we’re going to use it as a very good training session to prepare ourselves for the World Cup.”

It could be crucial for those trying to push into the starting side.

“I’m sure my players, our players, love to play against New Zealand and see it as a great opportunity to play themselves into the final 11 for the World Cup,” Verbeek said.

NZ coach Ricki Herbert also said the encounter would be more about providing an entertaining send-off than a World Cup dry run.

But he said any sporting contest between the two nations was something either side would hate to lose and he expected many Kiwi fans to attend.

“Australia’s ranked very highly on the FIFA charts now, so it’s certainly going to be a big challenge and a measurable one for us given the teams that we face at the World Cup as well.”

Meanwhile, Socceroos regular and Gold Coast star Jason Culina said he expected to make an announcement early next week about his club future in the lead-up to the World Cup.

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The Crowd Says (7) | Page 1 of Comments

whiskeymac said | March 12th 2010 @ 7:41am | Report comment

entertaining and fringe players getting game time?
why is this not headline news?? =)

i expect to see 4-2-3-1 but with the players told to have different coloured socks on. crazy wackiness indeed. oh Pim you card you.

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Tadpohle said | March 12th 2010 @ 9:10am | Report comment

Well, riveting promotion for the upcoming NZ v Aus. Both teams are going to take it seriously and fuel the rivalry factor blah blah blah.but not play their top teams blah blah blah.

I hope the tickets are going to be free, good opportunity to clean the toilet bowl or paint the loungeroom. Paint the loungeroom probably, then I will have something more exciting to watch while the game is on, I’ll have to check and make sure I don’t use a fast drying paint though.

What an insult to the Melbourne sporting public. Everybody knows that if you kick a ball in Melbourne, 30,000 people will turn up to see where it went, but to exploit this amazing devotion to sport is probably where the FFA will get it wrong.

Oh !!!! great news item about Jason Culina, wait a minute ????, that’s not news either. I’m not sure I really care now, I want to be positive about his and the socceroos future, but … there’s only so much drawn out non suspense that a person can bear.

If the item had mentioned what sort of coffee they were drinking or how many sugars, that would have been more interesting???

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Tadpohle said | March 12th 2010 @ 9:34am | Report comment

“The Dutchman, whose two-year stint guiding the Socceroos to the World Cup and Asian Cup has earned him a reputation for producing results but not necessarily spectacles, said there would be a focus on entertaining.”

It is comments like this that really get my dander up, I am insulted to have to read this non informed muck raking journalism. THE DUTCHMAN, is a football coach, juggling the committments of an incompetent, (no that’s a bit harsh, they only seem incompetent from the way things have materialised) , FFA Board who is only interested in producing a $ by way of their Football vehicle, even though he doesn’t get to use his best players because of conflicting interests with other $ generating organisations with more “clout” than the FFA,

His results have been excellent and the measure of his succe4ss as required by his employer and now he is being expected to produce an entertaing game from the leftovers talent at his disposal, against a coach who recognises the useless point of trying to gain a result against a team so much higher in world rankings that doesn’t want to risk his c hances either.They are not bloody magicians and I cannot imagine how this game can be conjured up as being entertaining or even meaningful, but is a final grab for fans $’s before departure and the coaches will cop the fallout from the sceptics as usual, and the author of this piece is probably the only person that will enjoy the situation.

“Spleen vented” that feels much better !

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- Smokygrayson said | March 12th 2010 @ 12:53pm | Report comment
  
  Hear hear to both posts Mosquito (sorry Tadpole).
  
  Pim for NQ Fury coach!!
  
  Reply
Ghost said | March 12th 2010 @ 9:45am | Report comment

Have to agree with Tadphole. We should be playingg teams ranked within 10 places either side of us leading up to the world cup, and teams that will stretch us in the same way our three group opponents will. Where is the game against an Egypt or Morocco to prepare us for the fluid African style? Where is the fixture against say Belgium or Switzerland to give us a game we should win, but that will still test us in a robust phyical European way? Sure, I’ve got no problems with us playing an exhibition game with the Kiwis, but really it is quite meaningless compared to what we could do.

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Realfootball said | March 12th 2010 @ 11:21am | Report comment

His results have been good, but the performances have been remarkably unconvincing. I suppose that it is some credit to Verbeek that the points have come even in games where we have been outplayed. I personally would like to know what lucky charm Verbeek uses and whether he had to go so far as to mortgage his soul to Old Nick to accumulate the points he did while coaching his team to play the dullest, least interesting football of any Australian team in my memory apart from those coached by Graeme Arnold, who was simply incompetent.

Verbeek is a tactically limited and defensive coach who has conspicuously failed to get the best out of our NT, which has consistently played under him as so much less than the sum of its parts. I sincerely hope that he moves on after the World Cup and the FFA appoints a coach with a positive vision for the game.

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jimbo said | March 12th 2010 @ 11:37am | Report comment

He’s got the best record of any Australian football manager.
He achieved both the goals set by the FFA so far – Qualify for the WC and Qualify for the Asian Cup – as top of their qualification group.

His final goal is to do at least as well as the Socceroos did in the last WC – round of 16.

He’s been trying to get back to a club side since 2000, when he was Guus the Great’s assistant at South Korea.

I think he’ll go and Frank Farina’s looking for work

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