No Moore time left for the Socceroos

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By Davidde Corran, 6 Jun 2010 Davidde Corran is a Roar Expert

Tagged:: 2010 World Cup, Craig Moore, football, Harry Kewell, Lucas Neill, Pim Verbeek, Socceroos, USA, Vince Grella

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Australian Socceroos Craig Moore. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill).

So, the key part of Australia’s World Cup preparation, three friendlies against New Zealand, Denmark and the USA, are now over. And after the Denmark game it was hard to decide which of Australia’s performances had been the most disappointing, yesterday’s pitiful 3-1 loss to the US left us in no doubt.

At times the Socceroos were skinned alive by the USA’s domestically based strike force of Edson Buddle and Robert Findley. Despite the presence of Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, this was still an experimental US line-up against an almost full-strength Socceroos side. But how Australia missed the two starting players who weren’t present, Harry Kewell and Brett Emerton.

Despite valiant efforts from Richard Garcia and Mark Bresciano, both of whom are trying to find their game feet again after injury disrupted seasons, the Australian front-line struggled to find any fluency.

In the end Tim Cahill was forced into dropping deep and pulling out wide to help Bresciano and Garcia. While that worked to a small extent, it meant Cahill wasn’t where he is most dangerous: in and around the opposition’s penalty area.

Australia’s stifled creativity isn’t news and so the biggest concern must be in defence.

Craig Moore quite simply had a nightmare. Australia’s back line in general isn’t exactly blessed with pace and so it comes as no surprise that against Denamrk and the US, Australia have played a high defensive line, trying to catch their opponents offside. On a number of occasions it didn’t work and this will continue to plague the Socceroos.

Meanwhile, I have some sympathy with Vince Grella’s much-maligned performance against the US. Gone were the brutal red-card worthy tackles we’d seen in the two previous friendlies. Instead it was Grella’s distribution that had most people worried.

Not only was ‘Vinnie’ responsible for the first goal, after coughing up possession 15 metres in front of Australia’s penalty area, but also his passing often went astray.

When considering Grella’s game yesterday it bears remembering that his position in the middle of the park is where it is most obvious when a player misses the target with one of his passes. The Blackburn Rovers midfielder was also quite isolated with Culina given a bit more freedom to push on. There was a marked improvement when Valeri came on and sat deep with Grella. His distribution improved and Australia were cut open much less.

Yesterday’s loss to the US was the first time Australia has conceded three goals in quite a while, so should Australian fans be concerned by this performance or grateful for the “wake-up call”?

Personally I’d go with the later. Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek is about as dogged as they come. Fitness concerns aside, he knows who is going to start against Germany this weekend and how he wants them to play as well.

Going into a major tournament you want your players fit, in-form and confident. Australia will struggle on almost all those fronts.

Yet I was surprised to see the buoyant mood in the Australian camp despite a 3-1 loss. I spoke to a number of the Socceroos after the game and while disappointed to have lost, they really weren’t too fussed. Clearly the Socceroos wont carry the weight of this loss into their opening game.

In looking for positives, Australian fans can take a little hope from an Australia v USA scratch match played between the substitutes and reserves from both squads after the final whistle. It was in that run around that Harry Kewell got his first taste of football in the green and gold this year.

Harry’s return can’t come quick enough but I’m not sure if that will solve all of Australia’s problems.

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The Crowd Says (26) | Page 1 of Comments

SideShowBob said | June 6th 2010 @ 7:41am | Report comment

They’ll be home before the postcards.

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Kurt said | June 6th 2010 @ 8:03am | Report comment

Stumbled out of bed this morning and was doing some channel-surfing when I came across a live telecast of the game on ESPN. It’s not often you get to see Aussies on US TV so thought I would sit down and watch the game. Here is my neophyte’s review of what I saw:

1) The stadium. When I first selected the channel I thought I was about to see images of one of the shiny new WC stadia. Instead it looked like the game was being played at a recreational reserve somewhere near Altona in Melbourne’s western suburbs. I half expected to see a few fat blokes kicking a sherrin out the back and people sitting in their cars honking their horns when someone scored.

2) Advertising at the ground. I noticed that all of the placards around the ground were for Aussie companies which made me a bit homesick but was strange nevertheless. I wonder what the yanks watching thought of all the Optus and Qantas signs?

3) Quality of the pitch. For a dedicated WC training ground (which I assumed this was) the ground seemed in pretty poor condition by the end of the match. The US commentators went on about this quite a bit.

4) The socceroos’ jerseys. For all the criticism I actually quite liked them. At first I wasn’t sure but by the end of the game they had definitely grown on me.

5) And finally the Australian performance. Others will obviously make a more informed judgement, but to me they just looked tired – as if they had been thrashed in camp all week and were just plain exhausted. The Americans seemed fitter and fresher which would explain the number of silly errors the Aussie defence kept making.

Hopefully things will improve from here.

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- AndyRoo said | June 6th 2010 @ 9:31am | Report comment
  
  1 and 2 are due to fact it’s Australia’s training ground which they used for the match.
  
  Number 3 is a big worry and their looking to move now, Pim said it was in great condition this time last year but it’s a shocker. I think after Marcus beasley nearly got injured just running on it there was no chance Pim was going to risk kewell on it.
  
  5 apparently their in heavy training until about 4 days before the german game where they will taper off, so we can only hope you are right. If I was a US fan I would be feeling much more positive though.
  
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  - Baz35 said | June 6th 2010 @ 10:13am | Report comment
    
    Do you think so? Their defence looked as brittle as ours. Would have conceded a number of goals in the 2nd half if they played any of the better nations
    
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    - AndyRoo said | June 6th 2010 @ 6:02pm | Report comment
      
      I would back them to get out of their admittedly less daunting group.
      
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MVDave said | June 6th 2010 @ 8:11am | Report comment

Side Show Bob… sounds llike hope more than knowledge or are you a closet football fan?

In terms of the display l would take the USA warm up game in a more positive light. It was an individual error that gifted the 1st goal…and it meant for once the Socceroos had to chase a game. Whilst they were no Spain going forward there were some plusses including Chippers down the left (some of his crossing was superb) and the number of chances created. This meant a more open game for once with the team creating quite a few decent chances. In the 2nd half the Socceroos dominated with the US playing on the break. Both teams could have scored more but at least for the Socceroos there was an indication that chances can be created (in reality Jesus could have had 2-3 goals).
It was a completely different game to many the Socceroos have played under Pim and l see no reason for any doom and gloom…the performance, going forward in particular,for once was better than the result (still improvement needed no doubt).
BTW l was impressed with the USA team who, lets not forget, beat Spain on the way the Confeds Cup Final last year.
Only 5 sleeps to go!!!!

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- Baz35 said | June 6th 2010 @ 10:15am | Report comment
  
  Jesus SHOULD have scored at least twice. Probably fantasising but god i hope Kewell’s body holds together and he pulls one more month of brilliance out of himself
  
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Australian Football said | June 6th 2010 @ 8:29am | Report comment

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the game last night however, I have just viewed the Fox hi-lights. The USA are continuing on from where they left off with their impressive dispays they showed at the Federation’s Cup. This US team, is going to do a lot of damage to the reputations of the more fancied, established, so called super-powers of Football. Look out England you’re going to go down.
_____
AF

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David said | June 6th 2010 @ 9:38am | Report comment

Moore is slow ineffective and down right passed it he hasnt had a *good* game for the socceroos in a year. Verbeeks Tatical niaveity will cost us the game.

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Baz35 said | June 6th 2010 @ 10:11am | Report comment

Some worrying signs down back but in the second half we dominated possession and created alot more chances than either of the previous two games. The US could have scored a number of times on the counter though the 2nd half was certainly the most enjoyable socceroos to watch in recent times. No Cahill or Kewell either. After watching last night I would be more hopeful if we went down early than based on the previous games. We came from behind twice in the last world cup

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Farqwar said | June 6th 2010 @ 10:19am | Report comment

Here is my review of the game.

Pass the ball around at the back so we look like we know what we are doing.
Give the ball away in midfield 50% of the time. The other 50% push the ball wide for a cross or put a little dink over the top and hope it finds someone.

Why do we never see a ball that splits the defence and puts an attacker on ball behind the last line of defence. The lack of being able to create a chance is so frustrating. The USA should have put 4 or 5 past us because they created good chances.

Whatever happens in this world cup, Football in Australia needs an overhaul. We need to encourage creative, attacking football. At the Asian Cup we need to promote players like Oar, Ruka, Vidosic, Brosque, Valeri, and if Carle goes well at Sydney he should go. We should also get a manager who is going to teach them and encourage them to attack and work as a team to create opportunities, kinda like the rest of the world does.

Of course the defence should be important but as well as defending the defenders should be able set up the midfield in attack.

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- Realfootball said | June 6th 2010 @ 12:53pm | Report comment
  
  Yep, you’re on the money. I have been saying for long time that Verbeek is a disaster and I would much rather be proved wrong, but all the chickens came home to roost against the USA.
  
  Verbeek is a talentless nonentity and if we do, by some miracle, escape our group, it will be because of the players, not him. The tragedy is that we have the players to do so much better, but Verbeek is in the grip of the old clique that run the dressing room. By any objective standards, Moore and Grella should not be playing. But will Verbeek drop them? No- because he doesn’t run the team – the old hands do, and we’ve seen what Moore’s influence is like through his antics at Brisbane Roar.
  
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  - Joe FC said | June 6th 2010 @ 8:43pm | Report comment
    
    Pathetic.
    
    Reply
MM Fike said | June 6th 2010 @ 10:41am | Report comment

The last three games tell me we aren’t going further than the first round.
I fervently hope I’m wrong but an ageing team not playing well is a bad sign going into a World Cup.

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- Peter said | June 12th 2010 @ 6:08pm | Report comment
  
  I agree… the signs don’t look good… fiist against NZ who played better than us and then the usa game..
  
  i dont believe what we have been dished up ‘ we were a little jagged after heavy training’. I heard that after the nz game and then after the usa game….
  
  this is a team playing on the pride of the past…… we are in for some shocks.. I have no doubt about this at all….
  
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The Bear said | June 6th 2010 @ 3:11pm | Report comment

Thanks for the review. And bloody hell Kurt, did you have a good shower after that game? I would have assumed you would run a mile from the stench of a Football, erm Soccer match ; ) For what it is worth I appreciated your comments and agree with most of the observations. The lads look completely thrashed… ie tired and worn out.

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whiskeymac said | June 6th 2010 @ 3:14pm | Report comment

any loss is disappointing but at the same time some of the friendly results for our peers in the group have also been crappy. performances of vinnie and the defence is a worry but hopefully remediable. kennedy should have bagged one or two…
as others have said the US isnt a bad team – EPL players and the like.

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