Holger’s Socceroos bounce back to form

Roar Pro

By jimbo, 9 Sep 2010 jimbo is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: Adam Federici, Asian Cup, Brett Holman, Holger Osieck, poland, Socceroos

Related coverage

Some people said “Holger who” after that famous press announcement of the new Socceroos coach a few weeks back. The only Holger I really knew before then was Holger Brockman, the smooth voiced radio announcer who plays my kind of rock and jazz music.

Since then Holger Osieck and his thrown together Socceroos outfit have got a couple of creditable results and the future ahead under Holger seems to be brighter than we first thought. I’m even getting excited about our chances to win our first ever men’s senior Asian Cup in January.

No more backpage headlines about the boring coach’s tactics or the “creditable defensive effort”.

There’s talk now about the results and about how the Aussies are playing more of their natural aggressive attacking style and not about the coach and his opinions about the “hopeless” A-League. Even Brett Holman is looking very good and gets better with every game.

After a creditable draw against Switzerland over the weekend, the Socceroos “heroes” beat Poland 2-1 in a football friendly match in Krakow last night.

Australia scored goals by Brett Holman (13min) and Luke Wilkshire (26 – pen.) with rising Polish star Robert Lewandowski netting one for Poland (18).

Poland could not press a one man advantage in the second half following Brett Emerton seeing a red card produced from the referee’s pocket. Adam Federici also played his part by saving a penalty.

In preparation leading up to the Asian Cup, Osieck should walk away happy with Australia’s first two matches under his charge, a draw with world No.17 Switzerland and a morale boosting triumph at Poland.

Australia still has a lot of work to do, by Holger’s own admission and has two more friendlies to play before Holger decides on the make-up of his squad for January’s Asian Cup in Qatar, against Paraguay in Sydney next month before an expected fixture in Egypt in November.

Tongue in cheek, I’d also like to hail Holger as Australia’s greatest ever senior men’s national football team manager, having never lost a game in charge of the Socceroos.

Long may that rich vein of form continue!

Enjoy sports? Enjoy a bargain? All Sports Online has your favourite sporting brands at up to 70% off. Online only, premium quality sporting goods and merchandise at discounted prices. Get a deal now.

The Crowd Says (14) | Page 1 of Comments

chocolatecoatedballs said | September 9th 2010 @ 6:48am | Report comment

I have also just realized i have not heard a bad word said about him yet.

Reply
- jimbo said | September 9th 2010 @ 11:22pm | Report comment
  
  Maybe Holger can do a big press interview to keep the momentum going.
  
  Positive spin on the Socceroos and the A-League and how wonderful Australia is and how much he is enjoying it etc etc
  
  Need some positivism in the Australian football press releases to combat all the negative hype that gets thrown at it.
  
  Reply
Australian Football said | September 9th 2010 @ 7:17am | Report comment

Another good article Jimbo and I too feel the optimism of Holger and the good vibes he sends out. I have enjoyed listening to him speak on his philosophy of football. If I had to experience another four years of Pim Verbeek I would have turned away from the game..
______
AF

Reply
- jimbo said | September 9th 2010 @ 11:24pm | Report comment
  
  Isn’t it great AF,
  like a breath of fresh Bavarian forest air.
  
  Reply
Davstar said | September 9th 2010 @ 9:46pm | Report comment

i’ve liked what i’ve seen so far

Reply
- Birdman said | September 9th 2010 @ 10:42pm | Report comment
  
  There is a site that uses a statistical basis contending that the Soceroos performed poorly against Poland and were lucky to win.
  
  The writer presents a pretty compelling case.
  
  It can be found on Science Of Football.
  
  http://www.scienceoffootball.com
  
  Thought Australia did okay until I read that.
  
  Reply
  - jimbo said | September 9th 2010 @ 11:31pm | Report comment
    
    I recorded and watched the whole game and don’t agree with Jon Price’s assessment at all [never heard of him] – pretty negative article really.
    
    I was actually getting very excited about the way we played and held our shape very well and completed so many passes.
    
    Especially for a team combination that had never played together before, with a new coach, playing 20,000 miles from home in front of a hostile sell out Polish crowd. Then reduced to 10 men and still held out.
    
    I would have found a lot more positives in my report than Mr Price did.
    
    Reply
    - dasilva said | September 10th 2010 @ 12:13am | Report comment
      
      To be honest, I kind of agree with him. I was very impressed of the game against Switzerland but against Poland I thought we were pretty lucky to win as I felt the Polish team had more then enough chances to win the game and that Federici pretty much bailed our team out. We did pass well and created fair amount of chance as well but I felt that we need to improve with our defence.
      
      Jon Price is probably more known around the TWG forum circles (formerly known as Decentric) and he’s a pretty controversial figure. He’s a youth coach for a Tasmanian girls team and he did a KNVB course where he learnt a fair bit about statistics and using it in analysing a match that inspired him to write match reports. I think he is a friend of Mike Salters (The Football Tragic website whom IMO is the best Australian football blogger) and did do an interview with him on that website
      
      People either respect his statistical focus analyst of the game or believe he overused statistics and relying on it for judgement without analysing it properly etc.
      
      He believes that Pim Verbeek is the second best manager (after Hiddink) Australia ever has and often used statistics to back up Pim’s decision as well as his selections and that’s why he is fairly controversial. I don’t believe the article was that negative but the context of the article is that he was essentially comparing the difference between Verbeek and Holger (have a read of the Switzerland analysis http://scienceoffootball.com/2010/09/missed-penalty-cheeses-off-swiss-but-the-holes-are-in-aussie-attack/) and believes that we were more defensively vulnerable under Holger and believes the enterprising style of football is due to the open nature of the opposition giving Australia more space then usual and that Australia will struggle to play that way against Asian opposition (he pretty much explained why Australia played with more flair against Ireland under Verbeek and yet very dull against Asian opposition in previous analysis)
      
      Nevertheless, whether you like or hate his analysis, the best thing about his work was that whilst a lot of people were baffled with some of Pim’s selection and tactics (defensive tactics against Japan away from home, continued selection of Holman, Continued selection of Craig Moore and Vince Grella and Jason Culina, omission of Nick Carle, omission of Scott Mcdonald), Jon Price gives a very good analysis (backed with statistics) why that is so. So even if you still disagreed with Pim, you understood where he was coming from and that his decision didn’t came out of nowhere.
      
      Reply
      - AndyRoo said | September 10th 2010 @ 9:37am | Report comment
        
        It’s funny that in a lot of games we lost his stats would show we did ok winning the one on ones and such. Obviously a more attacking team is going to be more vulnerable, especially if we persist with older players in Asian conditions.
        
        I really don’t think we have the team to qualify the same way we did with Pim as key players are even older and the other teams look better. No matter what he is going to have to rebuild the back 5.
        
        Our key strengths last time around were our players had a lot of ralatively big time European experience so were more professional and ruthless than our opponents but we hardly dominated. We were also a bit lucky with what group we were in and avoided most of the teams with decent finishers or keepers.
        
        With less credentialed players we are going to need a new plan either more proactive or making our team a better counter attacking team (we now have the pace for that). We have Kennedy, Cahill as well as a lot of choices at CB who are strong in the air and we have a lot of pacy options. I think that gives us a pretty good shot but it’s up to Holger to put it together.
        
        Edit: Coaches love stats and defensive football, a more open game puts the result more in the hands of the players and brings into play stuff that is harder to quantify.
        
        Reply
        
        dasilva said | September 10th 2010 @ 10:35am | Report comment
        
        Actually I don’t think the stats necessary show that we did ok even though we lost. When we lost 4-0 to Germany, we still “won” the one on one battles and that pretty much shows that we outmuscled the German team (in fact our stats shows that we won the one on one battles against every team we played against (i think with an exception against Bahrain away), even against the Netherlands who are a pretty physical side). However Germany still ended up flogging us because there were far less one-on-one battles because their excellent passing game minimised the need to win the one on one battles.
        
        About coaches loving stats and defensive football. Well Arsene Wenger is a huge fans of statistics and no one really considers him defensive manager.
        
        I just think it’s the case that stats is the tool but we need a good knowledge of the game to interpret it properly.
Midfielder said | September 10th 2010 @ 12:46am | Report comment

Jimbo

Great article and as we have discussed before we have some great players coming tho … BTW enjoyed looking at the article from Jon Price… that takes some effort to put that together.

Reply
Fussball ist unser leben said | September 10th 2010 @ 7:19am | Report comment

Well done, Jimbo – a nice positive football piece. I, too, have never been more excited about watching the development & regeneration of the National Team, and that 90-minute debacle against Germany in Durban is now just a distant nightmare!

Let’s hope the Sydney football crowd get behind the lads when they play Paraguay next month.

Reply
Albal said | September 10th 2010 @ 9:05am | Report comment

Empty victory against Poland…..still using aged players rather than youth….Garcia instead of Visdosic? Scotty Mac instead of Burns? Come on!Next thing you know he will going through his local nursing home looking for players.

Reply
Fussball ist unser leben said | September 17th 2010 @ 11:02am | Report comment

The beauty of having a manager that is respected in his homeland.

Herr Osieck has organised the ultimate “revenge match” …

Mark it in your diaries:
Date: Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Venue: Borussia-Park, Mönchengladbach, Deutschland

Deutschland v Australia

I reckon this will rate pretty well … even though it will be merely a “practice match” that is broadcast LIVE at around 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday, 30 March 2011 in Australia.

Source: http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/183485,socceroos-to-face-germanyagain.aspx

Reply