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Holger Osieck is caught between a rock and a hard place. In charge of a Socceroos squad bereft of genuine world-class talent, as the coach he is invariably first in line to cop criticism for heavy defeats.
Australia’s recent 6-0 defeat to Brazil wasn’t so much a wake-up call, as it was just another in a long and increasingly troubling line of utterly inept performances.
Our pace was languorous, defending shambolic and the space between the lines opened up like yawning chasms.
Is that Osieck’s fault? He did pick the players – ones he presumably believed would do a better job than to simply be torn apart by a Brazilian side fine-tuning itself before a World Cup on home soil.
Yet, Osieck is obviously not responsible for the system which produced the players, nor is he capable of making decisions for them.
Nevertheless, the seemingly entrenched mediocrity currently plaguing the national team has set the cat among the pigeons.
Osieck admitted this week he was taken aback by some of the criticism being directed his way.
Asked in a press conference whether he sought clarification over his future from Football Federation Australia, the po-faced German was as taciturn as ever.
“I sense where you’re coming from, but what’s the rationale behind it?” he countered.
It should be remembered that after Rale Rasic, Guus Hiddink and Pim Verbeek, the well-travelled Osieck is just the fourth coach to lead Australia to the World Cup finals.
Of those, only Mostar-born Rasic was a true-blue Aussie – though his post-1974 World Cup treatment by the then-Australian Soccer Federation suggests they felt otherwise – while the two Dutchmen left behind mixed legacies following their respective tenures in charge.
Hiddink’s name has since been bandied about as a desirable replacement should the FFA pull the trigger on Osieck’s time in charge, however those clamouring for a big name would do well to keep Rasic’s experience in mind.
At a time when the Socceroos were languishing in the doldrums of Australia’s collective sporting psyche, Rasic moulded a tight-knit, tactically aware outfit capable of withstanding the rigours of an arduous qualifying campaign to book a place for the first time at the World Cup finals.
More than 30 years later, a once-discredited former Young Socceroos coach rebuilt his managerial career to take charge of an A-League side riddled with internal problems and struggling to make its mark on a predominantly rugby league town.
After a shaky start at Brisbane Roar, Ange Postecoglou turned the Queensland side into the competition’s powerhouse – something he’s now attempting to do in his hometown with Melbourne Victory.
Rasic and Postecoglou have a few things in common. They were both born overseas yet understand Australian mentalities, they each possess high-level tactical acumen and both have proved they are capable of soldiering on against adversity.
A lesser man might have walked away from the game following Craig Foster’s withering, on-air verbal assault against Postecoglou on The World Game in 2006, yet it seemed to forge a steely resolve in him to become the best coach in the land.
And that he most certainly is – not just because of the two championships he won in charge of South Melbourne and the two collected as coach of the Roar – but because his tactical nous, ability to extract the very best from his players and tacit understanding of football’s struggle to establish a foothold in this country mark him as a genuine home-grown visionary.
It’s not as if we haven’t had home-grown coaches before and in retrospect, both Frank Farina and Graham Arnold perhaps did better jobs in charge of the Socceroos than they were given credit for at the time.
But whether Osieck ultimately leads the Socceroos to Brazil or not, the FFA must think carefully about his eventual replacement.
They needn’t look very far, for the best-qualified man for the job is right under their nose.
His name is Ange Postecoglou and he should be the next coach of the Socceroos.