- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
If Ange Postecoglou really is the sort of coach Australia needs, then he won’t care who the Socceroos are grouped with in tomorrow night’s highly anticipated World Cup draw.
Much has been made of the possible scenarios facing the Socceroos at next year’s World Cup in Brazil, with the group stage online simulators copping a beating from fans eager to explore the permutations of Australia’s potential opponents.
But if Postecoglou is serious about transforming the culture inside the Socceroos dressing room, he’ll advise his team not to worry about which opposition it might face and simply concentrate on its own performances.
Changing a culture is not easy though, especially when certain practices become so ingrained that to challenge them becomes an exercise in negativity.
I once sat in on a lecture from a prominent psychologist who said if you want a sure-fire way to cause offence and irritate people, simply do something different and challenge the status quo.
This column is a case in point. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the pieces which without fail draw the most vociferous complaints are those that deviate from an arbitrary pattern constructed by its audience.
Poor old ESPNFC columnist Phil Ball copped a similar group-think backlash a couple of weeks ago, when he decided to offer a personal opinion on Qatar hosting the 2022 World Cup which deviated from the collective will.
So spooked was ESPNFC by the whirlpool of online vitriol which followed, it pulled the story – writing that the work of their veteran columnist “did not meet our journalistic standards,” despite publishing it in the first place.
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it?”
Not in the online world, where a remove-your-brain-and-retweet mentality now has even respected journalists falling over themselves to dish out the vitriol.
It’s this kind of mentality – one in which possessing a contrary point of view is grounds for censorship, or worse – which Postecoglou must ignore if he is to set about the task of rapidly rebuilding a winning team.
And while it might be said that the national team should largely be insulated from the relentless rumblings of the chattering classes, let’s not forget that Holger Osieck stuck steadfastly to his line that everything was a-okay, all the while as his employers plotted to remove him.
At any rate, the first thing Postecoglou might do is ignore any public sentiment about past exploits and jettison Lucas Neill from his World Cup squad.
He may be experienced, he may be articulate, he may even help sell a lot of ad space with those chiselled good looks, but surely Neill – who most recently skipped out on Omiya Ardija citing “family reasons” – must find his position in the national squad untenable.
And if Postecoglou really wants to set the cat among the pigeons, he should tell his team – be it privately or as part of a bold proclamation to the public – to forget about recent results and return to the mentality which has seen the Socceroos cause countless upsets over the years.
Because you can guarantee there’ll be at least 30 other teams in Bahia hoping to see Australia drawn from their pot, confident that a clash with the Socceroos equals three points.
It didn’t used to be this way under the likes of Guus Hiddink and Frank Farina and no matter how few high-quality cattle Postecoglou can realistically call upon, it doesn’t have to be this way under the new regime either.
The Socceroos will be written off by all and sundry when the World Cup draw is made.
With any luck Postecoglou will simply shrug his shoulders, quip “that’s football” and whisper to his chargers a line about how he desperately wants to shake up the status quo.