When I saw the headline ‘Australia given group of death,’ I could already here the tokenistic responses from Socceroos players that would flow.
Things like ‘what a great challenge’, ‘an honour’, ‘we’re up for this’, etcetera.
There would be the inevitable column inches about Australian ‘grit‘ and ‘determination,‘ like there is no other country on Earth that values these qualities in their humans.
The truth is, these cliches matter very little. We have zero chance of getting out of the group stage in Brazil.
But this does not mean that the World Cup should be an exercise without excitement or true meaning for the development of our national team. In a way, drawing this group releases some of the shackles on Ange Postecoglou.
Expectations for the Socceroos have hit an all-time low; I’ve had multiple friends already send me expletive laden texts or instant messages that clearly indicate that popular public opinion also espouses the view that we will be the Melbourne Demons of Rio De Janeiro.
So, I asked myself what I would like from this World Cup and found my answer was quite modest.
A goal or two, a retention of dignity, players like Tom Rogic, Tommy Oar, Rhys Williams, Mat Ryan and perhaps even a small A-League contingent placing themselves in the world’s biggest shop window.
Most importantly, the Cup could lead to a stylistic evolution that looks to be tracking toward something that could deliver us the 2015 Asian Cup.
Postecoglou now has room to experiment.
There is no fear of failure as failure is expected.
Finally, now we can throw out the pretence that the remaining members of our ‘golden generation’ – bar Cahill, who has well and truly earned his third World Cup – are needed to guide us through a group phase that we could hypothetically get out of.
We are not getting out of this group stage.
It is now time to blood a team that learns a system against the best, tweaks their game against world champions and comes back from Brazil with the notion that they could very possibly be lifting silverware in Sydney a mere six months later.
Lucas Neill, Mark Bresciano, Luke Wilkshire, Brett Holman. I’m sorry. Your time is up.
Josh Kennedy survives due to a lack of viable alternatives. Axing Neill won’t be controversial – nor Wilkshire.
Holman caught fire for 18-24 months then promptly returned to his own peculiar brand of play.
Bresciano is the one that will hurt; assuming he was free to play, he still possesses the team’s greatest vision, passing range and composure on the ball.
But we need to move on, and these three games present an opportunity to smelt a team in the fiercest of kilns.
I won’t be buying into the idea that a complete and utter failure in Brazil will destroy the Socceroos’ confidence.
I prefer to look at the flipside of the coin; that it will instil a ferocious desire to win.
Furthermore, Postecoglou gets to test his theories on footballing aesthetic against the very team that redefined it for the modern game in Spain and the team that gave birth to beautiful football (and one we look to emulate) in Holland.
Throw in Chile, a strong team in a continent where football is stylish and technical, and we have the perfect group not for results but for the future development of our team.
There will be pain – but hopefully we will come back having learnt what it takes.
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Even though St.Pauli ultimately lost a high-scoring affair, Jackson Irvine was a standout, as well as scoring a late goal.
What if we celebrated all of the achievements big and small, and weeded out those hell-bent on bringing down a game that is doing a hell of a lot right?
A good performance from Michael Ruhs, scoring twice to beat Macarthur and doubling his season goal tally in the process.
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