- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Ange Postecoglou is the right coach at the wrong time for the Socceroos. He’s on a hiding to nothing at the World Cup, but yesterday’s 4-3 defeat to Ecuador suggests we still have reason for optimism.
Talk about your game of two halves. On the basis of the first-half performance at The Den, you could be forgiven for thinking Australia might win the World Cup.
But then it all fell apart, as so often seems to happen, and suddenly it became apparent that not only will the Socceroos fail to win the World Cup, they’ll probably struggle to collect a single point.
The individual winners and losers from a crazy clash at Millwall’s uncompromising home ground were plain to see.
Mat Ryan established himself as Australia’s undisputed number one with an assured display in goal in the first half, even if his cause was aided by Mitch Langerak’s brain-snap after he replaced Ryan at half time.
Langerak has played just seven competitive fixtures for Borussia Dortmund’s first team this season, and his lack of match practice came back to haunt him when he clattered spectacularly into Eder Valencia.
It’s rare to see a red card in a friendly, but Langerak gave referee Lee Probert little choice, even if the English official ignored an earlier offside flag.
Brad Jones’ shaky display as Langerak’s replacement will have Eugene Galekovic believing he deserves a call-up to Brazil, while Alex Wilkinson’s forgettable second-half cameo won’t have won the Jeonbuk defender too many admirers.
But for all the negatives, there were still plenty of positives.
Mile Jedinak captained his country for the first time, and while it wasn’t a vintage performance from the Crystal Palace midfielder – who tends to save his best performances for the Premier League – there was enough there to suggest Jedinak is comfortable as an international skipper.
Tim Cahill deservedly surpassed Damian Mori as Australia’s all-time leading goalscorer, and the New York star once again proved he’s lost none of his power or precision since his move to Major League Soccer.
More importantly though, the form of Mathew Leckie and in particular Tommy Oar gave Australia some much-needed pace and penetration down the flanks, allowing the aerially imposing Cahill to terrorise the Ecuadorian defence.
There wasn’t much of a Plan B, although given the Socceroos were reduced to 10 men at a crucial juncture of the match, it was hard to imagine how they might have responded differently against a suddenly fired-up Ecuador.
Yet, even if Australia hadn’t blown it in the second half, how much of an impact would it really have on the World Cup?
As Chile readily demonstrated in their narrow 1-0 defeat to Germany, they’re going to be incredibly tough to beat – and that’s to say nothing of the two matches against the previous World Cup finalists.
Wonderful as it would be to see Australia mix it with the best in Brazil, it’s far more realistic to expect very little from the tournament and hope Postecoglou can fine-tune his team for a genuine Asian Cup assault.
To that end, the Ecuador friendly was instructive, because it showed to some extent which players Postecoglou can rely on, and which positions are still up for grabs before Australia’s final hit-out against South Africa in Sydney.
The fact the farewell friendly is in Sydney hasn’t pleased some – though, not surprisingly, most of the complaints are coming from fans in Melbourne – however that’s not something to concern Postecoglou.
He’s probably signed on as Socceroos coach at the wrong time, given he hardly has any of it to mould his own squad.
But given Australia is aiming to rediscover some form following the regressive Osieck era, it’s too much to expect Postecoglou to turn things around before Brazil.
He just needs some time and a little bit of luck, and most of all a goalkeeper who can stay on the pitch.