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One imagines that stepping out onto the pitch at the Shahid Dastergdi Stadium on Thursday was rather what it might be like to walk across the surface of a pot of jam.
An unpleasant yield would occur underfoot, a horrid sinking feeling mirrored by the one that gnawed at the pit of the stomach of many Socceroos supporters when they saw Ange Postecoglu’s starting line up.
The pitch issues were anticipated, seen in advance, an irritating adversary to clean football that should have been prepared for.
The back-three formation, with no recognised wing-backs, was something very few saw coming.
On a surface that made any sort of flowing cohesion very difficult, playing with what was essentially a front five, designed to overload the Iraqi defence and play through them, was a questionable approach.
The fact that Matthew Leckie and Robbie Kruse were selected to fill those crucial wide positions, spots that heap almost as much defensive responsibility onto those occupying as attacking, also meant that the system immediately exposed gashing wounds down the Socceroos flanks, there to be exploited.
Leckie and Kruse are not keen defenders, especially the latter, and if not for the wasteful profligacy of the Iraqis, the Roos would have deservedly lost this game.
Take this example from the first half, before either team had scored.
The beginning of this clip shows the advantages of Ange’s system on display.
When in possession, the two flanking centre backs were supposed to split into full back positions, with one of either Mile Jedinak or Mass Luongo dropping into a defacto second centre back position. This allows a controlled, pressure-less method of passing out from the back, as well as the support to prompt the wide players, Leckie and Kruse, to apply pressure high up on the Iraqi flanks.
Luongo attempts to find Leckie, in fact, with a long ball. But with Luongo having misplaced his punt, and subsequently pushing too far forward – he is an attack-minded player after all – all it takes is one smooth transition, completed in three passes, and the space behind the advanced and lingering Kruse is penetrated dangerously.
Suddenly, the back three are outnumbered, with the sluggish Jedinak and the drifting Luongo incapable of even slowing the surge. Neither central midfielder is mobile enough to stifle sudden transitions like this; there is no N’Golo Kante in the national team.
Additionally, Bailey Wright and Milos Degenek are not really suited to suddenly morphing into full backs when back-tracking; both play largely as centre backs for their clubs.
Think of Antonio Conte’s system at Chelsea; he has Cesar Azpilicueta, a full back by trade, as one of his back three. The Iraqis neglected to play in a keen overlapping run on the left, instead shooting high and wide. A warning, but one that was not heeded.
The most puzzling thing about this glaring flaw in the system is how simply it might have been rectified.
Instead of playing two defensively unsound wingers in these positions, why did Postecoglu not decide to play, for example, Rhyan Grant, to whom he awarded a maiden cap, on the right? Then, if not Brad Smith or Aziz Behich, perhaps Craig Goodwin, who could easily have been called up, on the left? We have the players to fill these specific roles, and yet they were overlooked in favour of less suitable candidates.
Grant has spent all season demonstrating his knack for timing forward runs – not to mention his incredible stamina to hustle back when needed – so as not to leave terrible holes like Kruse did here, and continued to do all evening.
Perhaps the defensive rotation was supposed to be executed more in the manner seen in this clip.
Luongo can be seen deliberately positioning himself as a temporary full back while Kruse is being involved in the play.
The reasoning behind instructing Luongo do this, however, is shoddy; this appears to be a role almost purpose built for Mark Milligan, who is an extremely versatile defensive player. Instead of sticking him at centre-back, his ability to read the defensive side of the game could have been put to better, more active use.
Luongo, whose willingness to shoot and pass with ambition – his goal in the Asian Cup final comes most pleasingly to mind – might have been more valuable further forward, perhaps at the expense of Jackson Irvine.
This defensive cover-shuffling seen above was not adhered to, however; just a few minutes later.
You can see Kruse quite clearly defending in the manner a highly advanced traditional winger would – a winger that has the security of a full back behind him – apparently completely ignorant that that was not the role he was filling.
A simple lofted ball is chipped down the line, and from the aerial duel a totally free Ali Adnan can collect the knockdown, with Luongo arriving too late on the scene. His cross is miscontrolled, another let-off.
To makes things worse, Kruse – and Leckie on the other side – were not contributing much to the attack. Leckie scored Australia’s goal, from a corner, but it was not enough to totally conceal how his work in open play had so disappointed.
He and Kruse both made some very bad decisions in attack, multiple times attempting to pass over the boggy surface instead of shooting. Nothing about this game implied the national team’s current goal shortage will be relieved by any of the players in the starting line up.
Let’s fast forward to the Iraqi equaliser.
Here, a long kick is met by a stern Iraqi header, after which the ball is neatly worked through four Socceroos on their right flank, before being crossed and met at the far post.
A series of bad defensive rotations occur. Degenek is lured too wide, and fails to contest the header, which compels Milligan to step out and be beaten by Adnan rushing down the wing. Jedinak is drawn toward Adnan, and that forces Bailey Wright to slide over to pick up Jedinak’s man.
Meanwhile, we can see earlier in the clip that Brad Smith, a fresh substitute, has the opportunity to race back and add to the defensive numbers on the weak side, but chooses not to, a decision born of pure indolence.
He would likely have applied some pressure on Ahmed Yasin, away from whom Wright was drawn, and who eventually had a free tap in at the far post. Smith has never been known for his defensive instincts, despite being nominally labelled as a defender.
He has also not played for Bournemouth for some months now, and may not have had either the sharpness or fitness to realise and execute what he needed to in that moment. Or perhaps – as Kruse had also demonstrably been unaware of – he had not been told to play with defence firmly enough in mind, in spite of the fact that he was brought on to help protect a slender lead, or the more obvious fact that the system very much depended on it. The blame for that falls on the coach.
So much of the evening was made muddy, in all senses of the word, from the intentions of the manager and the nature of his formation, to Mass Luongo’s shorts.
This result now puts a staggering amount of pressure on the Socceroos’ upcoming home games against the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Just as the drone of vuvuzela will haunt my nightmares, this result, and the tactical blunders that contributed to it, might come back to haunt Australia.