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Lulled into a post-prandial torpor by wine and too much school-holidays sun, I asked my five-year-old daughter Billie last night if she had any ideas for a Wednesday football column and she said, “Tell them my dad saw all the goals.” Will that suffice this week, folks?
Never fear.
There’s plenty going on, notably Indonesia’s very good draw with Oman in Muscat, days after the Omanis beat Saudi Arabia, no easybeats, to win the Gulf Cup.
A result that won’t give the harried, always travelling Pim Verbeek any respite from adding a few more creases to his already corrugated brow.
His all A-League squad for the January 28 Asian Cup qualifier against the Indonesians in Jakarta is solid and conspicuous for the recall of the underrated Matt McKay – a player I’ve always felt suits the hardworking Rotterdammer style of our national team – and the omission of Sasa Ognenovski, who had been expected to get a call-up for this match after his transfer to Seongnam in Korea and interest from the Macedonian national team.
Adelaide’s big bearded unit is apparently disappointed, but Verbeek, in typical fashion, explained Ognenovski had no part to play in his World Cup plans – thus doing Sasa a big favour in letting him having some sort of international career that lasts beyond 90 minutes, with Macedonia.
To say the 29-year-old is “not that young anymore”, though, seems a bit odd, with the inclusion of Golden Girls Craig Moore, Tom Pondeljak and Archie Thompson in the same squad. Also the punt Verbeek took (or is taking) on 30-year-old Chris Coyne with the European-based Socceroos and whose club, Colchester United, would probably get wiped off the park by Ognenovski’s Adelaide.
Even if Verbeek was put off by Ognenovski’s public courting of a Macedonia call-up, as seems to have been inferred in media reports, it’s a bit of a loss for Australian football. A big what if. Other players called up from nowhere have gone on to pretty useful representative careers, and Ognenovski’s certainly no worse than Jade North, who seems to have dibs on a Socceroos training jersey.
There seems also to be crossed wires in various quarters in establishing what Ognenovski’s career ambitions really are.
Some have him “craving national duty” for Australia; while Verbeek insists “his preference is to play for Macedonia… [I’ve] read that Macedonia is top of his list so I think it is good for him to focus on that country.”
So a slight letdown from an Australian perspective for the Indonesia game, but it will be exciting to see Scott Jamieson get a run in a Socceroos strip – he’s going places fast, mark my words – and Verbeek should get plaudits for picking Matthew Thompson, who’s flown under the radar, undeservedly, for too long.
There’s also going to be some novelty value in seeing Graham Arnold emerge from his self-imposed post-Olympics exile and given some real coaching responsibility with Henk Duut while Verbeek, serving a sideline ban from his time with Korea Republic at the Asian Cup, cools his heels somewhere in the bowels of the Gelora Bung Karno.
On to a pet hate.
I’ve been copping a bit of stick on SBS’s The World Game for getting stuck into Sydney FC in recent weeks, but really, the club deserves repeated and sustained bollocking for its hypocrisy – and I’m happy to do it.
Another extraordinary quote this week from John Kosmina, who says: “We would like a left-sided player but what Sydney need most is a creative player. We need somebody like Charlie Miller who has made a big difference for Queensland this season.”
I’m sure the now-retired Juninho will spray his breakfast cereal across the room when he reads that, not least having Charlie Miller nominated as preferential to the diminutive and dynamic Brazilian playmaker and World Cup winner who was offered to Sydney at a cut-down price and still knocked back.
The comedy never ceases.
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