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All this palaver about young Bradden Inman being overlooked by Pim Verbeek and Football Federation Australia is a bit laughable.
If you missed the story last week, it was reported that the 17-year-old, who made his Newcastle United debut in February against Manchester City, had been called up the Scotland under-19s on the basis if his mother’s nationality.
There followed an interview in the News Limited press quoting Inman as saying: “No one’s been in contact with me or anything. My goals are playing for Newcastle’s first team, and either playing for Scotland or Australia, maybe in a World Cup. At the minute playing for Scotland, it’s a lot better.
“If you travel to Australia you’ve got to sit on a plane for 24 hours and you don’t play matches that are as good. So, at the minute, it’s Scotland.”
Stay with Scotland, then, Bradden.
If “at the minute” you feel Scottish, then you have no business playing for Australia.
And if you think proverbially holding a gun to the head of the national coach to pick you is going to work, think again.
Verbeek doesn’t go in for that sort of brinkmanship. And besides, it’s not like you’re playing for a top English Premier League side in Europe and setting the world on fire.
If you’d secured a starting spot then perhaps Verbeek might be intrigued, but he’s got a surfeit of players “in that position” (ask Nicky Carle) and what makes you think you’ve got what it takes to jump the queue?
And far from your youth (17) being a carrot for Verbeek, it’s likely it actually works against you. Verbeek wants experienced players for his World Cup campaign and experience comes with age.
How many games has the very capable Matthew Spiranovic played for Australia under Verbeek? Or James Troisi, who also came off the bench for the Magpies? Or Dean Bouzanis?
Hardly any, or, in the case of Bouzanis, none at all.
There is the age-old issue of “locking in” players, especially those of Croatian origin, but the Socceroos really don’t need you right now.
And, frankly, if you think Scotland, a country you’ve probably seen more of in reruns of Rebus than in real life, is “a lot better” than the country of your birth, the country where you spent the first 14 years of your 17 years on this earth, then you have some maturing to do.
I’m sure you’re a very good player, the “next Harry Kewell” (how many times have we heard that sobriquet in the past decade?), but the Socceroos need players who burn for the green and gold, heroes like Tim Cahill (who spent years fighting FIFA to play for Australia after making the mistake of representing Western Samoa when he was a teenager).
We do not need mercenaries of convenience.
Because of your age, I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. Or at least put down your comments to the receipt of bad advice.
Australia, a football nation on the up, one match away from qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, owes you nothing right now.
You, however, owe it more than you think.
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