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Michael Cockerill, bless him, has insisted in his newspaper column that next week’s World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan in Sydney will “entertain” us as well as take Australia to South Africa 2010.
I don’t know what his intelligence on the matter is, but Cockerill is convinced Verbeek, the man he describes as “results-orientated”, “typically cautious” and “conservative” (clearly a fan, then) is going to go all out and blow us all away with joga bonito.
“Now, with three of the final four matches at home, it’s not just about qualifying, but doing it in some style,” writes Cockerill. “The Socceroos will have to rise to the challenge, and the feeling is they will.”
The feeling? That’s a bit of a stretch. Hope, maybe.
Now don’t get me wrong. I share Cockerill’s frustration at some of the dourness we’ve seen in recent Socceroos performances, but I don’t think we’re going to see anything too different from the green and gold mob next week; certainly nothing out of the box.
I did a magazine interview with Mark Schwarzer yesterday in Sydney and he bristled when I put it to him Verbeek’s Socceroos were a pale imitation of the attack-minded brand we’d seen under Guus Hiddink.
Extraordinarily, he thought the Socceroos under Verbeek were just as attack minded, if not moreso.
So why would Verbeek change what’s been largely working for him – at least with the foreign-based Socceroos – now, just one game away from virtually guaranteeing qualification for the World Cup?
I don’t expect to see any major changes to personnel, to formation, to the intent of the team. The plan will be to win – and failing that, to not lose. The same modus operandi for which Verbeek is renowned and very rarely deviates.
And perhaps we can put to bed the idea the team is less than inspired under his tutelage.
Schwarzer, who it’s worth pointing out had notorious issues with Hiddink’s man-management skills, thinks Verbeek is approachable, clever, capable and gives each member of the team real confidence from knowing that he is 100 per cent behind them and believes in their ability.
Of course, that is not something available to all our Socceroos – as we have seen with the travails of the A-League-based players and Verbeek’s withering assessments of them in recent times – but it’s something that applies to the ones who come hell or high water will be going to the World Cup – the Kewells, the Brescianos, the Schwarzers.
And that’s important. Not all the Socceroos at Germany 2006 had that level of support from Hiddink, clearly.
So whatever approach Verbeek chooses to take next week, let’s just get out to Homebush or in front of the box and cheer his side on to the World Cup.
He’s going to be in South Africa, whether we like it or not, and in just getting that far he more than deserves the benefit of our collective doubt.
More than anyone, Verbeek doesn’t want to let us down.
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