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Australia's Scott McDonald and Iraq's Haidar Hussain during the Australian Socceroos v Iraq World Cup qualifier. AAP Image/Dave Hunt
It’s been a rather curious week for Australian football. Set to the backdrop of an historic World Cup bid, there’s been equal doses of good and bad news.
A little over a week ago the Socceroos qualified for consecutive World Cups for the first time. There was no penalty shootout this time and, in truth, no fuss.
While you could be forgiven for expecting universal praise for the Socceroos after their historic achievement, it hasn’t been that way.
The criticism from some parts of the media and fans about how the national team has played, which has been prevalent throughout this campaign, has continued, many arguing that on the pitch the Socceroos have been boring.
At the very least, Australia hasn’t been convincing in many of their displays.
This criticism was then coupled with a media debacle off the pitch. The blanket media ban issued by Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek on his players in the lead up to last week’s match with Bahrain was unequivocally a mistake.
Despite these issues, the thing that’s really concerning me are the cracks that are beginning to appear in the Socceroos’ change-room.
Tim Cahill’s alleged, and that’s the key word here, misdemeanour at a Sydney nightclub has mostly flown under the radar. Unsurprisingly, my colleagues in the football media have been keen not to over play the incident, which could potentially be damaging to the game.
We don’t know what actually happened that night, and I wont speculate. Instead, I’d like to know why the players were out celebrating while in camp. There’s a difference between having a quite few in the hotel bar and going out clubbing in Kings Cross.
In truth, I’ve been worried about this for a while.
When I was in Sydney for the Socceroos game against Uzbekistan earlier this year, a source very close to the team told me of a late night sojourn three players took in the lead up to that match. Apparently they arrived back at the hotel in the very early hours of the morning to a very unhappy coach.
No suspensions or public punishment, though.
On top of that, did anyone else find the bushfire fund raising dinner ‘hosted’ by just three members of the national team curious?
If you didn’t, then I’ll tell you who did: the other members of that squad who weren’t invited and then had to pay for their own seats. Football Federation Australia had to pick up the tab and it was messy situation for all involved.
It doesn’t seem like the sort of incident that helps unify a team does it?
At the time, it was mentioned to me that while the team keeps winning, these internal problems will remain in-house. Well, they’re starting to leak.
Personally, Lucas Neill’s decision to select the team himself by picking up a yellow card against Qatar was even more revealing.
In the days after the Qatar match, Verbeek revealed that he hadn’t known Neill was planning such an action. That set alarm bells ringing in my head.
As Craig Foster eloquently explained last week, Guss Hiddink wouldn’t have let that fly. Not only was Neill’s behaviour unbecoming of the captain of a national team, I think it undermined Verbeek’s leadership.
So, Socceroos out late at night when in camp, innuendo that this isn’t the first time, and players making decisions themselves on when they’ll play.
It doesn’t look good.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a supporter of Pim Verbeek, and while, like many, I have concerns about how the Socceroos will fare next year at the World Cup, I think Verbeek’s earned the right to lead us to South Africa.
The respect he showed the Japanese media at his pre-match press conference yesterday also reiterated the good will he’s helped to build in the region for us.
But I’m still worried.
When a car windscreen gets a crack, it’s already in trouble. Eventually the bumps and shocks as the car drives along the road causes the crack to grow until eventually the window shatters or the windscreen is replaced.
The road to South Africa has already been a long and windy one. Let’s hope the rest of the way isn’t too bumpy.
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