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Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder David Beckham, left, is tripped-up by New York Red Bulls midfielder Clint Mathis. AP Photo/Bill Kostroun
After America’s defeat to Italy and Brazil in the Confederations Cup, and listening to all the Yanks moaning about their poor performance, I can’t help but compare their experience with Australia’s, when just few years ago we were going through the same thing.
We were a country that dominated the Oceania region for God knows how long, but when it came to defeating the fifth South American team, we always failed to experience the class act of football World Cup.
Now, if we fast forward to the present time, Australia is one of the first few countries to qualify for the World Cup and we are no longer in the Oceania region.
I think joining Asia was the best decision taken by the Australian Football Federation. Obviously there was lots of politics that went on behind the scenes, and some benefited personally. But from what I can see now, Australia was the main benefitter.
Yes, obviously Asia is not as good as the European or the South American region. But over the years, Asian countries some way or the other did prove be a stumble for major footballing countries in the World Cup.
With countries like Japan, South Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia in the region, one thing is for certain, there is more quality in the Asian region then in the CONCACAF region.
If you look at Australia’s qualification for the 2010 World Cup, we have played the like of China, Iraq and Japan and went through the whole qualification conceding just one goal. And that was against Japan, against whom we came back to win 2-1.
America needs a foreign coach.
Australia realized that long before and had the like of Terry Venables, Guus Hiddink and now Pim Verbeek, who has a good record in the Netherlands.
But the major factor was Guus. He built the whole layout, starting from the first team to the youth system.
Being in a country which is dominated by sports such as AFL and cricket, Australia’s blueprint is the one to follow.
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