- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The least successful Australian team to have appeared at an Under 20 World Cup; the side with the second worst record at the tournament (only Tahiti achieved less); the only team in Asia who couldn’t manage to notch up a point from their three group games.
The list of disparaging titles this Young Socceroos team have earned themselves runs long.
Sifting through the ashes of a failed campaign like this, all sorts of questions arise. I couldn’t help wondering whether this is the worst performance from an Australian national team since the 2005 Confederations Cup?
Jan Versleijen’s young men had two years to prepare for their opening game with the Czech Republic, but provided a drab and uninspiring 90 minutes of football.
The number three then defined Australia’s last two games. Three errors in their second game with Costa Rica led to as many goals being conceded.
Three points was what the Young Socceroos needed heading into their final group game against Brazil and three goals was what they conceded, each goal coming directly after Australia had turned over possession of the ball.
On the surface, Australia’s campaign in Egypt doesn’t look good. However, looks can be deceiving.
The results might not have been there, but this was quite possibly the best performance from an Australian men’s youth team at a major international tournament.
I’ll let the words of Craig Foster, a man both more qualified and eloquent then myself, do the talking.
“For decades, SBS has been pushing for Australian teams to approach football in the correct fashion, to play a sophisticated passing game and to begin the process of Australia becoming a true football Nation,” wrote Foster in a letter, which was faxed to Young Socceroos captain James Holland late last week.
Foster adding that: “This cannot occur without an insistence on playing football with possession and relying on the quality of our play, not the physical qualities we are too well known for.
“Too often our under age national teams have approached World Cup tournaments with a reliance on running and fighting rather than playing football, and whilst many have gained better results than this tournament, none in my experience have been brave enough to take the world on face to face, to test our football against theirs, and to play with great technical courage, not just physical strength.
“In the past we have beaten all of Brazil, Argentina and West Germany however not by playing the quality of football required to develop top level international players, but by fighting away in the ‘old’ Australian style.”
Foster is right.
Having spent the last few days since the loss to Costa Rica pondering what we could draw from this tournament, I came to a similar conclusion.
I was buoyed when I heard about Foster’s letter and also yesterday upon reading comments from readers on The World Game.
It’s good to know that as a football nation, we’ve grown to a point where we can look past a result and judge the performance when it’s appropriate to do so.
Thankfully, there’s more than just the performance in Egypt to be happy about.
Unlike at the aforementioned Confederations Cup in 2005, a number of players from this squad leave with their reputations enhanced.
Aaron Mooy showed the potential that many at Bolton have been raving about for some time, James Holland recovered from a difficult first game to lead his team-mates from the front, and Ben Kantarovski is just a freak of a seventeen year old.
With five players eligible to play at the next tournament in 2011, should the Young Socceroos qualify, and in truth it’s the next group of players that Versleijen is truly excited about, there are promising signs for Australia.
Certainly, there were errors on everyone’s part during this campaign.
The pre-tournament preparations at a Cypriot beach resort are questionable (it’s notable that the other three teams the Young Socceroos played against in Cyprus also failed to get past the group stage). Tactically, questions need to be raised about some of Versleijen’s choices in the first game, as well.
To be fair, most of these were rectified in the following matches. But by then, the damage had been done
We’ve got a long way to go in our development as a football nation, and while not forgetting the mistakes and errors from this campaign, let’s also be happy we’ve taken another step forward.
As Foster wrote in his open letter, “One day, many years hence, when Australia wins the FIFA World Cup I will be telling people that the journey truly started this week, in Port Said, by a group of young Australians who found the courage to play attacking football, the way Australia must play to succeed.”
When that day comes, I look forward to backing you up on that, Fozz.
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.