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Joel Griffiths of the Newcastle Jets celebrates. AAP Image/Paul Miller
I wouldn’t like to be Matthew Spiranovic right now. The Australian stopper is yet to feature in a single minute of J. League action for new club Urawa Reds, suggesting that the elegant defender has little hope of making Pim Verbeek’s World Cup squad.
Spiranovic has so far been limited to two starts in the League Cup, with the former Nürnberg man finding the incumbent central defensive partnership of Nobuhisa Yamada and Keisuke Tsuboi a tough nut to crack.
A costly mistake in a pre-season friendly against J2 side Tokushima Vortis didn’t help, and in truth there’s no reason for coach Volker Finke to break up what has looked a reasonably solid defensive unit so far.
But if Spiranovic’s name is still being bandied about in terms of World Cup squad selection – albeit less conspicuously than it was six months ago – what of Joel Griffiths and Sasa Ognenovski?
If pundits and fans alike think that riding the pine in the J. League is good enough to book a World Cup ticket, what’s the value of scoring goals or anchoring a bruising defence in the AFC Champions League?
Griffiths has been in superb form for Beijing Guoan this season, opening the scoring in their do-or-die group stage showdown with Kawasaki Frontale, as the Chinese side won through to the Round of 16 in front of a raucous home crowd.
Whether it’s the big crowds or just better service, Griffiths has looked electrifying in Guoan green – scoring goals, creating space and generally proving a constant nuisance to opposing defences.
His speed and finishing could prove useful in South Africa, but when it comes to discussion of his potential role in the national team, it seems to start and end with the fact that Verbeek doesn’t rate his work ethic and seems to fear his bouts of ill-discipline.
And so it arguably should.
Verbeek is, after all, paid to pick whichever players he sees fit, and one talented individual doesn’t always slot seamlessly into a tightly-knit squad.
But with Australia’s depth in question, surely we can ask whether an explosive talent like Griffiths couldn’t do a job for the Socceroos off the bench?
The same goes for Ognenovski, who has also been in stellar form for South Korean outfit Seongnam Ilhwa as they finished top of their Champions League group, ending the group stage campaign with a gritty 3-2 win over Melbourne Victory.
Both Griffiths and Ognenovski offer useful alternatives, yet the pair look set to suffer from the sort of personality politics that dictate the make-up of most World Cup squads.
The one player I’m not convinced by is Eddy Bosnar – but if we’re going to discuss the merits of potential bolters, as I recently did with my fellow Roar colleague Ben Somerford, then why has no one mentioned Bosnar’s ability to score from free-kicks?
Granted, it’s not exactly the sort of quality you’re going to look for in a player off the bench, but the left-footed stopper strikes a venomous dead ball, and since the quality of Australia’s set pieces has been poor of late, is it not worth considering that Bosnar can at least offer something different?
At times the issue of squad selection has felt like an open-and-shut case – that it’s “Pim’s way or the highway,” and the likes of Griffiths and Ognenovski will just have to pay the price for not pledging their allegience to the Verbeek camp quickly enough.
That’s all well and good if you’ve got a squad bursting with talent, but with injuries and a lack of game time already hurting the Socceroos, I would have thought that you could at least throw Griffiths and Ognenovski in there somewhere.
Like everyone else, I know full well that Verbeek couldn’t care less what the media thinks.
But given their outstanding form in the AFC Champions League to date, surely there’s a case to consider Joel Griffiths and Sasa Ognenovski for World Cup selection?