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Australian Socceroos' new coach Holger Osieck. AAP Image/Dean Lewins
With the FFA and Holger Osieck deciding to take most of the Socceroos stalwarts to Qatar with the aim of winning the Asian Cup, the next three weeks loom as career-defining for many of those involved.
Have a great tournament, and the generation which features the likes of Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Harry Kewell, Jason Culina, Brett Emerton, Mark Schwarzer and Luke Wilkshire, might be hailed as one the great Roos sides, especially if they can win it in style.
South Africa will largely be forgotten, and many of them could mount an argument to carry on for another qualification campaign.
Fail, and the questions that were raised before, during and after the World Cup, will grow louder, inevitably leading to a bevy or retirements, forced or voluntary.
Since the 2006 World Cup, it’s fair to argue that the Roos have hardly set the world on fire.
An embarrassing 2007 Asian Cup was followed by a pragmatic 2010 qualification campaign under Pim Verbeek, where the emphasis was on picking up points, regardless of the method, before the Durban Debacle and beyond.
By the time Verbeek pulled the finger out, it was too late.
The early days under Osieck have hardly offered anything to get too excited about. You can hardly argue, based on his work so far, that Osieck has progressed the team significantly.
Despite calls for a rejuvenation of the squad, the German has essentially gone with the status quo so far, at least up until this latest selection, essentially giving the veterans an opportunity to redeem themselves after some insipid displays in the past two tournaments.
Talking themselves up in the build-up, the Socceroos were the laughing stock of the 2007 edition of the Asian Cup, exposed as brash and ignorant, outplayed and out-thought by just about every opponent.
Graham Arnold, at least to this observer, allowed the players far too much power, and paid the price, eventually turning on the same players he had showered with latitude.
There’s a great deal of ground for this bunch to make up in Qatar, and the question persists as to just how much the Roos have learnt from their first Asian Cup sojourn.
Worryingly, and no doubt stung financially by an expensive World Cup bid, the preparation has been all too brief and, with a few fresh faces introduced very late in the piece, you wonder if they’ve had enough opportunity to gel?
Excitingly though, those fresh faces include a trio of fluid and mobile attackers in Robbie Kruse, Nathan Burns and Tommy Oar.
Each offers the Roos an injection of pace and movement with the ball that has been lacking, and the prospect of them combining fluidly in a front third, now or down the track, whets the appetite.
Whether Osieck gives them a fair run, given he has Kewell, Scott McDonald and Cahill involved, remains to be seen, but you’d suggest their ability to run, combined with good dribbling skill, might prove valuable at some point in the tournament.
Elsewhere, there is still an element of graft (Mile Jedinak and Carl Valeri) as apposed to craft (Jason Culina) out of central midfield, although it’s encouraging to finally see the dynamic and mobile Neil Kilkenny recognised.
Matt McKay, in the meantime, needs to believe he belongs at this level.
Meanwhile, problems clearly persist in central defence, where the claims of two of the A-League best performers, in Nikolai Topor-Stanley and Luke DeVere, were ignored in favour of Sasa Ognenovski, Jade North and Jon McKain.
Either North or Matthew Spiranovic should be favoured to partner Neill, who must really lift after an indifferent 2010 and poor 2007 tournament.
Ricky Ponting isn’t the only national skipper with a worry or two.
Right now, the prospect of our central defence facing up to the two Samurai Blue Shinji’s, Kagawa and Okazaki, being prompted from behind by Keisuke Honda and Yasuhito Endo, is a scary one if it ever eventuates.
Apart from what looks like a soft and slow centre, and a lack of a genuine world class striker, the Roos’ biggest weakness appears to be at left back, where David Carney is waiting to be exposed by South Korea’s right sided flier Cha Du-Ri in the second group match.
If the mercurial Park Ji-Sung and Yeom Ki-Hun shuffle over to the right, then the Roos are in serious trouble.
Think Japan and Carney has the diminutive livewire Daisuke Matsui to deal with. Scary stuff indeed.
With no obvious left back contingency in the 23, thought may indeed be given to switching Luke Wilkshire over to the left and re-cycling Brett Emerton at right back.
Everywhere you look there is quality that is likely to expose even the slightest weakness. From Bahrain’s Jaycee John, to Kuwait’s Bader Al Mutwa, to Qatar’s Sebastian Quintana and the UAE’s Ismael Matar, quality abounds.
Any way you look at it, Osieck’s Roos have a massive job to get things functioning over the next few weeks, and if they can somehow manage it, the plaudits will deservedly flow.
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