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With the benefit of hindsight that eight days since the passing of Australia’s defeat by Japan can give, here are some thoughts on three key areas of the campaign in Qatar.
Personnel
Ultimately, there was no golden finish for our golden generation, but this was the most impressive sequence of games that Australia put together for some time.
The elephant in the room is just how long the older members of the current squad can keep playing without their performance deteriorating and their continued presence not hindering the development of the next generation. The average age of Australia’s squad was 28.1 years whilst Japan’s was 25.5.
The management of the transition in player personnel over the next few years will prove vital to how well Australia performs at the international level. For an example of what can go wrong when a golden generation retires, you just need to look at the difficulties experienced by the Australian cricket team.
Whilst the emergence of Jedinak, McKay and Kruse was great to see, the Asian Cup still felt like a final curtain call for the older players rather than the next generation announcing their arrival on the world stage.
For the moment Australia has found the right balance between the younger players being helped by the more experienced players on the field while making use of their energy and raw talent, but these younger players need to come forward and relegate the older players to appearances from the bench.
For example, our first choice strike force continues to be a mix of Kewell, Cahill, Kennedy and McDonald depending on injuries and availability.
While McKay and Kruse have received the lion’s share of the plaudits, the efforts of Kilkenny deserve some attention. In the Bahrain game, he added solidity to the team’s play in the centre of the field, helping to retain possession and close out the game at a time when Australia did not look capable of stringing more than two passes together.
Kilkenny is the type of player Australia needs if the Socceroos are to look to split defences with balls along the ground rather than crosses played from the wings.
Fans may now have more faith in the depth of talent available than under Verbeek’s time in charge, but the incentive of a third World Cup for the veterans in the team may be the biggest obstacle to overcome between now and Brazil in 2014.
Coaching
Holger Osieck has started his time in charge of the Socceroos very well. In a short space of time he has won over the players, the fans and the media.
Whilst he hasn’t sparked a revolution in Australian football, he has reignited the attacking elements to our play that were seemingly dormant in the past few years.
His task was undoubtedly assisted by Kewell having an uninterrupted few months of football, the great season McKay has been having in the A-League and Ognenovski coming off a fantastic twelve months in his club career.
All too often, success in football can be put down to what happens in the months before a tournament just as much as what happens after the opening ceremony.
Osieck’s time as chief of FIFA’s technical department has proven to be a very valuable asset for Australian thus far and it was evident how his knowledge was put into practice during the tournament.
Australia had an exceptional understanding of the opposition and looked to attack the weaknesses in every opponent. This was perhaps best demonstrated by Australia targeting Uzbekistan’s Akhmedov in the semi final where, up until that point, he had been one of the stars of the tournament.
Perhaps a failing was Osieck’s inability to respond to Zaccheroni’s tactical switch in shifting from a 4-2-3-1 to a 3-4-3 formation which allowed Nagatomo to maraud down Australia’s right hand side and ultimately deliver the cross from which Lee scored in the final.
That and an over-reliance on long balls when in attack instead of more build up play deeper in the opposition’s half were two areas where improvement will hopefully be seen in future tournaments.
Sometimes in football, there is a fine line between a long ball and a long pass.
Tactics
A typical trait of Asian teams in the past decade has been playing a high-tempo pressing and passing style of football. In 2011 this hasn’t changed, but what has is Australia’s ability to play against it.
It will be a number of years before Australia can perform at the technical level of teams like South Korea and Japan, but the Socceroos demonstrated that a team can do well by having competent attacking fullbacks supported by a strong central defensive partnership. The team was helped by width in general play, and having a couple of targets to aim for rather than a single forward being outmanned by two defenders.
This approach required opposition teams to focus more on their defensive duties rather than launching attacks. Australia still has a tendency to start games a little behind the eight ball as Asian teams often come out all guns blazing, but our play suggested we were better equipped to deal with this.
There were still times when Australia had to work hard to get back control of games and the Socceroos weren’t as clinical as they needed to be in front of goal, but the positives were that at least chances were being created and the team knew what had to be done in order to close out a game.
Another interesting aspect to Australia’s tactics was playing without a recognised striker. The media fawned over the ‘discovery’ of our new strike force of Kewell and Cahill, but our formation was more akin to 4-4-2-0 rather than 4-4-2. Kewell and Cahill played more like advanced midfielders rather than out and out strikers with each taking turns in the ‘Viduka’ role when play required them to hold up the ball.
It could be argued that Kewell and Cahill were asked to play as forwards rather than midfielders, but Osieck may have discovered a way for Australia to succeed on the international stage without a recognised front man playing up against the last defender.
The “no striker” formation was certainly the most interesting development in Australia’s tactics post World Cup and it will be interesting to see if it becomes Australia’s default formation.
Conclusion
Overall, the campaign has to be seen as a success and maybe the loss to Japan was required for the media and fans to really appreciate how hard winning the Asian Cup will be. And hopefully in 2015, it will be Australia who will be crowned champions on home soil.
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