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Holger Osieck’s Socceroos will look to sharpen up for Tuesday’s 2014 World Cup Qualifier against Oman when they meet Malaysia in Canberra tonight. Join us for live scores and a blog from the commencement at 8.00pm AEDT.
Tonight provides Australian fans an opportunity to look into the future at some of the talent that will leading the Socceroos in 2014 beyond.
Kewell, Cahill, Emerton and Schwarzer have dutifully led this team from the front for the past decade with almost 300 caps between them, but all will be missing tonight.
Osieck will be looking to the likes of Robbie Kruse, James Troisi and Adam Sarota to step up and their absence and fill the breach, and it will be interesting to see which players are able to stamp their mark on the game.
After countless years spent as an understudy to Schwarzer, Reading’s Adam Federici finally gets his chance in between the sticks after an impressive start to the season with the Championship side, edging out SønderjyskE shotstopper Nathan Coe.
On face value, the home side should stroll through the 90 minutes tonight, yet the scare that Thailand sent through the Socceroos team in Brisbane last month should be ample warning that the Socceroos must not take any team lightly.
The Malaysians come their first ever match against the Socceroos on Australian soil ranked 147 in the world, and are themselves already out of the 2014 World Cup after being eliminated by Singapore in July.
Yet they have historically performed strongly against local rivals Thailand and this should serve as a warning for the Socceroos tonight.
The two sides have only met one before, and indeed it was the Malaysians who triumphed on that occasions, grabbing a 1-0 in Jakarta in 1992.
Traditionally, the Socceroos have fallen into bad habits when faced with inferior opposition, a notion highlighted in the Thailand game when an ugly long-ball game was unsuccessfully utilised to try and bully physically small Thailand rearguard.
Even with the 2014 World Cup nearly three years away, it is critically important for each and every member of the Socceroos squad to have a complete understanding of Osieck’s footballing philosophies each and every time they step out onto the field.
They mightn’t be stretched too far tonight, but a solid performance will stand the Socceroos in good stead for Tuesday’s game in Sydney against Oman, where a win will virtually seal progression to the next phase of qualifying.
An attractive performance will also be unquestionably beneficial to the FFA’s attempts to spread football to regional Australia, and a healthy crowd is expected in the nation’s capital with no NRL, AFL or Rugby World Cup matches to compete with tonight.
The result mightn’t be important. But for our next generation of Socceroos that we will come to rely on in Brazil, the performance most certainly is.
Can Holger continue to impress the Australian football public with an optimistic, attractive brand of football? Join us from 8.00pm AEDT tonight as we pore over the next instalment of the Socceroos’ journey to the 2014 World Cup with live scores and a blog.
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