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The honeymoon is over for FFA boss David Gallop, who faces the first real test of his leadership as debate rages over who should be the next coach of the Socceroos.
If ever there was any doubt just how much the national team means to many Australians, it was well and truly dispelled in the wake of successive 6-0 defeats.
Coach Holger Osieck was promptly shown the door – not before time, for many critics – and suddenly the well-being of the national team was the hot topic for debate.
With few tears shed over Osieck’s exit, attention soon turned to the role of long-time Socceroos captain Lucas Neill.
What followed was a remarkable outpouring of emotion from several former Socceroos, not to mention some truly bizarre comments from Neill himself.
When quizzed about the possibility of retirement in a pre-game interview ahead of Australia’s 3-0 win over Canada, Neill launched into a series of vague platitudes which saw him, not for the first time, employ terms like ‘pride’, ‘team spirit’ and ‘passion’ to describe his value to the team.
But what has been missing from the discourse on Neill for several years now are terms like ‘pace’, ‘tactical awareness’ and ‘positioning’.
The fact is that Neill has been a defensive liability for some time, yet no one in the media has had the gumption to come out and say it.
That is until Fox Sports analyst Mark Bosnich suggested that Neill should step down, prompting the Socceroos skipper to reply,
“I expect better… from those that call themselves my friend”.
Why has it taken someone so long to speak out about Neill’s form?
Well, for starters, probably because Neill is front and centre when it comes to media commitments.
Bagging the skipper on a regular basis is not exactly going to lead to cordial player-journo relations.
That it was someone as high-profile as Bosnich who so openly told Neill to stand aside is not surprising – not only is Bozza removed from the day-to-day complexities of the news-gathering cycle, he’s also not necessarily worried about job security.
At any rate, perhaps Neill’s most contentious statement was that Australia’s younger generation lacked his passion for playing for the Socceroos.
A more accurate statement might have been that some of our youngsters are simply not good enough, but whatever his motivation for saying it – and Neill has been one of the most self-aggrandising Australian captains in recent memory – it certainly lit the blue touch-paper for a heated round of debate.
Certain former players like his erstwhile international teammate Scott Chipperfield leapt to his defence on Twitter, while others such as Archie Thompson employed a more tongue-in-cheek route – with the latter tweeting a photo disparaging so-called “football experts”.
The players might argue that everyone’s an expert these days, but what some of them forget – and indeed, many in the mainstream media – is what should be one of the key components of the debate.
It’s just a game.
Indeed, for all the associated trappings that come with it, professional football is played for no other reason than to entertain a paying public.
So if the paying public is saying ‘enough is enough’ when it comes to poor performances, perhaps it’s time someone at FFA headquarters took note.
Lucas Neill should have been asked to step aside from the national team a long time ago, but there was no one inside Football Federation Australia or indeed the media with the chutzpah to say it.
And that is the crux of the problem Gallop faces.
The Socceroos need a coach with the authority to take charge and make the hard decisions.
They have one under their nose in Ange Postecoglou, but it’s pointless appointing him if it’s only a short-term fix.
It’s high-time for some forward thinking – and that should include a plan to reach at least the final four of the Asian Cup.
Otherwise all this hand-wringing is for nothing and we’ll have wasted yet another chance to regenerate the national team.