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Australian football fell back into a bad habit on the weekend. Adam Taggart and Kwame Yeboah, two undoubted but unproven talents, were suddenly thrust in the frame for Socceroos selection.
Uh… what?
To be fair, they are the men of the moment, scoring the kind of goals that even the Kanye West of football himself, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, would gladly claim as additions to his ridiculous highlight reel.
Taggart, the Newcastle striker, shot to the top of the goalscoring charts with a classy hat-trick against Melbourne Heart at the weekend. All three goals were spectacular.
Two days prior and Yeboah again played the super-sub role to perfection for Brisbane Roar, with a thrilling late sucker-punch to confirm victory over title aspirants Western Sydney.
Indeed, both are in terrific form. And both are showing signs they could be on the cusp of a breakout season.
But why can’t these two just get on with it, unabated? Why are players yet to even consistently perform in the A-League so quickly mentioned as potential World Cup stars?
Why must outlets like Fox Sports, as they did on the weekend, go over the top with players who are a long, long way from dominating at domestic level, let alone on the world’s biggest stage?
Granted, these days any over-exuberance regarding the Socceroos can be easily excused, even if the team could be en route to a pantsing in Brazil.
Under new ruler Ange Postecoglou, the Australian set-up is in what could be termed a happy, comfortable flux.
The picture beyond Brazil is what really thrills supporters, deep down – the fact that a new generation of players will finally get the chance to establish themselves, and that we’ll grow with them as they carry the torch to the Asian Cup and then, with any luck, onto Russia in 2018.
We want fresh faces and unwritten stories. But they will present themselves. It’s counterproductive to rush the process.
Too many Australian talents have claimed the spotlight at a young age, only to have made the wrong move, or become drunk with delusions of unrealised grandeur.
In his defence against the angry mob, Lucas Neill touched on this, saying youngsters have to truly earn a Socceroos cap. As Frank Costello said in The Departed, nobody gives it to you – you have to take it.
As much as the Australian team needs new blood, that is undeniably true.
It should be said that Taggart has already featured and scored for the Socceroos, at the East Asian Cup. However, he still sits well outside Australia’s best 30 players.
It’s apt that he shared the park on Sunday with Nathan Burns, the one-time Adelaide United starlet who has so far failed to make an impact in his return to the A-League. He’s been exactly in this position before.
He was billed as a star of the future despite only taking the domestic competition by storm for a season and a bit. Then he went to Greece, his career stalled, and now he’s struggling.
There are countless others who went through the same thing. Football is a grind.
That’s why it is far too early to even be placing the words ‘Adam’ and ‘Taggart’ or ‘Kwame’ and ‘Yeboah’ in the same sentence as the word ‘Brazil’, unless you’re talking about an end-of-season trip with the boys.
Disappointingly it happened on Friday and Sunday night, with both players linked by pundits to the Socceroos through hypotheticals bordering on the insane.
If Taggart keeps scoring hat tricks every week, for instance, he should be in the mix. If Yeboah can continue his hot start to the season, Postecoglou has to look at him. That type of thing.
‘If’. It’s a big word. If, to follow suit and hypothesise, the Socceroos had won the 2011 Asian Cup, Holger Osieck might have had enough tickets in the bank to keep his job.
If it was someone other than Besart Berisha in the box late in the 2012 grand final, Brisbane Roar might not have won the game.
Max Vieri might have made it as big as his brother – if he was any good.
Well, he wasn’t. And though they scored some belters on the weekend, neither are Taggart and Yeboah. Not yet. Not until they do it over and over and over again.
If Taggart is leading the golden boot race and Yeboah is still doing insane things in, say, March, then we can probably start talking about it, maybe. But how about a moratorium until such time?
Why should a young player have to deal with that sort of chat hanging over their heads when they haven’t even cemented a starting place in the A-League?
Media outlets have a responsibility to make sure the game’s discourse is just and on point, because they set the agenda. By indulging in crystal ball gazing of this magnitude, they encourage fans to do the same. It gets out of control.
Alternatively they can at least try to set a few ground rules. Perhaps they could just gently encourage, and resist the urge to build the not-yets up as saviours. That, surely, is preferable for all concerned.
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