Socceroos icon Tim Cahill made a stunning comment yesterday – “If I had played in Honduras, I would have contributed”.
Cahill had rolled his ankle days before playing for Melbourne City when he tried to hurdle Sydney FC defender Jordy Buijs.
Cahill was given no chance of playing the first leg of the last chance two-game play-off to qualify for the FIFA World Cup in Russia next year.
But to think the 37-year-young Cahill, the best-performed Socceroo and the team’s most inspirational footballer could have been used, but wasn’t, is yet another strange decision by coach Ange Postecoglou.
Even stranger when the Socceroos’ most successful goal-scorer with 50, well clear of the next best Damon Mori with 28, may well have scored – with every goal on the away leg all the more important thanks to the away goal rule. If scores are tied after tomorrow night, the team with more away goals goes through.
After a nil-all draw, any goal would have been priceless.
So Postecoglou has no option tomorrow night, Tim Cahill must start against Honduras – the Socceroos’ moment of truth has arrived.
If Postecoglou fails to start Cahill, the coach is as good as out the exit door.
Let’s face it, tomorrow night is the most important sporting event on the Australian calendar this week, by the length of the straight.
(AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
A galaxy of Australia’s best in other sports have been appearing on television wishing the team well, headed by Cooper Cronk, Steve Smith, Ellysee Perry, Craig Lowndes, and Michael Hooper.
Let’s face it, the return Honduras clash is so important to the well-being of the round ball code in Australia.
If they qualify for Russia, the FFA and Socceroos will earn $2 million, and even if they are eliminated after the Group stage, there’s another $10 million.
If they lose in the quarters it’s worth $18 million. To finish fourth, $25 million, and to go all the way to becoming world champions they will collect a $50-million cheque.
Nobody expects the Socceroos will go that far, but to even qualify for their fourth consecutive World Cup appearance will do wonders for the code in Australia.
But to miss out will be damaging.
Putting my cards on the table, I’m no fan of the Socceroos for playing boring football, with the exception of Tim Cahill.
They should have qualified in regulation as the highest ranked country – Socceroos 43, Japan 44, Saudi Arabia 63, UAE 72, Iraq 80, and Thailand 138.
Had the played to their standing, they would have avoided these tense play-off series,even though Syria’s ranked 77, and Honduras 69.
But they didn’t play to their ranking, so both the players, and the coach, must share that mistake and that responsibility.
(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
Tomorrow night they have their last chance to make amends by making passes count, and being positive.
The latter is vital, and that’s where Tim Cahill means so much to the side.
A Cahill header from an Aron Mooy cross will bring the house down, the roar will be heard all over Sydney.
But while the attack is vital, the Socceroos’ defence must be Fort Knox-like – if Honduras score, Australia will need to win. No questions asked. A scoring draw sees Australia knocked out on the away goals rule.
The clash will be the first of three this week, with the defending champion Kangaroos meeting Samoa in Darwin in a Rugby League World Cup quarter final, and the Wallabies will be at the home of rugby desperate to end a four-game losing streak to England.
But tomorrow night is huge with the nation right behind you Socceroos, so lift your game and attitude to make us proud.
Sydneysider
Guest
Brilliant post. Well said PotatoJuice. David should retire. His articles are complete rubbish. Even for sports that he thinks he is an expert on eg. Cricket, rugby.
j,binnie
Guest
Punter - that middle part of this offering says it all. I saw the great Hungarian side beat Scotland in 1954, I saw the great Real Madrid win the 1960 European Cup , both games being attended by more than 235,000 ever so hopeful Scottish football fanatics. Now I don't doubt for a minute that those same fans and their offspring would dearly love to think that Scottish football learned from those two examples of "great football", but I suspect you know that that never happened. The lesson to be learned is really the reason why football has seen drastic changes in coaching methodology. These last 60 years has had clubs and countries constantly struggling to develop ways and means to defeat teams,sides obviously populated by better players. That is the nature of the game and ,in a sense , could be a criticism of Ange's "one plan" strategy in trying to change what he perceives as a weakness in our football,and do it all in a 4 year time frame. A huge task to try in such a public arena ,the World Cup. Cheers jb.
punter
Guest
We are all pretenders and posers, otherwise we'd be in Ange's shoes.
Grobbelaar
Roar Guru
Evan Well done Evan, you, above everyone else on this thread, have marked yourself out as someone who really does know his football. As to the pretenders and posers....
punter
Guest
Totally agree there are some worrying sign. However; The Socceroos are in a stage of transition, I have watched the Socceroos for over 40 years & have never seen a Socceroo play football like this current side, playing football along the ground, as the great Brian Clough said 'if God wanted us to play football in the air, he'd put grass up there'. Yes the Socceroos don't have the players to transition the football quickly from defence to attack, again we never have. However we continue to try & hopefully get better at this. Yes our goal for & against ratio not great, again we are in transition from a non football playing nation to a football playing nation & maybe our converting is not up to scratch, but we have been creating a lot of chances in these games & that would the major concern if we did not.
punter
Guest
My apologies to the Grob, I mis-read the post thinking 2002.
j,binnie
Guest
nemesis,nemesis nemesis- You are at it again,You are now putting forward only the goals scored at home as a basis for your debate. Can I ask why ?. We all know AP's philosophy on how the Socceroos should play the game and as long as he is there that is the way it will be. This being an indisputable fact then surely he can never be accused of "parking the bus" as many teams do when playing away from home. You of all people would have to agree that is part of his doctrine. Therefore, if we are to believe he will always stick by that philosophy then neither you,nor anyone else analysing performance ,can ignore the away results the team has achieved in it's WC programme, and by my reckoning that gives an average, over their last 13 matches played, of 19 goals being scored, while conceding 13. By my reckoning that means thy have managed an aggregate average score of 1.46 to 1 per game. The figure that worries most thinkers at this stage of the proceedings is that "goals against" figure. Cheers jb.
Evan Askew
Guest
I'm pretty sure Pim was coach of the South Korean team at the 2007 Asian cup. He was ass coach at the 2002'world cup.
Targa
Guest
They are ranked no 43. Peru are ranked 10
potatojuice
Roar Rookie
Truly embarrassing stuff. Well done.
chris
Guest
lol
chris
Guest
Punter he wouldn't have a clue. Grob likes games where you accumulate points as easily and as many as possible.
Worlds Biggest
Guest
Waz you make valid points however Cahill is the only guy that can put it in the back of the net. An away goal would have been huge, give him 15-20 minutes to try and bag an all important away goal. Then you go into tomorrow night with a big advantage. If Honduras manage to jag a goal tomorrow night,we have to score at least two. Anyway good luck Socceroos !
potatojuice
Roar Rookie
It's hilarious but pathetic and sad hearing League fans wetting their pants in excitement over this pseudo World Cup.
northerner
Guest
Actually, what's hilarious is that NSW, Australia and NZ need to rely on Tongans to fill the ranks. Think about it.
marcel
Guest
Another pointless opinion piece from the Abe Simpson of the sports desk .
potatojuice
Roar Rookie
" he’s one article shy of writing 2100 (!) for this site alone." So what? Who cares, 95% of his articles on The Roar are absolute rubbish anyways. "but don’t denigrate his effort just because you happen to hold a different point of view." His "effort"? Effort meaning David jumps on the football bandwagon once every two years and pretends to be an expert on football? If you wrote an article on the Wallabies the night before the World Cup final you would be rightly ridiculed by the Rugby fans considering you have written zero articles on the sport nor do you (I'm assuming) passionately follow the sport. Likewise, I would be rightly ridiculed if I wrote an article on the Cleveland Cavaliers the week before the NBA finals series considering I do not follow basketball. Plus, we have all seen David become nasty when someones posts their disagreement in a non-confronting manner on his articles.
punter
Guest
Good Luck Targa, now don't go confusing us Aussie fans with the the away goal scenario.
Haymother
Guest
If you think football is boring because goals are not scored, then you just don’t like football. Which is fine. But your comments are embarrassing. The Roos played an exciting attacking brand of football in the first leg, and the failure to score was zero to do with tactics and all the failure of the strikers. Football is a low scoring game, it’s hard to get a goal, plenty of teams have sublime players and yet sometimes don’t score. Argentina don’t always score even with one of the best of all time on the park with them. And Cahill can say what he likes. It would have been idiotic to put him on half done. If he was on the end of one of those balls in front of Juric, sure they may have gone in, but he needed to have the legs to be in position to get there. Who knows if he’d have lasted 20 minutes. And could he do the rest of the work around the park that Juric did holding the ball? Really am uninformed comment David.
Targa
Guest
Good luck West Islanders. I'm just hoping that NZ can get 90 minutes out of Chris Wood and Winston Reid in Lima on Thursday afternoon NZT. If we can get an early goal Peru will have to score 2.