My dog explodes into a frenzy of barks every time a postman knocks on our front door. It’s in his nature to do it; spaniels have had this instinctive reaction bred into them over hundreds of years.
But the fact that this is totally expected behaviour doesn’t make me any less startled when the piercing yaps begin, or any less compelled to shush him, while I prepare to enter into the mutually acknowledged charade of squiggling what is clearly not my signature into the postie’s oddly retro-looking device.
Over their three World Cup games, Bert van Marwijk set the Socceroos up, and made his in-game adjustments, in accordance with his own instincts which prioritised defensive structure and conservatism.
It’s in his nature to do that too, and it came to the surprise of no one who has given his managerial career even a passing glance.
The only change he made to his starting XI was forced by injury. He made the same substitutions, at around the same moments in each match. He instructed the team, by and large, to play the same way against all three opponents.
The frustration is, is that my dog doesn’t have the cognitive function to work out that every knock on the door isn’t the violent home invader to which his barking is designed to alert us.
Chippy the Tibetan spaniel is incapable of applying context; 2:15 in the afternoon on a Thursday in an inner Melbourne suburb is not the time or place most axe-wielding maniacs choose to strike.
It’s hard to know whether he even remembers the previous 287 occasions where I wasn’t hacked down and stuffed into a bin liner after answering a knock on the door.
Van Marwijk can see the changing contexts. He can see what has happened and is likely to happen again, and he should be able to adjust. But he didn’t, and although he was never likely to, it’s hard not to be startled by the fact.
(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
It’s difficult to sum up the campaign while the disappointment of a bottom-of-the-group exit is still boring a bitter pit in the gut.
So many of the players gave us genuine reason to applaud after looking shaky in the warm-up games with the entire Guardian football writing staff, among others, calling that Mark Milligan be replaced in the starting XI in what’s surely his last World Cup. He was fantastic; a real rock in defence with a passing range most midfielders would envy.
Mile Jedinak’s poise from the penalty spot adds another steely layer to his statuesque reputation. For all of his difficulties at the other end, Josh Risdon defended with aplomb against better attackers than he’s ever faced in his professional career.
Aaron Mooy showed he can set the tempo of a match at any level. The glints Daniel Arzani gave us have sparked a hopeful flame that helps to warm up the chilling despondency this exit has blown in.
Ange Postecoglou arranged this team to try and wring out every bit of attacking potency it had, often at the expense of any semblance of defensive integrity, especially in the final year of his tenure.
In spite of that, Australia still had matches where they’d whirr around in the opposition half, offer plenty of energy and activity, rack up the shots, and still not score.
The lack of a cutting edge, even when the team was geared principally around maximising what modest edge they had, has been this team’s biggest problem.
Any team scouting Australia will know this, and will feel comfortable as a result. After all, to one degree or another, all our group stage opponents were allowing us a certain degree of control in their half.
So yes, van Marwijk’s system let us to compete in games, to limit opposition chances and offer a stable platform to create some of our own.
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But the offensive ceiling of this team was low before he arrived, and was lowered by van Marwijk’s system and our heads reached it, just about.
Had Andrew Nabbout not been injured, could anyone reasonably argue van Marwijk wouldn’t have started him in the Peru game, having tried but failed to register a single shot on or off target over the first two games?
The value of Nabbout’s industry dropped from game to game, as the need for goals increased.
But it probably took a dislocated shoulder to change his level of involvement.
Having not visibly aided our desperate charge for a late goal against Denmark, did van Marwijk think subbing Tom Rogic for Jackson Irvine would have a different effect against Peru, or was he simply rolling through the same robotic, predetermined process he had in the two games prior?
(Photo by Simon Hofmann – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
“We had trouble, at this level, to score a goal,” van Marwijk said after the Peru match.
Of course we’ll never know now, and talking about it is, to some extent, simply self-flagellating with the whip of regretful what-ifs.
But would Jamie Maclaren have posed more of a threat than Tomi Juric did against Peru. In a similar vein, what if Matt Leckie had played as a striker, or Arzani had got more than half an hour with exhausted teammates?
We had trouble scoring against Denmark too, and really shouldn’t have been gifted that VAR penalty, but that didn’t seem to spur van Marwijk on to shake things up in the next must-win game.
Guus Hiddink, in that storied penalty shoot-out win over Uruguay in 2005, took off Tony Popovic and brought on Harry Kewell – the latter a shock exclusion in arguably the most important game in Australia’s football history to that point – in the 32nd minute, one of those rare first-half tactical substitutions.
The game was 0-0 at that point, and Uruguay had had at least one great chance.
Conservatism was thrown out as Popovic trotted off, and Kewell came on.
The point of bringing this up is not to compare those two Socceroos vintages, which are starkly different, but more to show that there is value in improvising tactically, successfully or otherwise, in un-digging your heels and taking a risk when the stakes are at their highest; in not being predictable.
At the very least, it helps banish the lingering pain of punished inaction, of tactical torpor, when changes are made too late, if at all.
Gosh, I’m looking forward to the Uruguay and Portugal Round of 16 clash, as well as Belgium and England.
There’s a new slate for the Socceroos now, and Graham Arnold will surely steward a markedly changed squad in the next Asian Cup; perhaps an attacking unit of Arzani, Rogic, Matt Leckie behind – and why not indulge in a wild fantasy now – Ispwich’s Ben Folami will scorch through the tournament in 2019.
Bert has come and gone, and he was just as we thought he’d be, so now all we can do is stride onward with a hopeful skip in our step.
Ad-O
Guest
Nice one, Ange. Just how many games do you expect the Socceroos to win in a World Cup if you ship 3 goals every game?
Ad-O
Guest
Spot on, mate. I absolutely expected 0 points. And at least 1 thrashing. How could anybody who watched us against Thailand and Syria expect anything else.
Gerry
Roar Rookie
Look let’s look at the facts. Football is not Australia’s main sport and it’s not that they aren’t capable. They just need players who know where the back of the net is. Youth academies and a strong domestic comp will of course help but I think Australia is best placed more than many countries for a bright future. Australia can take the best of the SouthAneticans, Europeans, Asians and Africans and blend them all together with that unique competitive nature of Australians to bind it all up and make a fabulous style of football. It sounds like fantasy but I think it can become a reality. Australian the future is bright keep qualifying and keep learning.
Ad-O
Guest
Well clearly we should be winning the world cup because, Y'know, we're Australia. That's was sarcasm.
Nemesis
Guest
What could your grandmother's cousin have achieved coaching the German National Team? Pretty sure the majority of people (both football savvy & the football illiterate) on this Roar forum predicted 3 embarrassing losses. Under Ange in 2014 we conceded 3 goals every match & most felt we'd be lucky have the same return.
User
Roar Rookie
Agree with every paragraph
Kangas
Roar Rookie
Commiserations on Germany m q Who saw that coming
Marshall
Guest
So journalism isn't allowed to be critical? It has to be cheerleading only? This article is hardly half baked, its hardly hyperbolic it's pretty damn reasonable and so is Chris's comment. It's not doom and gloom but there is valid criticism and it's important to discuss where we came up short.
Redondo
Guest
Does anyone else think Ange sounds like a British WW1 general, bereft of ideas other than sending waves of doomed boys over the top again and again? I guess the ANZAC legend from WW1 was partly built on soldiers blindly following daft orders. Perhaps Bert was alluding to that when he commented that the team followed his instructions too religiously. Regardless, I'm not sure Ange and Foz's way is really the 'Australian way', whatever that might mean in such a culturally diverse country. Their way just seems naive and wilfully ignorant of the resources we have available.
Redondo
Guest
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Diamond Jackie
Roar Rookie
All that rings pretty true but bottom line BMV didn't take a risk when he needed to by not bringing on our best attacking players (historically, TC...) or potentially best player (in the years to come,Arzani... ) early enough in the key games. And we will never know what could have been....
Cousin Claudio
Roar Guru
I did predict that Australia would finish last in the group, given our lack of preparation, lack of world class talent and poor finishing. We did play better than I thought we would, but it still hurts as an Aussie to see them fail like that and give up so meekly against Peru, who really only had a couple of chances. Nice of Yokohama Ange to comment on Australia's performances like I told you so, when he abandoned his own country in its greatest hour of need. I know Graham Arnold won't do that and there's some real potential to do well in the Asian Cup and other future tournaments. That's what we have to look forward to now.
Dom
Guest
Evan, on the whole a fair and balanced article about van Marwijk's performance. As Bert, himself said years ago, "coaches can play 4 or 5 different systems during a game, but players can't" and that's why he kept it simple for this WC. But like everyone, I simply cannot understand the selection as substitute of the guileless Jackson Irvine over the ball skills of Mass Luongo or Dimi Petratos in the second and third games. Also, the non selection in the squad of the skillful attacking midfielders/strikers Cris Ikonomidis and Danny de Silva were perplexing and if they had been selected may have provided the missing thrust and guile the team was lacking. Unfortunately, it's too late now and we will never know.
James Butcher
Roar Rookie
Given that he was such an average player, it's strange to hear him talk about the game, if you didn't know better, you might think that he'd been one of the all time greats.
Onside
Guest
It needs acknowledging that every Socceroos player either currently plays or once played ,in the A-League. Who would have predicted, when the A-League kicked off a decade or so ago, that the competition would one day generate a full team of Socceroos
anon
Roar Pro
Ange is a poisonous, sniping so and so. He must have had that article penned and he hit send the moment Australia were bounced out of the World Cup. He's had 6 months to write an article. Waited for us to get bounced because he didn't have the guts to stand by his beliefs in the lead up. Now he's trying to rewrite history after he nearly failed to qualify for the World Cup against Asian minnows. This is a guy whose team scored 16 goals in 10 games in the group stage against Asian minnows. That includes a couple of games against Thailand, UAE, Iraq. Conceded 11 goals. Are those the numbers of a team that will succeed in any way against top 15 sides in the world? Thailand scored 3 goals against us in 2 games. You can imagine what France and Denmark would have done to us under Ange's system.
MQ
Guest
BVM gave us precisely what we expected (or what people should have expected). Also, with all these demands to play this or that, make multiple changes, many of us said: forget about it. BVM doesn't change things, he'll play the same players in the same roles in the same 4231 formation. He had a few months to put together a competitive team which wouldn't embarass itself against better opposition, and he achieved it (although our final game against Peru was pretty close to an embarassment). At the start of the tournament, I said that one point would be a good result, and I still think that. Well done socceroos.
MQ
Guest
ACtually, the funniest thing about that is that 10 or so years ago, Fozz used to be absolutely scathing about the Premier League.
William Mak
Guest
Arnold should include some long balls to take chances. We can see this from the Korea's and Japan's match. Also, restore physical play, spirit and desperation. The same lining ups recently have not made Socceroos better in defense. Watch the replay of Korea vs Germany and see how they have done it. For years, South Korea have been rejuvenating. As for Socceroos, it is like the time under Holger.
Nick Symonds
Guest
NEWS: THE MAJOR INGREDIENT IS COURAGE - BY ANGE POSTECOGLOU Before the France game, Didier Deschamps remarked how the Socceroos now had a better balance between attack and defence. He referenced that during my reign we were too offensive and open. Some used it as further evidence of my failings. I saw it differently. We all try and find meaning, and I can think of no better five words to define my career than those. His teams were too attacking. https://www.playersvoice.com.au/ange-postecoglou-major-ingredient-is-courage/?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral#qsuF1s0YvFwGViS0.97