After the disappointment of the Peru game, Craig Foster strongly critiqued Australian football.
His critique focused on the identity of the Socceroos and how we play football – and that although our World Cup campaign showed various Australian qualities, it did not show the Australian attacking mentality as we did not ‘give it to’ Peru from the outset in a must win game.
Craig also questioned if we as Australians are content with gallant losses – and that if we are not, the Australian footballing public need to make it clear that it is not acceptable.
I was entranced with Fozzy’s speech, it was from a place of a frustrated lover of Australian football, speaking from the heart and confused about our future direction. Even though Jose ‘The Special One’ Mourinho said Australia would progress to the second round, the reality is that Australia finishing the bottom of the group was not a surprise.
That is why I think that the FFA pulled off a masterstroke by having Bert van Marwijk coach the team to the World Cup after Ange Postecoglou and have Graham Arnold take over after. It enabled Arnold the buffer of not being criticised for a potential poor performance in the World Cup – he is now given a clean slate to embed the Australian brand of football going forward.
In saying that, I do agree with the Fozzy’s general sentiment – Australians want to see football where our team is not afraid of any team and attacks them.
I want to see Australia dominate Asia and have an expectation that we push into the second round and finals of the World Cup, challenging and beating the world’s best on its day.
To do this though, we need to rethink how we develop strikers and make sure that they are an active scoring threat in games. We all know that the Socceroos struggled to create and capitalise in our forward third in Russia, but the extent that it occurred was bordering on ridiculous.
One statistic illustrates how much we struggled – only one shot was made by a striker. In the Peru game you may say? Nope – across all three games.
Tim Cahill was the only striker to take a shot, Andrew Nabbout and Tom Juric did not take one shot. Not one.
I am by no means an expert in football but I do not think it is likely a team will score many goals and win many games if the striker does not fire off a shot. In my definition of a striker, it is not a right or left forward (aka Matt Leckie or Robbie Kruse) but the front man who takes a central forward position.
Matt Leckie (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)
People may argue that this is symptomatic of Van Marwijk not showing belief in Australia’s ability to attack, which I would agree with but it misses the fact that Australia has struggled to develop strikers that fit into our style of game, back to and including our 2006 golden generation.
This might be because our strength has always been our midfield depth – our golden generation had a plethora of quality midfielders and wingers such as Harry Kewell, Cahill, Mark Bresciano, Jason Culina, Vince Grella, Brett Emerton, Scott Chipperfield and Mile Sterjovski.
Our 2018 squad was of a similar mould with Rogic, Aaron Mooy, Mile Jedinak, Leckie, Kruse and Dan Arzani. Australia seems to be capable of developing quality midfielders (and a plethora of quality goalkeepers – that is another issue though) and develops game plans that rely on midfielders to score goals.
This detracts from our strikers, which in my opinion in the last decade have primarily had a role of facilitating and holding up the ball, rather than being a persistent goal scoring threat.
Counter-intuitively, when these strikers do not score as many goals as the team would like, we drop them and move our wingers and midfielders into striking roles – Kewell and Cahill being the obvious examples.
From our golden generation til now, we have only had one striker that appeared to consistently score goals – Josh ‘Jesus’ Kennedy – who scored 17 times in 38 games.
Take Cahill off the top of Australian goal scoring charts (as I consider him an attacking midfielder, turn striker out of necessity) and the pure strikers that have scored consistently are few and far between. Archie Thompson is third on the all-time list scoring 28 goals, but only scored eight goals against non-Oceania teams (with three goals coming against Guam – in a 9-0 win).
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John Aloisi is fourth with 27 goals, but with 15 goals coming against Oceania opposition. The next best strikers during this period is Mark Viduka with 11 and Tomi Juric with 8.
Compare this to Australian midfielders/wingers, Jedinak and Brett Emerton have both scored 20 goals, Kewell 17, Bresciano with 13, Chipperfield with 12, Josip Skoko and Brett Holman with nine, Sterjovski and Wilkshire with eight each. Of the current crop, Leckie has scored eight goals, Rogic has seven goals and Mooy and Luongo five goals in internationals.
People may argue that the striking talent has simply not been there. Without getting into the chicken or the egg debate, from the golden generation onwards, even when we have had some successful strikers at European club level, such as Mark Viduka in the Premier League and McDonald at Celtic – a mix of their own personal struggles and a lack of a clear striking role impacted their capability to score goals for country.
This paints a bleak post-Cahill picture of our attacking options going forward, although there are potentially promising signs.
While I think that it is important to heed Fozzy’s words and really re-invent and implement the Australian way of playing football, we really need to re-think the role of a striker in the Australian brand of football.
Australia needs to develop a clear understanding of how we want our strikers to play and identify and develop our upcoming talent to be capable of being a consistent goal scoring threat.
It does not necessarily matter that these strikers play in the big European leagues (although that would be a huge bonus) but that they can play in an Australian style of play and continue to be an attacking threat in every game.
Juric, Nabbout and Maclaren are young enough to develop into consistent goal scoring threats for Australia but we have to have faith, patience and a game plan that encourages them to score, not just facilitate.
Mile Jedinak of Australia (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
What I would like to see is an aggressive, physical striker, who is a strong header but has that killer instinct to get into dangerous positions and score big goals – a player that is relentless and never stops attacking.
This basically is what Cahill has been for Australia since he became our leading striker. That is why I think it is imperative that we keep Cahill in some sort of advisory capacity to help develop these players to have that killer instinct.
Arnold now has the opportunity to really shape the style of Australian football and I think there is no better place to start than re-thinking the role of striker because it is unlikely that Australia will get to where it wants to be as a footballing nation, if it does not have strikers than score goals.
Benjamin Biro
Guest
Hey Nephilim, I read your article on the roar - it said it was your first. It was a really good article had a lot of detail. Great work!!!
Sydneysideliner
Guest
I'm not saying he didn't nurture young talent at all, but of the guys who came out of CCM, Rogic is the only outright attacker. If he tried to find another Rogic in his time at Sydney it wasn't obvious in their recruitment.
Nephilim
Guest
Why didn't John Roberts see game time at the jets?
Jonno
Guest
Or increase the A league to 16 teams and we will find our strikers .ten team comp too small ,local strikers dont stand a chance of making it to A league they only want foreigners .the success of the national team is a reflection of our local competition .just look at teams in the NPL leagues strikers are averaging 15 to 25 goal scoring per season in youth grades what happens to them when they get older you never see them in the A league the system is broken no one organisation is fixing it .
Nephilim
Roar Rookie
CCM?
Sydneysideliner
Guest
I'm not optimistic about Arnie's capacity to develop young attacking talent. He had 5 years to do that at one of Australia's wealthiest clubs and chose to bring in foreigners like Janko, Holosko, Bobo, Ninkovic and Adrian, whilst recycling old timers like Brosque and Simon. They also played some incredibly dull and one-dimensional football during his tenure which relied on individual brilliance of guys like Janko, Ninkovic and Adrian, so can't see how we'll achieve real change in striking prowess on his watch
Nephilim
Roar Rookie
I also wrote a blurb on player development, so to add something different I will provide this link. Current big-5 league footballers played on average 93.9 domestic league matches since the start of their professional career up until the semester preceding their 23rd birthday. The average number of matches played is 11.1 before 19 years of age, 26.8 before 20, 46.9 before 21, 69.7 before 22 and 93.9 before 23. B-team games are also included. http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr14/en/
Nick Symonds
Guest
I just had a look at the HKFC Soccer Sevens again and in 2009 there was an Australia U18 side competing in the same group as West Ham United, Sheffield FC and an HKFC Captain's Select (Australia won all 3 matches). In 2005 Central Coast Mariners sent a side that beat Manchester United 2-1 in the quarter finals before before being beaten 2-1 by PSV Eindhoven. The HKFC Soccer Sevens isn't a major tournament and even after 19 years still only draws crowds of 1-2,000 but it's a good way of rattling through a whole bunch of teams quickly which makes it a good format for scouting young players. With just 6 outfield players and no offside rule it's all about fast breaks and putting away limited chances when they come so you need good finishing skills. Exactly what the Socceroos are looking for. Maybe FFA should have an annual Soccer Sevens tournament in Canberra for under 23's with 8 teams representing each of the states and territories and include Soccer Sevens in the national curriculum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0vZk4-UH4Q
Rellum
Roar Guru
Or more teams with one less foreign import per club.
Oldpsyco
Guest
Craig Foster has systematically criticised every Player, Coach, Administrator and Tealady associated with Austraian football since his playing days. He along with the rest of the "must criticise" media, has no credibility left! A couple of facts remain; 1. Australia do not rank as one of the top 16 countries in football at this time. 2. Australia probably do rank in the top 32, hence we were worth our spot in the tournament. 3. The vast majority of Australian Football Supporters are Damn proud of our socceroos! They played well and did us proud in a tournament we were Never going to win! Dreams are fine Delusions are another level. Lets just enjoy the World cup experience for what it was, a chance to play some strong teams in a competitive enviroment. Job done, mission accomplished. Well done boys, we move on to Asia.
Nick Symonds
Guest
Tomi Juric - 8 goals from 38 matches for Australia + 15 from 57 at Luzern Tom Rogic - 7 goals from 40 matches for Australia + 20 from 86 at Celtic - Jamie Maclaren - 40 goals from 53 matches at Brisbane Roar and 8 from 15 at Hibernian + 9 from 17 for Australia U20 and 9 from 15 for Australia U23 George Blackwood - 7 goals from 16 matches for Australia U20 and 5 from 8 for Australia U23 Joey Gibbs - 34 goals from 67 matches NPL NSW Riley McGree (midfielder) - 5 goals from 12 matches at Newcastle Jets - Daniel Arzani - Not even close to any of the above at any level (but he's also a winger) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Arzani - List of men’s footballers with 50 or more international goals – Goals per match ratio Gerd Müller – 1.10 Pelé – 0.85 Neymar – 0.64 Ronaldo – 0.63 David Villa – 0.60 Cristiano Ronaldo – 0.56 Zlatan Ibrahimović – 0.53 Miroslav Klose – 0.52 Luis Suárez – 0.52 Lionel Messi – 0.51 Robin van Persie – 0.49 Tim Cahill – 0.47 1) The common theme is that if you want to find strikers who could make the list above they need a goals per match ratio of around 0.5 so you have to identify these players at lower levels early. 2) Australian strikers can't break into the A-League because of foreign imports. So, either ban them all together or limit foreign players to a maximum amount of time on field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_men%27s_footballers_with_50_or_more_international_goals
Roger
Guest
I think we are making what is actual a global club and country problem somehow unique to Australia. Quality, consistent and effective strikers and finishers are the most valuable commodity in Football. Often midfielders/wingers are technically the financially most valuable; but even then it is there goal scoring ability and ability to create and finish in the final third which adds that extended value. Kane, Higuain, Mpabbe, Cavani, Aguero, Lewandowski, Neymar, Lukaku, Suarez etc. All rare talents, all hard to find. The amount of world class finishers is not a bottomless pit, and not many international sides have an abundancy of world class finishers with the exception of a few (Uruguay, Argentina etc). Having even 1 dramatically changes your sides chances, but many, many countries don't have 1; relying on set pieces and midfielders for goals. Even having 1 FWD or attacking mid with the extra quality and class in the final third is massive for an international side i.e. Eriksen for Denmark, Mandzukic for Croatia, Bale for Wales etc. Just saying we NEED to develop better strikers is naive. The whole world is trying to find better finishers, at every level. Its not like Australia is saying lets develop goalkeepers and Mids, all we need. No major changes are needed, keep investing, keep searching and we will develop the right talent.
The Phantom Commissioner
Roar Rookie
Yeah like you say we seen to be developing midfielders fairly consistently, strikers seem to be a needle in a hay stack. It seems though overall that old number 9 or out and out striker is being phased out, there are exceptions like Harry Kane and your Girouds of the world but you see alot more goals coming from playmakers so we need guys like Rogic, Leckie and Arzani scoring consistently going forward.
BrainsTrust
Guest
The best strike ratio in terms of goals against better opposition is Joshua Kennedy. Weakest teams he has scored against are Liechenstein and Malaysia 3 of his tally Even Cahill of his goals you do have 7 against the Pacific islands and about 10 against minnows in Asia like India,Bangladesh, Tajikstan,.Krygistan. Australia need to get Joey Gibbs into the A-league. If he gets good service he is about the best striker left with his head plus he has a good touch and can hold the ball up. The other factor is Mooy, this guy cannot hit the ball hard enough for corners and the power he gets goes down the longer he plays. Kennedy at City scored off the corners that Duff took, struggled to score because Mooy hit rubbish corners You put Petratos into the team and you would get a lot more goals from set pieces.