Socceroos coach Graham Arnold struggled against France.
Playing a back four rather than a back five and leaving Nathaniel Atkinson and Aziz Behich to fend for themselves without any hope of a second defender against Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele was truly puzzling.
One wonders if he was a tad caught up in the pressure to play a progressive style of football after the attacks on his pragmatism following poor performances throughout qualifying.
The entire set-up against the defending world champions smacked of naivety and was rightly punished.
Since then it’s been a Graham Arnold masterclass.
There has been a noticeable shift from attempting to be the team they aspire to be to them being the team they actually are.
The Tunisia game came with a change of shape and intent. Reverting back to his trusted 4-2-3-1, the Socceroos were happy to concede field position and possession.
(Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images)
Against Tunisia the Socceroos completed 239 passes at 68 per cent accuracy, a far cry from the 368 completed passes against France.
One chance, one goal, dig in and defend. Arnold was suddenly back to where he’s comfortable.
The playing group was suddenly emboldened by being asked to do what they’re good at rather than being asked to do things that they can’t.
This isn’t a squad that has the ability to possess the ball and play beautiful, progressive passing strings, and that’s okay.
The philosophical change from the France match went a step further against Denmark in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Arnold opted to add another centre back to the pitch, playing Milos Degenek at right back to combat the prowess of Joakim Maehle on the Danish left flank and adding 1.9 metres of aerial ability on defensive set pieces.
He dropped Mathew Leckie and Craig Goodwin into a second bank of five, allowing Australia to avoid being overloaded in wide areas.
He ceded field position and the ball, allowing Denmark to have 25 sequences of ten or more passes. For comparison, Australia had just one such passing string.
No player for Australia completed more passes than goalkeeper Mat Ryan.
The Danish crave the ball all the time, but sometimes allowing your opponent to do the one thing they want to do works in your favour.
Arnold didn’t press the Danes, as evidenced by the Socceroos allowing 24.1 passes per defensive action, a metric that illustrates how long it takes a team to retrieve the ball after losing possession.
Of course playing this way does take away the amount of control you have over the match, and you do have to rely on intangibles and individual performances.
Harry Souttar, when asked not to be a progressive ball-playing centre half, has been outstanding. Kye Rowles has been similarly fantastic. Mat Ryan has returned to form at the perfect time behind a back line he believes in.
Performances like this often draw the ire of those who have become indoctrinated in the school of progressive positionalism.
The notion is that there is only one ‘pure’ way to win a football match and winning via any other method is somehow invalid.
Arnold is showing that the beautiful game doesn’t have one solution to the multitude of questions it asks.
Argentina on Sunday morning will pose another significant problem, but as long as Arnie continues in this vein, he may already have the answer.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Arnies plan or most probably the plans are really drawn by his dutch assistant, was to utilise 3 not 2 players to neutralize France wingers. On the right they had Leckie, Irvine, Atkinson and on the left they had Goodwin, MGree and Behich. There was a two fold problem was Atkinson is in a weird almost like a sleepwalker who knows why. How he was picked in the bizzaro state is beyond me. Grant would have enabled this plan to work quite easily. All he had to do was make sure Mbappe doesn't receive the ball facing goal and wait for the help. On the right neither Goodwin or Behich were up to the task of stopping Dembele but they had help from McGree who was the only one who tackled him once, Most of the time they dissuaded France from going there. The consequence with McGree hugging that side, Mooy then favours that side and Irvine is drawn to the center. So it ends up leaving France to go the other side. As I pointed out Behich was a traffic cone 0 out of 3 on Dembele. On the right it was 4 out of 8 and 1 of those 4 stops was Atkinson solo. Atkinson actually pre whatever strange mode he has adopted was actually the best right back defensively at the Olympics. Arnie really should have looked to get at least one good fast defensive fullback to use against France on either side. Instead he ended up with a basketcase Atkinson and the defensively weak and unfit Francic on the right, and Behich the weak on the left. King is a bit better than Behich defensively but not that much more. Degenek is somehow the option on the right and he is no good defensively either but at least awake and fit enough. The other thing you can ask is why did Australia try to play out against France and long ball it against Tunisia and Denmark. The answer is Australia were trying to exploit Mbappe's laziness, somehow the touch from Atkinson and his sleepwalker response gave France a tap in.