Well, Pim Verbeek will be busy counting his success bonus. Australia has become the second country to complete qualification for the World Cup, with a 0-0 draw in Qatar.
Unlike the drama and heartbreak of previous campaigns, this has been a pretty relentless steamrollering. With the shift from the Oceania confederation to Asia, Australia had one of the world’s easier routes to qualification. No sudden-death playoffs against the fifth-strongest South American team this time around, just a succession of group games against competent but hardly world-beating teams who rankings suggest Australia should defeat more often than not. But Australia still had to get the results. So credit to Verbeek and his team.
The other straight-through qualification from our group was also settled last night, with Japan’s win over Uzbekistan. With the pressure of qualification off both teams, Australia’s match against Japan at the MCG on the 17th of June will become the first of what will hopefully be a sequence of hitouts against higher-quality opposition.
As to how the team will go at the World Cup, who knows? The low-scoring nature of soccer, and the abbreviated nature of the competition means that there will be a fair amount of luck involved. The team’s stars are aging. And it’s hard to know whether the intensity that accompanied Australia’s first trip to the cup in 30 years will be there this time around . But I can’t wait to find out…
Yay! Congratulations are in order for a ‘quiet’ campaign. I tend to see that as a positive – winning the games they have to and doing what they have to to win.
I think it’s a sign of maturity and a step up in quality. Unlike the heart stoppers in the past. This team is no pushover.
That said, a trip to the second round in the WC is now expected and anything less will now be regarded as a disappointment(draw depending).
woo-hoo!
… and hopefully Pim will tell the various newspaper critics where to stick their columns about the lack of ‘flair’ and ‘style’. Qualification for the WC is all about gathering the points and getting the job done.
That said – the Italians worked out what sort of flair and style are needed to beat Australia. It just had little to do with any intent to play the game the way it should be.
Early qualification gives Pim the opportunity to try out a few different formations before the tournament starts, and to have some “Plan B’s” in case key players get injured. Looking forward to the next 12 months.
Solid performance against a much-improved Qatar (credit to them and Bruno Metsu). This was a potential banana-skin without Moore and Wilkshire to shore up the defense but we handled the pressure well for the most part.
It’s informative to compare our squad for these last three qualifiers with Japans – out of their 2006 cadre only a handful are still starters (Nakamura, Narazaki, Komano, Nakazawa, Endo), while all bar two of our starters tonight were regulars in 2006.
While we’re going to be experimenting in the next year or so the active 2006 squad are virtually walk-ins. We welcomed Craig Moore with open arms when he returned after his 2006 retirement because no one had filled the gap in his absence. Pim is still holding a spot for Viduka should he want it and I can’t blame him because we have all of three strikers in the current squad.
I don’t mean to paint a picture of doom and gloom here: Harry Kewell v. 2006 was a pale shade of the current model, Wilkshire has gone from a utility to a lynchpin, Emerton was wreaking utter havoc prior to his injury and Tim Cahill hasn’t slowed a beat. What worries me though is the impending retirement of most of these guys over the next few years and the faliure of the under-27s to break into a) the top 5 European leagues and b) the matchday teamsheet. Our squad for the 2014 qualifiers is going to be virtually unrecognisable and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.
‘Flair and style’ in a 0-0 result? Give it a rest. With that scoreline, why’d they bother playing at all?
Why do non-soccer fans do this? ^
You mean feeling such ferocious apathy that they are compelled to post endlessly about how little they care?
Beats me, my apathy tends to me far less driven.
Anyway, the thing that has been so astonishingly heartening from long suffering socceroo fans is that our shitty performances got results.
None of the old, or Graham Arnold era, sighing that we put in a good performance but the result didn’t go our way on the day.
Now we can put in 90 minutes of park football against a well performing Bahrain and come away with 3 points.
God that feels good.
Anyone know what Pym’s qualify for the WC success fee is? Not that I begrudge him and I think I detected a hint of Gus rivalry in his comments on news reports on arrival back in Oz today.
No hard info, but it wouldn’t be chicken feed. Qualification is worth tens of millions of dollars to FFA, as I understand it. The players would get some of that, as would the coach.
To add to your happiness and lollipops list, Leinad: youngsters Kennedy and Beauchamp! Long may they get selected. Jedinak and Carle too.
(In the place of the vastly overrated Lucas Neill, if I get my druthers.)
[Looks it up]
So what if Beauchamp is 28. Dammit, he’s younger than I am, and I haven’t sacrificed my dreams of selection.
For Real Madrid.
[ominous thunderclouds gather]
2006 called, it wants it’s promising centre-half back. Beauchamp’s been released by AaB and that’s possibly the end of his Euro career. He had his chance to step up to 2nd CB when Moore left and he couldn’t seal the deal.
This is something of a worry as Neill and Moore aren’t going to be around much longer and our only other options for senior stoppers in the next few years are North and Coyne.
The promising spring chickens are really Spiranovic, Troisi and Djite, maybe Ruka, Burns, Vidosic and Holland should they make the cut.
Goodness yes, Djite! But get him out of striking, the man’s a winger’s winger. Faster up and down the side to the corner posts than a greased burglar at a Surry Hills house inspection. If you’ll pardon the rather baroque analogy.
Milligan? (ducks, anticipating the barrage of scorn)
Not senior. Not a stopper. Bit of a tit.
Which bit? If like Verbeek you’re after boring, solid football in the back half I can think of no better delivery man. I mean, he even turns up in costume as a boring solid. Euclid would have been proud to measure him.
OK then Milicevic at CB. If you’re after excitement you know it makes sense. You’ll be so excited everybody else’ll need a lie-down.
Oh, to have a young Bozza in the squad with Ljubo…
Millsy’s long throws are a fresh arrow our quiver and god knows this Roos team loves its set pieces but as your own comments alude his skills lie more towards distribution than demolition. Ideally we need a lumbering brute to hang around a few more years so better to mentor callow Matthew Spiranovic in the sly cunning and targeted bastardry that defines a proper centre-half.
Kisnorbo?
You’re certainly whistling Iain Fyfe’s tune there, Notorious L.E.I.N.A.D. Don’t know about Kisnorbo, though he probably picked up a bit of bastardry in Scotland. I understand they have a devolved national training academy to develop miserable, cruel meanness in athletes there.
Though he neither lumbering nor brutish, how about the Coast’s Nigel Boogard for CB in a few years?