The Anti-Crisis: A Reaction To Les Murray’s Article

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The SBS football team have long been the torch bearers of Australian football, actively promoting the game during its darkest hours when no other network would touch it with a hundred metre pole. Their contribution should never be underestimated. However, some of the columns on The World Game site have a distinct air of pessimism and sensationalism about them which is concerning because for Australia football fans, The World Game show and site has long been an authoritative source for footballing news and opinions. I for one have certainly developed a high level of trust towards the information and opinions provided by the team. It now seems that there is a need to watch the watchers, to scrutinise what we hear from the panel and filter out the good from the bad.

The example I want to raise is a recent blog post from Les Murray titled “Socceroos Crisis”. Mike Salter of The Football Tragic also wrote a reactionary article which is well worth a read. I thought I’d take a closer look at what Les’ article talks about and assess the points argued. I won’t deal with issue about appointing a coach earlier, it has been done to death and I do wish that SBS would stop harking on about it.

Firstly, the title of the article, “Socceroos Crisis”. This article was posted only a few days out from Australia’s important qualifying game against China. I have no idea how many people read it about it seems to be a lot from the number of comments posted. There is a clear distinct sense of sensationalism from the title itself.

The Lost Generation

From the article, it seems that Les is telling us that with just over 2 years until the World Cup, the national team lacks depth, there is a lack of quality in the new stock, we forgot the prepare for the next World Cup after the euphoria of 2006, we lost a golden generation of players that the next generation doesn’t match up to and that “no amount of hope, optimism or spin, including mine, will disguise it”.

Let’s have a look at the golden generation mentioned. Les lists Kalac, Popovic, Tony Vidmar, Moore, Skoko and Lazaridis who helped Australia qualify for the World Cup while he also mentions that the international careers of Viduka and Chipperfield are in doubt. Out of the above players, Popovic, Vidmar, Chipperfield and Viduka played in against Urugury. In the World Cup itself, only Chipperfield, Viduka and Moore contributed significantly. The way Les makes it sound, “That’s eight players, or more than two-thirds of a football team”, obscures the contribution of these players to the qualifying and World Cup campaigns. I am not trying to diminish what these players contributed. I am pointing out that the wording of Les does overstate their contribution and makes the loss seem unbridgeable.

Swimming at the Deep-end

According to Les, the national team lacks depth. That argument was put to the sternest of tests against China with Australia being deprived of much of its starting line-up due to injury. Despite that, the Socceroos earned a draw against arguably the strongest opponent in the group. If we lacked depth, and given the adverse conditions, we would have convincingly lost the game. Instead, the patch-up team more than stood its ground. The players who have only earned a dozen or so caps, such as Carney, Valeri, North, Beauchamp and Holman, really came to the fore. Many of these players are the depth behind the first-team and they showed that they are more than capable of swimming at the deep-end.

This is Their Life

Let’s take a journey back to 2004, 2 years out from the 2006 World Cup. A 24 year old Australian player was playing in the English second tier with Millwall. He was getting regular starts and was developing a reputation was a goal scoring midfielder. A fairytale run to the FA Cup propelled him and his team into the limelight although they would eventually lose to Manchester United. In that year, he earned his first cap for the national team. Two years later, this little known Tim Cahill would become one of the most recognisable faces in Australian sports and one of the most potent midfield weapons in England’s top flight. Along the way, he would bag 13 goals in 28 appearances for the Socceroos and score his nation’s first goals in both the World Cup and the Asian Cup.

Lucas Neil made his international debut at the tender age of 18 and he also played in the English second tier until he was into his twenties. At 23, he moved to the Premiership with Blackburn and has been a fixture in Premiership first-teams ever since. I’d contend that Australia’s potential future captain, Mark Milligan, is well on his way to emulating Australia’s present captain. Milligan made his international debut 20 and at 22, he is seemingly on the verge of moving to the French League which is closer, in terms of quality, to the Premiership than the Championship. Yes, he has suffered a loss of form. But a youngster losing form is nothing new and certainly nothing to have a crisis over.

In fact, if you have a close look at the squad that played in the World Cup, you will see a lot of late bloomers. Emerton didn’t leave the old NSL until he was 21 and he didn’t move to the Premiership until he was 24. Many of the A-League players that played against Singapore are either younger than 21 or there about and I am quite sure that at least one or two will go on a forge careers in Europe by following a similar path as Emerton. Jason Culina was loaned out to several smaller European clubs by Ajax. It was only later that his European career began to take off, beginning with a successful season at Twente. He, like Cahill, made his big break at 24 with a move to PSV and also finally earning national team honours. Wilkshire was considered a prodigy when he moved to Middlesbrough at only 16. His career stagnated for many years and at 21, his career seemed to be slipping when he moved to the third tier of English football by joining Bristol City. Amazing, despite the lowly division he was playing in, he still make it World Cup and was in the starting line-up against Italy. He has since established himself as a regular at Dutch club Twente and Australia. Grella also didn’t make his international debut until 2003.

If you have a look around the footballing world, you will see plenty of potential Tim Cahills or Jason Culinas, itching to make a similar sort of run to the World Cup. And these players are in a similar sort of position to that which Cahill found himself two years out from the last big show.

If you look at the English Championship, you will find a 26 year old Nick Carle who is playing regular football for a club that is currently in line for automatic promotion to the Premiership. As Les mentions, Carle “remains the most technically gifted of Australia’s current crop” and his underuse by national team managers is criminal. One place below Carle’s team is Hull City, the club of 26 year old Richard Garcia who is also finding regular football in England’s second tier. Garcia is yet to break into the national team. Could one or both of these players make a similar sort of impact as the once little known Cahill? They could if they are afforded the same chance as Cahill and Culina.

In fact, such runs have already started in earnest with Carl Valeri looking impressive since making his debut in 2007. While Valeri has looked impressive, Carney has looked nothing short of fantastic in his left-back role. Questions over his defensive qualities were put to the sternest of tests against Argentina and he can out with flying colours (he also recently forced his way back into the first-team at Sheffield United). Holman has looked good in patches, and put in a real workman like performance against China, although he is yet to find consistency for the Socceroos despiting being a regular for his Dutch club. If Kennedy continues his rich vein of form for club and country, we could even have a replacement for the seemingly irreplaceable Dukes. Added to that, the free-scoring McDonald is very much the fox-in-the-box type of striker that Aloisi is.

A League of Their Own

According to Les, “The remaining players are not in the same league as the 2006 crop or at least not yet, and part of the reason is that they play in the A-League”. But the A-League is a stepping stone for players who aspire to reach Europe. There is no need to point out that the European based Socceroos are better players than those based in Australia, that is the natural order of things and the same goes for Argentina, Brazil, Holland, France etc.

What I find encouraging is that two years out, there is a host of A-League players that could realistically make the World Cup squad. North was an absolute stand-out against both Singapore and China and arguable, he was the man-of-the-match in both games. His reading of the game was a pleasure to watch while his composure bilged his relative inexperience. Let’s hope he can get the move to Europe that he needs in order cement his national team place.

Djite was apparently going to start against China which really emphasises his meteoric rise while Thompson’s game was unfortunately cut short by a bad tackle. Jedinak, Topor-Stanley, North and Griffiths are also in the squad. Add to this the likes of Burns, Zullo, Kruse, Musialik, Holland, Zadkovich, Broxham, Celeski, Ward, Patafta, Rukavytsya, Elrich, Velaphi etc, and sprinkle on some young overseas talent in the likes of Troisi, Williams, Spiranovic, Leijer, Federici etc, it seems to me that the word crisis is not a rather sensational and unaccurate description of the position of the national team.

I think we are in better position than we were two years out from the 2006 World Cup. Not everything is perfect. I doubt we will ever find a striker with the strength and touch of Dukes. Of the potential replacements for Moore, none have established themselves as a regular in a top European league. While there is plenty of young A-League talent, their potential and future is uncertain and it is concerning the two previous Hyundai A-League Young Player of the Year have struggled in European. But it’s not a crisis. The positives are there in abundance and it is a shame that such a great advocate of the game cannot see them.

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Filed under A-League, Australian Football, Olyroos, Socceroos, World Cup, Youth Football