In my previous match reports, I have been very critical of Jedinak. I argued that I didn’t think he had much of a future in the national team. I’ve only recently started to watch him week to week (and yes, paying for Foxtel is a pain and a drain) and now I understand why Pim likes him. Along with Celeski and Miller, he has been one of the outstanding players during the early part of the season. And it’s not just because of those quality free-kicks. It’s his command of the game that has been highly impressive, something he failed to achieve in his international games.
In his Socceroo outings, I noted how he didn’t demand the ball to be played through him as a first option and that all his passes were back to the defenders. This made me doubt his distribution as he was seemingly just a destroyer. But in his performances for the Mariners, he has been showing that he does have good distribution with his accurate cross-field passes that switch the play being particularly impressive. Much of the Mariners play does at some stage flow through him as he is very much the first option going forwards as well as the option used when trying to retaining or recycling possession. When he add in the fact that he is a threat at set-pieces with his height as well as ability dead-ball ability and his defensive qualities, you get a player that very much warrants consideration for national selection (may be just for A-League based teams for the time being), at least based on his club form.
So why have his performances for the Socceroos been so underwhelming? Undoubtedly the step-up in the standard plays a role. His inexperience at this level is another factor. Additionally, he has generally played in games where the whole team has underperformed. His future has an international player is far from assured, but there are definite reasons to believe that a future exist.
And finally, not watching the A-League and just listening to SBS’s analysis of it, with the Mariners, I was very much expecting to see a grinding team that lacked quality. This has hardly been the case. While the Victory are probably the best team to watch, the Mariners are not far behind. They are a team that will test very aspect of the opponent’s defence: the ability to defence set-pieces, the ability to defend aerial balls with the threat of Simon and the ability to cope with attacks down the middle with the likes of Caceres and Hutchinson. TWG, take note and please recognise the improvement.
1 Comment
October 1, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Foster has briefly mention that the addition of Caceres has improve the way Mariners play the game this season.