footballnotsoccer
Paladin
Hardy
KC Hill
techman
Graham Fisher
Andrew Aigner-Muehler
LukeS
Craig HillA manager suffers
July 23rd 2007 13:34
On Saturday night as the football supporters around Australia were gathered around their televisions to watch the game in Hanoi between last years world cup finalist and rivals Japan on Fox, or maybe just waiting for the updated scores to come through on the internet, saw Japan victorious in a penalty shoot out winning 4-3 after both teams were locked at one all after full time.
While that was happening a manager sat on the side lines knowing that Football Australia was searching for a high profile manager, expectably from Europe to lead the team to world cup 2010.
Arnold is reportably going to revert to coaching the under 23's as well as being the assistant coach to the appointed manager when found.
Arnold should feel hard done by, by his team of premiership stars who under estimated theier Asian Cup opponents. Even Mark Bresciano reporting to Fox came out annd said "preparation wasn't the best, that is why we shruggled for the first two games" and later said "next timewe will take it more seriously".
Why the Australian team took the Asian cup lightly for the first time in the competition is another thing. But, with many teams these days you will often get big ego's and big heads thinking they will cruise through the competition, the team will relax, wont take the games seriously, and they just wont have their mind in the game. Just like recent sporting match ups the 2006/07 one day cricket finals, the England side had a bad series including disastrous test series, just making the finals, and beat the Aussies 2-0 claiming the trophy, and again back in 2002 in a international football friendly at Upton park, England were huge favourites to win the match that saw Australia goal winners and Sven Goran Erikkson wore the brunt of the loss.
Arnold who was also assistant coach to Guus Hiddink during the world cup in Germany that could have seen the team march into the semi's, was rewarded with the top job for the Asian cup.
The Australian team formed together almost straight after the European season, they had training camps as well as friendlies before leaving for Singapore for another friendly before the Asian cup opening had plenty of time to gel, and they were in the same position as all the other Asian teams. Instead they found themselves worrying about should we play or shouldn't we play in Jakarta, in the final because of terrorism threats, instead of focusing on the games ahead. Just look at England, unfortunately, that country is used to terrorism attacks going back to the former IRA attacks, does it affect them. If it does, they don't show it.
Whether or not Football Australia pulls off a major coup in getting the former Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier down under to lead the team to world cup 2010 is to be seen. But one thing has to happen, the big names have to step up, lose their ego's and play as a team, not for themselves if Australia is going to be seen as a force for future Asian or World Cups.
[Image Source: Wikipedia]
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Comment by charles
ZCars
Ponderous
The players have just finished a long domestic season for their respective clubs and many of them were struggling with the hot weather and humidity.
Graham Arnold just simply does not have the tactical nous of a Guus Hiddink. Players weren't given specific roles and therefore seemed bereft of ideas on the pitch.
I feel there are better coaches out there than Gerard Houllier - his last year in charge at Liverpool gave me lasting impressions!
I heard Dick Advocaat is the hot favourite to take the helm of the Socceroos.
Charles.