Goals the ‘last piece of puzzle’

BERT van Marwijk called it “the last part of the puzzle” and it’s the piece that has been missing for quite some time.

“It’s unbelievable and a pity we didn’t score more,” the Dutchman said, knowing at least one goal — and ideally more — will be needed against Peru on Wednesday.

The track record isn’t great. In the past 12 months Australia has scored 19 goals in 13 games, an average of less than one and a half per game.

Drill down further and there’s more cause for concern — only nine of those goals have come from open play.

Against Denmark, Australia had 14 attempts on goal, five on target, but only one of those went in. That’s the major thing to fix before Tuesday.

In the end, these players are desperate to achieve their own history, 12 years after the 2006 generation made it out of the group for the only time.

“Ultimately that’s what we set out to achieve, that’s why we play the game,” goalkeeper Mat Ryan said. “We’ve been there or thereabouts so many times and we want to get over that final hurdle of a good performance resulting in a win.”

The lack of goals is clearly something the team is aware of, for Ryan inadvertently echoed his coach.

“I feel like we’ve grown so much as a squad over the past few months and it feels like we’re so close to gaining that result to reward our performances,” Ryan said. “It’s the final piece of the puzzle.”