Brickbats after meek Aussie early exit
Australia’s footballers were urged to rediscover their cutting edge and sense of direction as they headed home after a winless World Cup where they failed to score any goals from open play.
National media called it a meek exit as the Socceroos, under caretaker coach Bert van Marwijk, lost 2-0 to Peru to finish bottom of Group C – their third straight failure to reach the knockout rounds.
The reigning Asian champions scored only two goals in three matches, both penalties drilled in by captain Mile Jedinak, highlighting their lack of a top-class striker.
Graham Arnold will now take over for his second stint as coach after Ange Postecoglou walked out in November, a turn of events which prompted Dutchman Van Marwijk’s hiring as an interim measure.
“There are valuable lessons to be learned, The Australian’s football writer Ray Gatt said.
“At this level you need a quality number nine, someone who can take their chances.
“If you don’t, you will get punished.”
“To go through the tournament without scoring a goal in open play pretty well sums it up.”
TV commentator Craig Foster criticised Van Marwijk’s tactics after the Dutchman – who took the Netherlands to the 2010 World Cup final – abandoned the more adventurous approach employed by Postecoglou.
“We threw out a plan of four years and went with a completely different strategy and in the end we should be looking at it and saying, ‘When we went at these teams, we showed that we could do it,’ but we didn’t do it enough,” Foster said.
“That wasn’t the Australian way, no . . . that wasn’t what we’re capable of in terms of a football country. “I can’t accept that.” The Sydney Daily Telegraph said: “Brave? Unlucky? Perhaps, but Russia has exposed the Socceroos to the brutal World Cup realities,” adding that their lack of a goalscorer had been ruthlessly exploited.
National broadcaster ABC said that “Australian football needs clarity, ambition, direction, rejuvenation”. –