Questions remain over composition of Socceroos' World Cup midfield
Aside from the arguably flattering result, a number of talking points emerged from Australia’s 3-2 defeat to an experimental Germany side at last year’s Confederations Cup.
Plenty of noise surrounded the tournament: from questions of its worth, to calls for the Socceroos to revert to a four-man defence. Lost amongst the chaos, however, was the performance of Aaron Mooy in the midfield.
Having cemented himself as the Socceroos’ deep-lying creator, then coach Ange Postecoglou started Mooy as the most advanced midfielder – and it was a frighteningly palpable failure.
Bert van Marwijk has since taken over but, with Australia’s World Cup opener against France on Saturday in mind, a differing tactical plan does not make Mooy’s deployment and performance in that game irrelevant.
On the contrary, it highlights a critical issue for this current Australian squad, which is maximising what Mooy does provide and – more importantly – mitigating his flaws.
To his credit, the 27-year-old is a player who always wants the ball and it is a trait that should be encouraged. Yet, from a technical standpoint, he strikes as a knock-off version of Toni Kroos.
Like the German creator, Mooy’s prevailing attribute is his passing. Though ball dominant, however, he is not a particularly explosive dribbler, and, considering his laissez-faire attitude to defending, coaches must weigh up how important his distribution is.
A fundamental principle in football is that where one receives the ball impacts what they can do with it. With Mooy, his movement minimises his options in possession.
Where Kroos’ intelligent movement allows him greater possibilities to eliminate defenders with his passing, Mooy’s movement is apprehensive in comparison. He then must needlessly force passes when he elects to play forward.
With Kroos and Mooy, selection around them has to be complementary in both attacking and defensive senses.
Following the Socceroos’ final warm-up against Hungary on Saturday, there are more questions than answers with respect to the Socceroos’ midfield.
Providing cover for Mooy in Budapest, Massimo Luongo played a largely defensive role, which meant his own assertive movement in possession was nullified. With Mooy also moving towards the ball in initial phases of play, this was exacerbated, creating static ball movement.
Aside from struggling to incorporate Tom Rogi due to untenable space between them, 41.5% of the pair’s total passes for the match went to Trent Sainsbury and Mark Milligan. A further 18.3% went to Aziz Behich and Josh Risdon, with possession remaining in front of a compact Hungarian defence.
Evidently, passing options and the consequent ability to penetrate defensive lines was largely hampered by their inert movement off the ball.
In particular, Mooy’s pass map over the 90 minutes was characterised by lateral distribution. When one considers Rogić’s tendency to drift in and out of games at international level, this is a crucial factor.
Coming back to that experiment against Germany in Sochi last year, Mooy’s continuous retreat to deeper positions, erratic receiving of possession under pressure and defensive lapse in Lars Stindl’s opening goal proved he is better suited to playing deeper in midfield.
Yet, his defensive passivity and lack of recovery pace can also be exposed deeper in midfield, as evidenced with Leon Goretzka’s goal in that second half.
In the World Cup qualification phase, goals conceded against Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Japan showed the susceptibility of Mooy and captain Mile Jedinak as the central midfield pairing.
Meanwhile, it increasingly appears as though Jackson Irvine will be used as the substitute for Rogić, despite potentially being the best possible partner for Mooy in this squad. In essence, Mooy needs a breaker of opposition play next to him, but Van Marwijk is short on compatible choices.
Despite psychological benefits to the Socceroos’ 2-1 triumph in Hungary, the win has failed to mask this tactical imbalance, which is critical irrespective of whether they are the active or reactive team in Russia.
Nassim Taleb once wrote that abundance is harder for us to handle than scarcity, and it can ultimately reflect Group C as a whole, which has the potential to descend into a giant game of cat and mouse.
All four teams in the group are undoubtedly more functional with the ball in transitional scenarios, and progression to the Round of 16 can be whittled down to which of Australia, Denmark and Peru assume the role of the reactive.
The first group game is almost always key. Van Marwijk’s likelihood to implement a compact and reactive plan against Les Bleus in Kazan only amplifies the importance of finding a relative balance in midfield.
When one weighs up what Aaron Mooy provides both in and out of possession with this in context, is starting him the best option for Australia?