On Thursday evening, the Socceroos play the first of two vital World Cup qualifiers. After Japan hosted Sydney this week, Australia traveled to Jeddah on Wednesday morning during Australian time for a battle with Saudi Arabia.
Win both, and the Socceroos automatically qualify for the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Failing to claim all six points and – assuming our opponents do not suffer massive excitement elsewhere this coming week – Australia will be forced into a desperate elimination path to qualify for Qatar.
That will see the Socceroos against the third-place team in the other Asian qualifying group (currently the UAE) in a single leg clash on June 7 in Qatar. The winner will then face South America the fifth-ranked nation (currently Peru) in a do-or-die match with a place in the World Cup on the line.
To have qualified for the World Cup on any occasion since the dry-breaking 2006 edition, failing to reach Qatar would be catastrophic – if a correct reflection of Australia’s stagnant development relative to regional rivals.
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Beaten by an injury in the Covid-19 crisis, Australia appear to see significant underdogs, even as the match against Japan is at home.
Optimism is in short supply among the Australian football community, with all memories of the world record 11 consecutive victories before this World Cup campaign apparently long forgotten.
The story could so easily go two ways. Perhaps an understaffed Australian side full of debutants young and old could draw some remarkable excitement against Japan, a team with players from the best sides of the world like Takumi Minamino from Liverpool.
Or maybe Graham Arnold’s charges are taken apart, contented at home as the Japanese extend their eight-game unbeaten streak against Australia once again.
It’s not just Arnold’s job that will be on the line in the coming months, though he is confident of maintaining his role through the intercontinental playoff phase when Australia is forced down that difficult path.
Australia’s entire place in Asian football is facing a brutal reality check – the kind of bill that only the best tournament in the world will miss for the first time since 2002.
As for the selection crisis, the suceroos are in one of the most horrible proportions. At least 11 players were ruled out due to Covid-19 impact, injury, and in one case a club refused to release the individual. All in all, it’s a surprising scenario.
Attackers Adam Taggart, Nikita Rukavytsya and Craig Goodwin are all absent, while Jamie Maclaren is only available for the first game. Coach Graham Arnold also says Mat Leckie has a 50 percent chance of playing because he has not played since March 2 due to a groin injury.
Midfielders Tom Rogic, Aaron Mooy, Jackson Irvine, and Riley McGree are all missing. And defenders Harry Souttar, Kye Rowles, Matthew Spiranovic and Curtis Good have all seen the red line ruled by their names for this camp.
Even coach Graham Arnold was forced to manage the side from a distance, beating Covid-19 a second time. His self-isolation injury – walking the dog on the beach – was just the latest setback in a disastrous preparation.
The absences forced Arnold to resort to desperate measures. The highest profile of these is the inclusion of ‘El Tuna’ Bruno Fornaroli. At 34 and a half years old, he was able to become the oldest debutant in Socceroos history, in 1965 Tommy Stankovic (33 years, 311 days) and Danny Vukovic (on his 33rd birthday) in 2018. In an orderly coincidence, the goalkeeper Vukovic is also in the current squad.
Uruguayan-born striker Fornaroli made this nation his home in 2015. He went on to become one of the greatest strikers in the history of A-League men, scoring 81 goals and 138 games for Melbourne City and Perth Glory, including 7 and 14 this season. But it was only his naturalization in recent weeks that paved the way for him to represent his adopted country.
“If you look at what Bruno Fornaroli has done for Australian football as a foreigner in the last … seven to eight years, he has always been consistently one of the best strikers in the league,” said Arnold.
“With his goal ratio of one goal every two players, he brings great quality. But at the top he brings a South American mentality, and that’s fighting until you fall. He brings experience. [and] Therefore, these two games will not affect him at all.
“We choose players who are in shape, players who have a lot of minutes of play and a lot of energy. People can say he is 34, but the last campaign saw Tim Cahill play with 37,” he added.
Fornaroli’s call is a remarkable personal story, reminiscent of the many legends who chose to call Australia home and developed the sport in this country on a national and international level.
But it is at the same time a shining proof of the lack of youth development and therefore cadre depth in the last decade or two. It’s an ever-present concern, a line that has been passed down year after year by today’s players, coaches, fans and commentators as one. Perhaps not qualifying for the World Cup could provide the impetus to finally implement many necessary changes – changes such as a national second division, or a reform of the national football curriculum, or the long-awaited domestic transfer market. The list goes on and on, as the debate so often does.
Australia’s lack of development has led for many years to an overconfidence in a core group of players and a lack of elite squad depth. It is something that Arnold acknowledged and promised to address when he took over parts of the national team. To do so, he also took responsibility for the Olioroos (under 23), completing a long exile from the Olympic Games by guiding them to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics – with somewhat mixed results in real competition.
The next generation is well represented in the Socceroos squad for this week. Uncapped trio Nathaniel Atkinson, Nicholas D’Agostino and Ben Folami all showed up for the Olyroos under Arnold, while Kye Rowles was also scheduled for a possible debut only due to Covid-19. Harry Souttar was another one who would have been included if not for injury.
Other Olyroos in the senior squad include Connor Metcalfe, Denris Genreau, and Joel King. The problem is this: after 16 games in two rounds of World Cup qualification, none of those trio played more than Metcalfe’s two heads. Not including uncapped players, there are eight players in the squad who have less than 10 caps in their name.
It is the great downfall to focus on results, win and qualify at all costs. What does it matter if Australia wins 11 qualifiers in a row, especially against weak opposition, if the next generation is not developed? Especially when, when the young players are needed in the most important moments, are they willing to be found?
After all, for all the good that the World Cup has to offer – and the financial benefits alone are not to be laughed at – footballers have not won a single game at the World Cup since 2010. Should Australia be satisfied with the qualification for the qualification. Tournament, especially when it’s an increasingly difficult prospect? Or should the onus be on development over the results, even if that means missing Qatar or the next World Cup?
These are not questions that are resolved overnight. These are topics, rather, that have plagued Australian football for decades.
The matter is reflected in recent results against the Samurai Blue. Not since June 2009 have the Socceroos managed to beat Japan, with five losses and three draws since then.
That eight-game undefeated run includes Japan’s 2011 victory over extension in the Asian Cup final. This is the kind of pedigree that holds the game – two of the great football nations in Asia fighting their best against each other, since Australia first played against Japan at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne.
For Australian fans, the match is more reminiscent of the iconic 2006 World Cup in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Tim Cahill famously scored twice and scored a third goal in the last six minutes in a come-from-behind victory that has long been remembered as one of the greatest moments in Australian men’s football.
For Arnold’s squad, it will take a similar special performance this week to beat Japan and Saudi Arabia. For a team that lacks the depth of field, victory would not only beat two of the best teams in the region, but would overcome years of stalled youth development and the complex, intricate web of factors behind them.
It is now up to the uncapped players young and old, or the unexpected fringe members of the national team, to carry the flag. Frame depth was the biggest weakness of the team in the last decade. This week could only turn the script around.
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