Socceroos Draw A Bonus For Qualification

Big smile on my face right now !

In the end the draw was not prefect but it isn’t far from it. As the young lady from the AFC was preparing to select the teams from the final pot tonight I looked at the two groups and said a quick little prayer for Group A. And it seems for once the God of Draws smiled upon us. The two groups on paper look quite even and neither group could be said to be a group of death but for us Group A has a lot of positives.

Qatar
If you asked Pim before the draw which teams were on his want list, Qatar would have been at the top in bold. Qatar was the one team we dominated in the previous group stage. We get to play them again away at nearly the same time of year as this year and we would have learnt from the trip there this year.

Uzbekistan
The presence of Uzbekistan in our group is the only reason we can’t call this the prefect draw. The Uzbeks are a real dark horse., as they were super impressive in the previous qualifying round and unlike the other three teams we have absolutely no experience against them. But there are still positives. We play away to them on a double FIFA date where we have the first date as a bye. This will allow Pim a full 8 days with the squad (in an Europe training camp most likely) before we have to play them. This is also true of the our home match against them where again we will have a full 8 days of camp while they rush here after playing at home three days beforehand (we are talking a 30hr trip for them)

Bahrain
Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, who would you want ? This is the biggest win of the night as this was the most uneven pot. To avoid the Saudi’s is great for us with the added bonus that we have played Bahrain recently and the trip there will hold little surprises for us. To me this is the difference between us going from a good chance to qualify to being one of the favourites to qualify.

Japan
Japan is easily the most dangerous opponent in the group. But the difference between Iran and Japan is very little, so it was going to be hard whichever team we ended up with. The Feb date away to Japan will be a challenge as it is a non FIFA date and so our key players we only be released late for the match. The last match at home against them of the qualifying series has the potential to be huge if either team is playing for an automatic spot.

Here is the full match schedule

Match Day 1 : 6/09/2008 Australia Bye
Match Day 2 : 10/09/2008 Uzbekistan v Aus
Match Day 3 : 15/10/2008 Australia v Qatar
Match Day 4 : 19/11/2008 Bahrain v Australia
Match Day 5 : 11/02/2009 Japan v Australia
Match Day 6 : 28/03/2009 Australia Bye
Match Day 7 : 01/04/2009 Australia v Uzbekistan
Match Day 8 : 06/06/2009 Qatar v Australia
Match Day 9 : 10/06/2009 Australia v Bahrain
Match Day 10 : 17/06/2009 Australia v Japan

With September 6 being a bye for us I am sure the FFA and Pim are already making plans for an Eastern Europe Training camp and a friendly on this date. My early tip would be a German based camp.

Bring it on.

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Young Socceroos Fail To Make Impression

Australia 0 – China 1

I am not the most negative of people. I usually avoid ranting and raving about really poor performances as I don’t think it serves any useful purpose attacking a player for what was most likely just a off day. However there were a few performances last night that deserve a mention because that were just abysmal.

For those of you who missed it Australia lost to China in the final World Cup Qualifying game. The game of course had no meaning to who progressed to the next round and Australia fielded a young team. It was a chance for us all to see our up and coming players in a quality international and see who may have the potential to make the squad for South Africa 2010.

Australia played so poorly I can remember only one or two long range speculative efforts on goal for the whole game. But it is a couple of individual performances that have me disappointed.

I am not a fan of Ruben Zadkovich, I fail to see what the Australian selectors see in him and it astounds me that Derby believe he has the quality to take them back to the Premier League. Last night only reaffirmed my belief that Zadkovich does not have what it takes to make it on the international stage. His decision making on the field is extremely suspect and his ability to control the ball and maintain possession is poor. I watched last night as time and time again he would kick the ball away and provide China with possession. It is no coincidence that he was involved in all of China’s chances ; failed clearance results in goal, terrible backpass results in indirect freekick, poor tackle results in penalty which China missed.

Mile Jedinak is not and will never be of Australian standard. Last night was a prime example of why he should never again wear the Australian yellow. To play a 4-2-3-1 we need the holding midfielders to control the tempo. To hold onto the ball and hit the passes to the three deep laying midfielders, playing the ball to their feet and ensuring a build up of attack. I was literally screaming at the TV last night as Jedinak hoisted ball after ball up the field to an isolated Bruce Djite, giving him little or no chance of support.

These two players were of course not the sole reason we lost, the team overall performed poorly (except maybe Jade North and Matthew Spiranovic, who both had good games). I am concerned at Pim’s decision to leave Djite alone up forward as a lone striker. I would have thought it would have been better to partner him with Kewell and maybe used Valeri as a lone DM. I understand though that Pim is trying to get the youngsters used to his preferred formation.

Overall the game was a useful learning experience for the younger players and Spiranovic certainly has pushed himself further into Pims thoughts (personally I would play him ahead of Beauchamp). Let us hope we have all of our senior Socceroos available come September as I feel we are going to need them.

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The Far North Adventure

I am back after enjoying two wonderful weeks in Port Douglas. There is something to be said for a swim in the ocean every morning to start your day and 20oC evenings to enjoy a few cold ales. Although the local pub was showing the Socceroos v Qatar match live I didn’t manage to stay up that late (a little too much sun that day) and so ran the gauntlet of avoiding hearing the result in the hope of catching the replay at 8:00pm the next night.

In the end myself and three other guys huddled into the back of the pub around the one small screen showing the replay. Numerous glares ensured that the bartender and other patrons would not let slip the result and we settled back to enjoy the game.

And enjoy the game we did, it was great to see Australia grab the initiative in the game and boss the midfield. Great move my Pim to push Emerton into a more attacking role and his dominance down the right was a major factor in us taking away a comfortable win.

There is however one lingering concern I have and it appears I am not the only one. Our defense is a real worry and there appears no magic bullet to solve the problem. Michael Beauchamp and to a lesser extent Jade North look very vulnerable in the match (again) and Pim must be scratching his head what to try next. Of course Lucas Neill is to come back into the starting 11 but this provides no guarantees as he also hasn’t been in the best form over the last year. As Okon indicated in his article Beauchamp appears very unsure of himself at the moment and is continually being either caught out of position or beaten for speed. I remain unconvinced he is of international quality.

Tonight we see Matthew Spiranovic given a start in the centre of defense and he might just be the answer that Pim seeks. Spiranovic has the potential to be one of the best centre backs we have produced and tonight will be a real test of how far he has come in Germany over the past year.

Speaking of the game tonight, a big cheer for Pim and the other coaching staff for going with a very young line-up. I am sure there will be quite a few disappointed fans that will be less than impressed with the number of first choice Socceroos who have been given a leave passes but personally I am looking forward to seeing how we perform tonight. I am especially looking forward to seeing Djite and Kewell working together up front. Djite’s appearances to date have shown flashes of what he might become and tonight he gets to work alongside one of Australia’s best talents.

Regardless of the result tonight we will move to the next stage where everything gets that much harder. Looking at the draw format for the final stage it appears that the difficulty will be determined by the final pot. Below is an outline of how it will work

Pot 1 - Australia, South Korea
Pot 2 - Iran, Japan/Saudis
Pot 3 - Japan/Saudis, Bahrain
Pot 4 – Iraq/Qatar, Uzbeks, North Korea, UAE (qualification a formality for them)

I don’t mind either Iran or Japan as the second team in our group (though it would be nice to see Australia v Iran rematch at the MCG). With a bit of luck we can pull either Bahrain (though I think the Saudi’s wouldn’t be terrible either) as our third team. Which leaves two teams from the final pot.

The preference would be of course to avoid Iraq and the Uzbeks as their presence will cause some mighty headaches. We obviously would like Qatar and UAE.

So my group of life would be
Australia
Iran
Bahrain
Qatar (if Qatar fail to get through insert North Korea instead).
UAE

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The Dutchman’s Legacy

For those that have missed the news, Rob Baan announced that he will not renew his contract which expires in six months. Citing a desire to return to the Netherlands and spend more time with his wife and family, it appears the 65 year is looking forward to retirement.

Hired back in Dec 2006, Baan was appointed to the role of Technical Director and tasked by Frank Lowy to....”drive the implementation of the talent identification and development review outcomes from top to bottom through our development pathway”. The question is how successful he has he been?

There is no doubt that the introduction of small sided games (SSG) as a national program will have a significant long term impact on the development of players in this country. But the job is hardly complete and its rollout has not gone without issues. Several state federations appear to be less than happy with the format, especially in the planned under 11 and under 12 age groups and there has even been talk from some officials of this being a trail.

Beyond SSG though I am not sure to what extent Rob Baan has influenced the talent identification and pathways. It has been good to see a higher emphasis placed on coach education and there is no doubt that the increase in media exposure and TV rights money has helped improve the game at a national level. However changes in grassroots football is a long term goal. Even Baan acknowledges himself that we are talking 10 years plus before we see real changes.

So, with Baan stepping down the FFA finds itself once again casting an eye overseas in search of a Technical Director. The odds must be pretty good that we will again see some Dutch names at the top of the list but should that be the only country we look to? France, Italy, Portugal and Spain all produce wonderful technical players and there would be a good case for providing an alternative viewpoint to all the Orange we currently have. France especially has a worldwide reputation for the quality of its youth programs. I suspect though that the FFA will appoint another Dutchman, if only to ensure that the tiny steps we have taken over the last three years can continue and become real strides towards a technical improvement in the type of player we produce here.

Whoever is selected I hope they choose a younger man this time. Two years is not enough time to stamp their influence on the game. We need a technical director who is going to drive change for the next 10 years and who is going to stay the course.



...Againstthecrossbar will be in hiatus for two weeks as I will be sunning myself in far north Queensland.
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FIFA Have It Wrong

The latest FIFA rankings came out last Wednesday and it seems Australia has move up 8 places to be now ranked at the 35th best team in the World. We have also moved ahead of Japan to be the number one ranked team in the AFC.

Does it mean anything though?

The ranking system is a complex formula that takes into account matches from the last four years, each year receives a different weighting and results in each year are averaged. The results themselves are also weighted with the result (ie win, loss, draw), importance of the match (ie Friendly vs World Cup Qualifier), Quality of Opponent (ie FIFA Ranking), and Region (ie UEFA vs OFC) taken into account.

The formula heavily favours teams from UEFA and CONMEBOL while punishing teams from OFC, AFC and CAF heavily. This can be seen reflected in the rankings themselves where UEFA and CONMEBOL teams make up 17 of the top 20 teams. In fact we don’t see a team outside UEFA/CONMEBOL until position 13 where Cameroon make an appearance.

You cannot argue with many of the teams ranked in the top 10 but it’s when you see teams like Romania(12), Scotland(17), Bulgaria(18) & Israel(22) that you question whether FIFA has the formula right. Scotland for instance has gone from 59th in the world to 17th since the new ranking system has been introduce.

The fact is teams outside the two favoured confederations have a next to impossible chance of breaking into the top 20. You need to effectively win every match over the four years. If Australia won all three of their remaining matches for this phase of qualifying we would rise to the lofty height of around 30 in the ranking. Even one loss though in the three would mean we stay about where we are. In fact to maintain our ranking Australia cannot afford to play friendlies in the Asian region. So heavily penalised is the AFC a win against Singapore in a friendly match actually losses us points (see calculations below).

Current Australia Average for June 2008 – May 2008 approx. 325
3 (win) x 1 (friendly) x 0.72 (Singapore rank) x 0.85 (AFC Adjustment) x 100 = 184 points

As you can see the total points gained from the Singapore match is actually much lower than our current average for the current year and so we actually lose points because of the match (as it will lower our average).

FIFA needs to take another look at these formulas. If the ranking table is to be at least marginally relevant the penalty applied to AFC and CAF at the very least needs to be adjusted.

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Expansion Hotting Up

It seems that the race for the new spots is becoming serious business, just ask Fred Taplin. Apparently tonight he has raised the white flag and dropped out of the race for the Gold Coast franchise leaving the Gold Coast United bid the clear winner.

The speed with which Gold Coast Galaxy bid has gone from almost certainties to yesterday’s news has been breathtaking. It was only a couple of weeks ago that we were getting reports that the final stumbling block (the long term stadium deal) had been resolved and it was all go. Then out of the blue a couple of days ago we starting hearing about a possible rival bid fronted by Queensland Billionaire Clive Palmer.

So what happened? It seems that Mr Palmer has made the FFA an offer they cannot refuse. There is a old saying “Money Talks....Bullshit Walks” and it would appear that Clive Palmer is the money. Ben Buckley and the FFA can recognize a golden opportunity when it presents itself and there is no doubt they have no intention of letting a billionaire slip through their fingers.

But Clive Palmer is not the only one whose has put up his hand it seems. As of today the FFA have confirmed that they currently have ten active bids for four places. There is no doubt that we will now see two new teams at least in the league next year and it is still a good possibility that we may even see four new teams. The flood of interest is a very positive sign for the A-League and the sport as a whole.

With the FFA ticking all the boxes I am still bemused at the talk of a promotion/relegation system being introduced. The FFA came out this week and announced that plans would be in place by October. This obviously is to meet the AFC expectation as outlined in the Champions League review but it still leaves me wondering what exactly they are going to announce. I still stand by my comments that the FFA priority must be to stabilise the League and ensure we have a solid base from which to grow. All this interest in new teams is going to quickly disappear if teams start to go under.

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