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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