Asian Cup 2015: Socceroo James Troisi says Australia must temper their urge to attack

JAMES Troisi admits the Socceroos must “play a bit smarter” after their commitment to attack nearly let Kuwait back into the Asian Cup opener.

Asian Cup: Socceroos v Kuwait at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, Australia's James Troisi score's Australia's 4th goal. Melbourne. 9th January 2015. Picture: Colleen Petch.

IN the end the Socceroos cantered home with a scoreline of 4-1 that could easily have had two or three more goals added to it.

But the scorer of Australia’s fourth goal against Kuwait in their opening Asian Cup tie, James Troisi, admitted that his side might have to learn to “play a bit smarter” after a period of gung-ho attacking in the second half that left the game open for Kuwait to seek a way back in.

Troisi admitted his side suffered initially from the size of the occasion, leading he said to a feeling that the team wanted to “make a statement” as it kicked off a home tournament with a crucial win. Kuwait took an early lead amid obvious discomfort from the home side, though that was long gone by the final whistle.

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James Troisi puts the icing on the cake with Australia’s fourth goal against Kuwait.

“There’s always nerves, and quite a lot of pressure on us — especially as results haven’t been great,” Troisi said.

“So it was always going to be a little bit nervy at the start, but hopefully we now have that out of the way. We were very disappointed with the goal we conceded, and we made it a bit difficult for ourselves. But all credit to the boys, we showed a lot of spirit and dominated the game in the end.

“We wanted to make a bit of a statement, come out with a bit of a bang. Now we’ve got that under our belt so to speak we can maybe concentrate on if we do go up, we don’t have to score three, four or five goals every time — play a bit smarter I guess.”

Nonetheless, four different scorers was a riposte to the theory that without Tim Cahill’s record contribution, the Australian side would struggle to find alternative sources.

“Timmy’s Timmy, and he’s the No.9, so if he’s not scoring goals there’s going to be problems,” Troisi said. “But it’s great to see that we have a lot of creative, attacking players who can also chip in with some goals.

“Mass[imo Luongo] and I are playing as No.8s [as creative midfielders], and we both got on the scoresheet which is a fantastic feeling.”

Originally published as Asian Cup 2015: Socceroo James Troisi says Australia must temper their urge to attack