World Cup 2022: Robbie Slater reviews Australia’s loss to France

Australia’s issues against France started at team selection, writes Robbie Slater. The Socceroos great breaks down where it went wrong against the world champion.

Graham Arnold.

The Socceroos were just emphatically and completely destroyed by the world champions.

It’s not embarrassing, it’s the reality of where we are.

I said at the time it was a miracle that Australia are even at the World Cup.

It was a remarkable journey for us just to get there, but there is no room for sentiment in world football and that was a statement performance from France.

They are world champions for a reason. That was a walk in the park for them. Kylian Mbappe was unstoppable.

Stats and history are there to be broken and just because the last three World Champions didn’t get out of the Group stage it doesn’t mean France won’t.

I don’t think those last three champions won their opening Group game quite as emphatically as the French. That was a real show of strength to the rest of the world that they mean business in Qatar.

What did we expect was going to happen to the Socceroos, ponders Robbie Slater.

I’m not surprised. Nobody should be. Australia was up against a world class team and the world champions. There is a massive difference in the level of our side and their side. Our squad to their squad, it really is incomparable.

We were completely beaten in every part of the game. But put it in perspective, their substitutes play for Bayern Munich, Paris Saint Germain and Barcelona, no disrespect but we’re bringing on players from the A-League and one player who hasn’t even started a game in the A-League.

WHAT WENT RIGHT FOR AUSTRALIA

Miracles can happen, but they don’t happen that often.

For a brief moment it looked like a Socceroos miracle was in the making with the unexpected early goal to Craig Goodwin, but France held their composure and controlled the game from start to finish.

For Goodwin to become the first A-League player to score at a World Cup, that’s an achievement worth noting.

But really there was not much else worth noting for the Socceroos. The best positive to come out of the day for Australia was that Denmark drew 0-0 with Tunisia in the earlier Group game.

It would’ve been a very gloomy outlook already if Denmark had taken all three points.

But we’re still in it. Arnie needs to forget about this match, get the Socceroos ready for Tunisia in four days time.

There is no time to dwell in tournament football.

Craig Goodwin made history as the first A-League player to score at a World Cup.

WHAT WENT WRONG

We have to be realistic, I do think a number of our players are not match fit and it showed.

Arnie himself admitted some of the players ran out of legs in the second half.

I thought Nathaniel Atkinson was out of his depth at right fullback to be honest. Fran Karacic was the better option in my opinion.

Atkinson is better going forward but Karacic, who plays in Italy albeit in Serie B, is very good defensively. His qualities are more defensive than offensive, whereas Atkinson is the other way around and I think that was what we needed against the French.

The central pairing of Kye Rowles and Harry Souttar under a lot of pressure would somewhat be disappointed conceding those two goals to Mbappe and Olivier Giroud headers.

Maybe if we’d played more hard games together, our defence clears that kind of cross. But I’m picking out small points here. We were comprehensively beaten all over the park, so you can’t just pin it on one or two players.

Robbie Slater would have started Fran Karacic.

Nathaniel Atkinson was outclassed.

WHAT NEXT FOR SOCCEROOS?

The challenge for Arnie now is just lifting the players. That game is over, you have to forget about it quickly. They have three days to recover before they play Tunisia on Saturday. Every hour counts.

I am sure he will remind them that the other game was a draw, so they are well in the Group and a win against Tunisia could put them in a position of strength to progress.

That has to be the focus, how can Australia bounce back quickly to run out a better game against the Tunisians. With the 4-1 loss against our goal difference, a draw won’t be enough. We need to win if we’re to be any chance to progress in the final group clash with Denmark.

Again, Denmark are a better side than us. But they’re not France.

Originally published as World Cup 2022: Robbie Slater reviews Australia’s loss to France