Why Australian soccer makes the same mistakes again and again

Australian soccer is certifiably insane. That’s if we’re going by the definition famously mis-attributed to Albert Einstein: the Socceroos and Matildas are doing the same thing repeatedly and reacting with shock every time it ends badly.

It’s been an ugly week for the beautiful game in this country. Days after the women’s national team were knocked out of the Asian Cup in the quarter-finals, the men fumbled another key opportunity on the road to the World Cup in Qatar, twice surrendering their lead to draw 2-2 with Oman.

A shattered Jackson Irvine reacts to the Socceroos’ 2-2 draw with Oman.Credit: Getty

Barring a miracle during next month’s window, it means they will have to again scrap for qualification in the intercontinental play-offs. On current form, there’s no guarantee Australia will get past the UAE, Asia’s other likely third-placed finisher, let alone whichever South American nation waits for the winner.

The Socceroos and Matildas play the same sort of way: direct, unsophisticated football dependent on crosses, set pieces, individual skill, pace, power and passion over any collective strategy. It is a style that runs completely contrary to the prevalent trends among successful teams across the world, and yet Australia persists with it at all levels. Sometimes it works, but when it doesn’t, there is nothing.

Football Australia chief executive James Johnson now has cause to ponder whether not only Tony Gustavsson but Graham Arnold is deserving of keeping his job in light of this most recent failure.

Arnold was asked in his post-match press conference for what he thought the “weakness” was in Australia’s flagging campaign. His answer was puzzling. “We had to play our first lot of games away from home. We weren’t allowed to play in Australia,” he said, but the truth is the pandemic cannot be blamed at all.

The Socceroos won seven straight matches against minnows while exiled from home. The results that have cost them came after they were given permission to play on Aussie soil - the 0-0 draw in Sydney against Saudi Arabia, the 1-1 draw with China on neutral territory, and now this slip-up in Muscat.

That’s four points dropped from winning positions. Add them to Australia’s tally and it’d be enough to put them top of Group B. It’s fair to question the quality of the current playing group, but it’s clear the maximum is not being extracted from them.

More broadly, a shift in thinking is urgently needed across the whole game. Perhaps the shock of missing the World Cup for the first time since 2002 is what is required to bring it on.

Making sense of football’s many problems here can sometimes feel a bit like trying to understand the coronavirus: a non-stop cacophony of contradictory advice and opinions from various self-appointed experts, many of whom are driven by self-interest or won’t look beyond their narrow philosophical perspective. It’s always sounded like pure noise, but the time has come to properly decode it all and separate fact from fiction, hope from reality.

Graham Arnold and his assistant Rene Meulensteen have a huge job ahead of them.Credit: Getty

During the past two decades, football has come on in leaps and bounds commercially, but not technically or tactically. Too many A-Leagues clubs see player development as an expense instead of an investment, let alone their responsibility to the game. The cost of elite junior programs and coaching courses remains prohibitively high. The game is meandering apart, instead of marching forward with purpose and unity.

Johnson and FA are making some positive steps to untangle this mess - chiefly by attempting to remove power from state federations and progressing plans for a national second division and domestic transfer system - but it is not happening quickly enough, or with enough support from the rest of football.

We were warned. “[Football’s] dominant political, bureaucratic and administrative mindset is focused on revenue and making money, which in itself is not a bad thing so long as the football direction is clear,” wrote former FA technical director Rob Sherman in a scathing manifesto he posted on social media after quitting his job in early 2020.

“That direction needs to be set by the technical experts and quite simply it’s not! Instead we have a culture that focuses on appeasing boards and convincing the stakeholders and media of what a good job they are doing in an effort to hold onto position and power.”

Sherman still doesn’t have a permanent replacement. Trevor Morgan has been interim technical director for approaching two years, but is also juggling other roles as the head coach of the men’s under-17s team and interim boss of the Olyroos, when he should have the freedom and backing to fearlessly review the Socceroos and Matildas’ problems, challenge the coaches and point out their faults as soon as they appear, so the same mistakes are not repeated over and over again with the same result.

In other words: insanity.

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