Socceroos Asian Cup: Australia’s campaign has seen eight different goal scorers in two games

ONLY eight times in 93 years has there been more than eight individual scorers across two Socceroo games - but they were all against minnows.

Oman v Australia - 2015 Asian Cup

IT’S been widely celebrated that the Socceroos have had eight different goal scorers across the first two games of the Asian Cup – but what does it all mean?

It’s been a refreshing and confidence boosting start to a tournament for a side that hadn’t scored four goals in a single game under Ange Postecoglou, and of the 11 netted, eight had been via Tim Cahill.

Only eight times in the 93-year history of the national side have there been more than eight individual goal scorers across a two game span. But, nearly all of those games involved inflated figures from mauling tiny Pacific Island nations during Australia’s time in the Oceania confederation.

And just four years ago at the 2011 Asian Cup in Qatar, Australia had six different goal scorers in a 6-0 semi-final win over Uzbekistan. That was a side featuring the likes of Harry Kewell, Brett Emerton, Tim Cahill, Brett Holman and a rookie Robbie Kruse, amongst others.

The point this time, however, is the way the Socceroos are constructing their goals, while allaying the fear that there was no other recourse to score outside of the talismanic Cahill.

“Coming into the tournament we were asking – where are the goals going to come from,” Sasa Ognenovski, who scored in that 6-0 win over Uzbekistan in 2011, said on the Fox Football Podcast.

“Is Timmy going to score all our goals? Is he our only outlet?

“We’ve shown with eight different goal scorers, there are other outlets to goals.”

To put the achievement into context, the most recent occasion this has been achieved were at the 2012 East Asian Cup against lowly Guam and Taiwan, where Aaron Mooy, Eli Bablj, Michael Marrone, Archie Thompson, Mark Milligan, Richard Garcia, Robbie Cornthwaite, Adam Taggart and Aziz Behich got in on a feast.

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Otherwise, the Oceania Nations Cup of 2002, the famous world record breaking World Cup qualifying tournament of 2001 (mixed with a few friendlies), the 2000 Oceania Nations Cup and 1997 Oceania World Cup qualifying were the other instances where there was such a variety of scorers.

But while Oman and Kuwait are no heavyweights of this tournament (mind you, Oman are ranked seven places above Australia on FIFA’s world rankings), those Oceania benchmarks are hard to take too seriously given the ludicrous goal tallies. The 31-0 against American Samoa featured Archie Thompson’s record 13-goal haul in games featuring the likes of John Aloisi, the Vidmar brothers, David Zdrilic, Kevin Muscat, Steve Corica and Tony Popovic.

Against Oman and Kuwait, however, under pressure with slow starts in both games, the side amassed a variety of goals: a cutback from the byline, a header, a penalty from a surge into the box, a corner, a run in behind, a penalty from a pin point cross to the back stick and a perfect cross from the left to an oncoming striker.

There’s a lot more variety than just hoping Cahill will deliver.

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Ned Zelic, who played in those 1997 avalanches, says there’s a belief and clinical nature to the side now.

“It was a tremendous all-round performance. You can see from the first game, where they had some problems in the first 15-20 minutes, and ever since then, they’ve got themselves into a flow. And there’s a hunger as well. It’s great to see,” he said on the podcast.

“The Socceroos have that type of team where if you give them space to work in, they can pounce on errors and pretty much punish any sort of mistake close to goal.

“We were getting into those positions and making great runs forward; Kruse running forward through the lines when Luongo played him in was a really great piece of play and hard to defend as well.

“That’s really encouraging. We’re making the most out of these situations where teams are giving us space to work with.”

Ognenovski added: “It is just Kuwait and Oman, but you can only beat what’s in front of you.

“(The) Oman (game) was very convincing. The boys are full of confidence – confidence in young players is a wonderful thing. It can carry you all the way to the final.”

The players seem to be thriving, and Postecoglou’s mantra can be summed up by his cynical response to a post-game question asking if he’d be happy with a draw against South Korea on Saturday night.

“What do you think,” he snarled.

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2. 4-0 Oman (2015 Asian Cup)

1. 2-3 Netherlands (2014 World Cup)

The most important flow-on from these goals, and this attitude, is that it is rekindling the broader public’s interest and respect for football’s national men’s side.

Importantly, we’re seeing the Ange revolution start to really progress. After the early bloodshed typical of a Postecoglou re-building progress, there’s suddenly depth and flexibility. At the World Cup, players like Adam Taggart and Ben Halloran were coming off the bench but were still a bit rough around the edges.

Here, the likes of Tommy Oar, Nathan Burns and James Troisi – players in form - aren’t making the XI.

And there’s an aggression and hunger that Robbie Kruse explained is a big part of their game plan.

“Once we lose the ball we know we can create an opportunity … they get possession and then they relax a little bit. That’s been the game plan so far and we’ve created so many chances from it,” he told Fox Sports football.

“It’s been enjoyable and hopefully we can keep doing that when we play in later parts of the tournament.”

It’s only early days yet, but goals, clean sheets and confidence go a long, long way.

EIGHT GOAL SCORERS OR MORE IN CONSECUTIVE GAMES

2012 - Guam & Taiwan - nine goal-scorers from a total of 10 goals

2002 - New Caledonia & Fiji - 10 goal-scorers from a total of 19 goals

2001 - Samoa & Mexico - nine goal-scorers from a total of 13 goals

2001 - American Samoa & Fiji - nine goal-scorers from a total of 33 goals

2001 - Tonga & American Samoa - 12 goal-scorers from a total of 53 goals

2001 - Colombia & Tonga - nine goal-scorers from a total of 25 goals

2000 - Cook Islands & Solomon Islands - 10 goal-scorers from a total of 25 goals

1997 - Solomon Islands & Tahiti - nine goal-scorers from a total of 18 goals

Originally published as Socceroos Asian Cup: Australia’s campaign has seen eight different goal scorers in two games