Luck’s a fortune, and Arnold’s looks to have run out en route to Qatar

It was the great French revolutionary general Napoleon who was reputed to have said, when asked to promote a general, “don’t tell me he is good, tell me he is lucky.”

There are many frustrated Socceroos fans who will tell you that coach Graham Arnold is not good enough for the job – and this failure to qualify directly for the World Cup from what seemed, a few months ago, a position of strength – will be the main case for the prosecution where that argument is concerned.

It’s difficult not to feel some sympathy for the plight Graham Arnold found himself in this week.Credit: Getty Images

The 2-0 loss to a superior Japan, both goals coming in the dying moments from Kaoru Mitoma, was hardly a surprise. Japan were better in all aspects, and, as former Socceroo Luke Wilkshire put it bluntly in the post match analysis, “we got schooled tonight”.

This defeat will once again open up the debate on the coach’s future and, in a wider context, the development systems and structure of the Australian game after the gulf in quality was brutally exposed.

The failure of this campaign starkly illustrates the paucity of creative and attacking options this squad possesses and the continued failure of the domestic system to produce the sort of quality players in the A-League era that this country used to develop in the older, less well financed days of the NSL.

It is a debate that needs to be had, but with cool heads and detachment once the disappointment of this night has gone.

Still, there is no doubt that even Napoleon would be shaking his head at the beleaguered Arnold’s run of ill fortune in recent months as Australia has stumbled and stuttered to the point at which it now finds itself, needing to win two crucial play off matches against Asian and South American opposition to qualify for Qatar 2022.

Everyone who follows the game closely knew this time was coming while simultaneously hoping it would never arrive.

Arnold has always had his detractors – coaching Sydney to A-League championships does tend to alienate most other supporters – but it is difficult not to feel some sympathy for the plight he found himself in this week as his players went down like ninepins and he contracted his second bout of COVID in a few months.

Tom Rogic, Aaron Mooy and Jackson Irvine – three of his key attacking or creative midfield options – were all absent, leaving him to shuffle his pack and improvise.

Few would have expected him to opt for the inexperienced duo of Gianni Stensness, who was making his debut, and the almost equally callow Connor Metcalfe, with the muscular Mitch Duke preferred up front and the skilful Ajdin Hrustic deployed in an advanced role as a support striker.

Gianni Stensness of the Socceroos is challenged by Takumi Minamino.Credit: Getty Images

The aim was clear: on a dank, drizzly night at Stadium Australia the Socceroos best hope would be to turn this into an arm wrestle, a battle of wills, with the Socceroos grit, determination and physicality matched against the superior Japanese technique and fluency.

It turned out to be an ill-fated calculation. Australia could not get to grips with their more cohesive opponents – given the personnel changes hardly surprising – in midfield, while Japan’s wingers were able to find space behind the Australian rearguard all too frequently.

Still, it was possible to hope that when the teams went to the interval still on level terms that perhaps all of Arnold’s bad luck had been used up in the lead up to the match. That could be the only explanation for his side still being in the game by that stage.

Liverpool striker Takumi Minamino looked what his club affiliation suggested he might be – a high-class forward – and it was a minor miracle that he had not given his nation the lead in the opening 45 minutes.

Takumi Minamino of Japan and Ajdin Hrustic compete for the ball.Credit: Getty Images

The striker, all quick feet, snake hips and sharp moves, hit the woodwork twice and went close on a couple of other occasions too as Japan showed no desire to sit back and just secure the draw that would have made their qualification all but certain.

Arnold would once more curse his luck at the decision to disallow what looked like a legitimate “goal” when Trent Sainsbury was judged to have fouled Japan goalkeeper Shuichi Gonda as the ball spilled loose from a corner.

That would, however, have put a gloss on the scoreline that Australia did not deserve.

As the match wore on the Socceroos looked like a desperate boxer holding on for survival against a technically superior fighter who was, for one reason or another, unable to put their opponent away.

In these circumstances the Socceroos always had a punchers chance, but in reality they never looked like landing the haymaker that would have pulled this game out of the fire and given them cause for hope in the Middle East next week.

Mitoma’s two late strikes put them directly into the finals and render the fixture with Saudi Arabia irrelevant, at least from an Australian perspective.

Australia will still believe it can qualify against the odds against an Asian and then South American opponent. It has to; whatever this country’s footballers do, they do not throw in the towel.

But from somewhere they will have to find fluency, a creative spark, a goalscorer or two and pray that they get the rub of the green. Given what we have seen in the last few months, that would look unlikely.