Socceroos are leagues behind as players at top level declines

The number of Socceroos playing in the world’s top leagues has fallen dramatically since the day of the Golden Generation.

The Socceroos celebrate after John Aloisi scored the winning penalty against Uruguay to secure qualification to the 2006 World Cup. Picture: Gregg Porteous

Socceroos fans might be forgiven for taking World Cup qualification for granted — but these are the stark figures that chart the declining strength of the national team.

As the Australian team heads to Chinese Taipei for the next step on the road to Qatar 2022, Socceroos boss Graham Arnold can call on just a handful of players who are at clubs in the world’s top leagues — compared with almost three quarters of the squad that qualified for Germany 2006.

The number of Australians playing at the highest level has declined sharply since the Golden Generation changed the course of history under Guus Hiddink.

A comparison of the squads that qualified for the four World Cups between 2006 and 2018, plus Graham Arnold’s current strongest playing group, set against the annual leagues ranking by the International Federation of Football Historians and Statisticians, shows the dramatic fall in Australians playing in the higher leagues.

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The 23-man squad that beat Uruguay in 2005 to break a 32-year World Cup drought had nine players in the English Premier League, three in Italy’s Serie A, one in Spain’s La Liga and a further three in the Dutch Eredivisie — making 16 players from the top 10 leagues that year.

Now Arnold can call on just two in the EPL, two in the Bundesliga and one in Scotland’s Premier League, whose inclusion in the current top-10 list is certain to provoke debate.

The decline in international strength has mirrored the increasing difficulty in securing qualification since that Uruguay playoff in 2005.

Four years later Pim Verbeek’s squad that qualified for the 2010 World Cup with two games to spare had nine players in the leagues ranked the top 10 in the world — seven in the EPL, and one each in Serie A and the Bundesliga.

Holger Osieck’s side in 2013 left it until seven minutes from the end of the last group game to secure a place at Brazil 2014, with six players in the top 10 leagues.

That number had fallen to four in the squad that beat Honduras over two legs in 2017 under Ange Postecoglou.

The slight increase to five in Arnold’s strongest current squad comes from Scotland climbing 16 places to reach the top-10 strongest leagues, though the SPL is not highly regarded in elite football.

The numbers go to the heart of the ongoing debate over why Australia is producing less elite talent, more than a decade since a series of foreign technical directors overhauled the development system for the best young players.

The Socceroos are expected to stroll past Chinese Taipei on Tuesday night, but far stiffer tests lie ahead in next year’s second phase of qualifying.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH