Belief isn’t enough: Why Arnold needs new tricks to take Socceroos to the next level

Four simple words summed up why Graham Arnold turned his back on strong interest from overseas to stick it out with the Socceroos for another World Cup cycle: “I just love them.”

There’s a bit more to it, of course - including a contract worth up to $6 million, apparently, which would turn anyone’s head - but that sentence goes to the heart of everything.

Arnold’s happy. The players are happy. Football Australia were happy to give him first right of refusal, and are now more than happy he’s sticking around in an expanded role which will magnify his already large influence on the men’s game in this country, serving as a mentor to junior national team coaches and assisting disruptor-in-chief Ernie Merrick in reshaping the grassroots developmental pathways.

He was a wanted man, with offers on the table from clubs in Europe and two Middle Eastern nations, he said in his press conference on Monday - which is no great shock given how his stocks rose after guiding Australia to the round of 16 at the World Cup in Qatar, but he deserved the right to stay on if he wanted.

“I bleed green and gold,” Arnold said. “I want to help Australia, and help Australian kids. Obviously, it’s been a tough road at times, but I have so much belief in the group of players and the great staff that I’ve got. This is just the start.

“If I honestly thought that we’d reached our max, I would have gone. But I don’t believe that.”

Graham Arnold shakes hands with Football Australia boss James Johnson after signing on as Socceroos coach for four more years.Credit: Getty

Arnold also gets more security - and probably more money - with this new deal than he would have had he gone abroad and subjected himself to the whims of a foreign club owner or federation, who would have been far more ruthless than FA was when things turned sour for the Socceroos during qualification last year.

Yeah, about that... Arnold was clinging to his job for a reason 10 months ago, and those reasons haven’t just disappeared. This is where Arnold must improve on the road to the next World Cup in 2026, to be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico - and both he and FA chief James Johnson acknowledged as much.

The World Cup environment is built for Arnold, who specialises in building a siege mentality in his teams. He is genuinely world-class at it. In Doha, he was able to control every tiny detail of his players’ lives for three weeks, hammering into their ears the precise messages he wanted, when he wanted and in the way he wanted.

It was us-against-the-world, and it worked: he convinced them they were capable of winning the whole thing, and his preferred style of play at international level - on the counter-attack - fed into it beautifully.

Socceroos coach Graham Arnold is staying on for four more years.Credit: Getty Images

But the rest of the four-year cycle is not like that, and nor is the Asian Cup, which will be played in Qatar (again) in January 2024 and which the Socceroos should be aiming to win. They were underdogs against France, Denmark, Tunisia and Argentina, but in Asia, they are among the big dogs.

Nations like Oman, Thailand and Kyrgyzstan see them as the giants with the fancy big-name European stars, and try to slay them by sitting ultra-deep in defence and putting the onus on the Socceroos to find a way through or around them.

It was obvious at times during the last qualification campaign - and especially at the last Asian Cup in 2019, which was a disaster - that Arnold and his players were out of ideas, resorting to crosses and long balls and other unimaginative avenues to goal.

But Arnold appears to have learned an awful lot since then, and the trials and tribulations of the last four years blossomed into something beautiful in Qatar. The Socceroos now have stability, and a brilliant foundation of team spirit, camaraderie and confidence to build upon, and it’s not hard to imagine them pivoting into an exciting new direction if Arnold can correctly channel those vibes - or, as he put it, go beyond their “max”.

There will also be 48 teams at the 2026 World Cup - including eight from Asia - so qualification should be much easier. And there is some terrific young talent coming through the Australian ranks - the sort of game-breaking players that have been sorely lacking over the last 10 years. If players like Garang Kuol, Denis Genreau and even Nestory Irankunda follow the right career trajectories, Arnold will have better weapons at his disposal to break down the great defensive walls of Asia.

Then there are wildcards like AS Roma’s Cristian Volpato, Parma’s Alessandro Circati and Manchester City’s Alex Robertson. They are all eligible for other countries but look set to be targeted yet again by Arnold, who didn’t mention them by name, but said there were “a few kids” with Australian passports who would have been inspired by the World Cup to wear green and gold instead of another nation’s colours.

Qualification for 2026 doesn’t start until November, though, and there are four international windows between now and then for the Socceroos to play friendlies, test out new players, combinations and styles - and for Arnold and his troops to soak in the adulation of fans back at home, where they’ve played only four times in their last 23 games.

Nothing’s locked in, although there are rumours of a clash with Malaysia in Perth in March, and a supposedly massive away date with a European nation in October.

Whatever comes next, Arnold has earned it.

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