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Throughout every World Cup cycle in Asia, we have consistently struggled against weaker teams. This pattern was evident even during the golden generation under Pim Verbeek.
Yet, it’s often puzzling that we tend to perform strongly against tougher opposition. Consider our last nine games against second-tier football nations, including Peru, Mexico, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Japan, Denmark, and Ecuador. In normal time, we have suffered only one loss, achieved three wins, and secured multiple draws.
Similarly, in our last eight games in the third round of qualifiers, the trend is consistent. Excluding matches against Japan and Saudi Arabia, we have recorded four wins and four draws, with just one defeat.
Our fan base brims with pride when we hold our own against world-class teams, only to get the pitchforks out against the same coach and players when we struggle against Asia’s second tier.
For nearly 20 years, coach after coach has been scapegoated as the incompetent muppet that has held us back from glory.
But I want to put it to you that it is not our coaches but the type of player we produce – players that are much stronger without the ball than they are with it.
Just as Italy can be on the one hand a contender for the glory and on the other get knocked out by a minnow, so are we.
In this article, I will build a case that this is just who we are right now as a football nation.
Let’s start with our results in the Asian Champions League.
With Central Coast Mariners having such a tough run in this year’s ACL, the question of the salary cap holding us back has come up again.
Now I personally support replacing the salary cap with a luxury tax, however, I am sceptical it will make us much better in Asia.
We have been in the competition for nearly two decades and played over 100 games against J-League and K-League competition.
Douglas Costa of Sydney FC dribbles the ball during the AFC Champions League 2 match between Sydney FC and Eastern FC. (Photo by Steve Christo – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
To enter the competition, you of course need to finish at the top of the ladder. But by the time you actually play in Asia the following year, your domestic fortunes might have completely changed.
Excluding this year’s unfinished campaign, over the past two decades, our teams facing J-League and K-League opponents have come from across the top, middle, and bottom of our league standings.
Interestingly, the results show that we tend to perform better when our teams are struggling in the A-League.
Ladder position, Games played, Goal difference, Points
Top quarter, 32, -31, 27
Second quarter, 30, -36, 21
Third quarter, 30, -22, 29
Bottom quarter, 26, 0, 37
Incredibly, our wooden spooners probably finish around seventh in the J league whereas our premiers would get relegated.
I explain these results this way – the lower you are on the table the more defensive your team is likely to be.
Our defence is top-class, but we are remedial in attacking progressive, possession-based football.
The one time a defensive team won the A league they also conquered Asia.
Next, let’s look at our best players in Europe. We currently have five players who were promoted last season to the five best leagues in the world and most of them have been getting regular game time when fit.
Of those five, two are centrebacks – Alessandro Circati and Cameron Burgess. Two are defensive midfielders – Massimo Luongo and Jackson Irvine. One is a defensively strong utility in Connor Metcalfe.
At the next level down we have a centre-back in Harry Souttar in the automatic promotion spot, Aiden O’Neill is a club captain in the Jupiler League and another defensive midfielder.
Socceroos giant Harry Souttar celebrates scoring. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
We do have two strong attacking players in Riley McGree who is a key player for a team a third of the way up the table and Cristian Volpato plays reasonably regularly for the top team in Serie B – but doesn’t want to play for us.
So unless Volpato declares for us, of our elite players only one plays an attacking role for their team.
This is skewed much more in the defensive direction compared to the golden generation. But even back then when we had players who performed in attacking positions for their clubs, the Socceroos were still a team that was better without the ball than they were with it.
I have frequently made a point that we are seeing an improvement in our youth development, with more players getting game time at a young age in both Australia and Europe compared to previous generations.
This season alone, I count 84 players born in 2002 or later playing in the A league this year, with 2004 providing the most with 21.
The fact that the appearances are not being dominated by the oldest players in this group makes me suspect that we haven’t just improved in youth development, we will continue to improve over the next few years at least. That bodes well for the future.
However, for those hoping the first fruits of the national curriculum coming through will result in us entering into a new era of razzle-dazzle football, I’m sceptical as it looks like we will more likely produce a better version of what we have.
Data shared by Aussie Scout on X shows that 21% of minutes played by centre-backs in the A league are under 23, compared to just 7% of minutes given to young Australian attacking midfielders and 12 per cent by centre-forwards. This seems to suggest our talent production is still skewing defensively.
Scouting reports provide an alternative indicator of where we are producing talent.
Target Scouting has analysed many of our players over the last few years and they rate nine of our young players as having the potential to play in the five biggest leagues in Europe.
Nearly all of them are players who would most likely play deep roles for their club – Dylan Scicluna, Nectarios Triantis, Dylan Peraic-Cullen, Panagiotis Kikianis, Jordan Bos, Alex Robertson and Keanu Baccus.
Keanu Baccus celebrates his goal. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The only attacking players that they have flagged with big-five potential are Luka Jovanovic and Thomas Waddingham.
For our young guns in Europe getting regular game time when fit, we have three defensive midfielders who can in principle play further forward in Roberson, Calem Nieuwenhof and Patrick Yazbek; three fullbacks in Jacob Farrell, Jacob Italiano and Bos and two centre-backs in Circati and Triantis.
Amongst attacking positions, we have an attacking midfielder, a right winger and a centre forward in Volpato, Liam Chipperfield and Mohamed Toure respectively.
The skew towards defensive positions is less dramatic than our prime-age players, especially if Volpato chooses to play for us, but the next generation still skews towards defensive positions.
Add all of this up and I predict that in a decade we will be a more technical, and ultimately better, version of ourselves – a team full of grit that excels at defence.
It is a philosophical question whether our fan culture or playing culture should change.
At the moment it is just as much of an achievement for us to beat the teams such as Oman and Bahrain of this world as it is to beat Ecuador and Denmark.
I would love to see Federation Square crowds throwing limbs because we got an injury-time winner against China or Indonesia next window but that would take a dramatic change in our fan culture that understands and embraces the type of teams and players we produce.
The other option is to change our playing culture to be more attack-minded.
I’m not completely sure what is causing us to be so defensively focused -but there might be some clues in the culture.
Looking at some anecdotes of recent attacking talent. We do seem to always have some strange drama with players exhibiting the most flair.
Volpato got dropped from WSW academy, allegedly due to an attitude problem. Tony Vidmar engaged in some strange public drama with Nestory Irankunda, Tom Rogic needed to be discovered by the Nike Chance competition rather than our usual development pathways.
Nestory Irankunda. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
Allegedly Toure’s father told him to ignore coaches who wanted to suppress his flair. It could be the case that flair players have certain qualities that tend to put Australian coaches off.
It could be a feature of our Aussie love of teamwork, selflessness, humility and hard work combined with our tall poppy syndrome. Nothing wrong with any of that and we could in principle win a World Cup with defence and teamwork so long as our technical qualities were strong enough.
Alternatively, it could be a product of the fact that the migrant communities that built football in Australia tend to be from cultures that excel in defence – Croatia, Italy and Greece.
Of course, they produce great attacking players too, but I would class all three teams as defensive juggernauts. Once again there is nothing wrong with any of that – Croatia has made a World Cup final, Greece has won a Euro and Italy has trophies coming out of their ears.
The truth is probably a combination of the two. Strong forces have moulded us into being footballers who are terrors off the ball but struggle to dazzle our way through an organized defence.
As a football community, we will never win the hearts and minds of the broader Australian public if fans have a meltdown every time we struggle to rack up a cricket score on second-tier opponents.
We do need to make a choice – do we embrace who we are or try and change who we are – but we do need to make that decision.
Otherwise, who would want to join a fan base full of misery guts?
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