The Football Tragic

I was greatly looking forward to seeing how Australia’s World Cup effort would be assessed in the monthly magazine World Soccer, easily the best and most informative football journal in the English-speaking world. Now that I’ve seen the worst (and the best) of it, one thing is very clear: the impression of Australia’s football as “physical” in nature is here to stay.

This annoyed me somewhat at first. After all, the Socceroos had showed tactical flexibility, some good passing movement and commendable defensive organization at the World Cup. But all the comments of World Soccer’s correspondents seemed to overstate the old, if not entirely inaccurate, stereotype. To wit:

“[Australia’s] physical, organized approach was always going to go down well in a European World Cup…”

“Australia, appearing at only their second finals…played to their physical strengths…”

“[Guus Hiddink] has often said Australia’s principal asset is their physical strength, and sure enough they were aggressive and direct from the off [against Japan]…”

“Brazil, faced by an Australian team prepared to graft and grind their way to a draw…”

“Direct play” is often used as a synonym for long balls towards the strikers. And for “graft and grind”, read fouls aplenty. Somewhat unfair on Australia; the fouls did stack up during the Australia v. Brazil game, but trust me, I was there, many of the fouls given (and that is the proper word) to Brazil during that game were, in fact, perfectly legitimate tackles.

So should we be up in arms about this characterization of Australia’s performance?

Well, yes and no. For one thing, our two “results” at the tournament might have owed something to defensive organization, fitness, and the finishing ability of certain players, but it was the addition of some tall and strong timber up front which really turned the games against both Croatia and Japan. In other words, the “physical” tag, when applied to Australia’s successes, is partly justified.

Secondly, there is something of an advantage in being dismissed as a “physical” team, particularly when there are other, unacknowledged virtues possessed by the team in question.

In Les Murray’s recent autobiography, he told the amusing story of Frank Arok’s successful mind games before a crucial World Cup qualifier against Israel. Arok had hinted, or rather threatened, that the Socceroos would play a fearsomely combative game, shoving their way to victory if they couldn’t prevail by skill and enterprise. The Israelis, duly “warned”, picked a team of hard nuts, thereby failing to play to their strengths.

The strengths of our new Asian rivals are chiefly speed and skill, the latter applying particularly to the Arab nations. Saudi Arabia may still be a little green – if you’ll pardon the pun – at international level, but they possess players of delightful skill, such as former Asian Player of the Year Nawaf Al-Temyat, a playmaker of great elegance and sure touch.

If our future AFC opponents were induced to field teams of greater strength and less subtlety against us, in the hope of fighting perceived force with force, they would probably be playing into our hands.

So let’s embrace our physicality, up to a point. As a reputation, it has its benefits.