“It’s not like a disaster,” Graham Arnold said, a sense of frustration, bordering on simmering rage, visibly emanating off him as he spoke to Paramount in the aftermath of the Socceroos’ 0-0 draw with Indonesia. “But I’ve got to go home and do a lot of thinking.”
A period of reflection. An honest reassessment of one’s priorities, values and assumptions in pursuit of clarity. In this modern age it’s the kind of approach that anyone would benefit from, let alone a coach that has just overseen a loss and a draw against the two lowest ranked sides in their World Cup qualifying group.
Indonesia and Bahrain are teams that, not unfairly, a side with the pedigree and aspirations that the Socceroos possess are expected to beat. But instead of beating them, they went 180 minutes without scoring and, against Bahrain, suffered just a second defeat in a “live” World Cup qualifier on home soil since 1981.
The performance in Jakarta on Tuesday night was a step up from the insipid display produced on the Gold Coast but the song remains largely the same for this side when tasked with facing Asian opposition. It has been going on for years now: a lot of possession but not a lot to show for it, with an attack that repeatedly blunts itself against an embedded defence until it devolves to little more than a series of long balls, a tide of crosses, and set pieces.
Each game carries with it their own peculiarities that add something to the narrative – the hostile atmosphere, terrible surface and oppressive heat of Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, for example. But these themes have generally remained the same against these types of opponents for three years now, when Arnold’s side began a run of nine games in the third phase of Asian qualifiers which have delivered just one win compared with four draws and four defeats.
One guesses that how he goes about addressing this will be at the forefront of Arnold’s mind during his meditations; his defence remains one of the stoutest on the continent, it’s the other end that’s the problem. Bemoaning that he can’t be out there to finish chances for his side, that there needs to be more moments of individual quality on show, has become a common part of Arnold’s refrain in recent times. While he’s not wrong, these issues have been going on for so long to surmise that a change in approach, rather than continued focus on individuals, could be in order. One would imagine it can’t thrill the players to hear that either.
Creative sorts such as Ajdin Hrustić, Riley McGree, Alex Robertson, Daniel Arzani, and Jordy Bos will all come into contention for future windows but these players will still exist within a framework constructed by Arnold. They have been available in previous windows and, for the most part, the challenges remain. And to preempt lazily reactionary analysis, the current crop of players – while not immune to dropping stinkers such as the Bahrain game – are good footballers, who are frequently being bolstered by talented youngsters coming through such as Nestory Irankunda.
Is Arnold capable of making the necessary adjustments to bring the best out of the team and emerging talents? Of instilling and implementing new ideas, patterns of movement, and priorities in possession that will turn things around? At 61 years old, Arnold is a veteran coach, and one whose methods have seen him become one of Australia’s most successful domestic coaches as well as the country’s longest serving national team coach.
Regardless of how much stick he gets these days, Arnold will go down as an Australian football legend, and he doesn’t do things as Socceroos boss that he doesn’t think are in the best interest of the side. Yet his interpretation of what that entails may simply differ from others.
But even if this window has served as some kind of revelatory moment for Arnold, another problem he faces is that his time for introspection won’t last long. In less than a month the Socceroos will be back in World Cup qualification, facing China in Adelaide – hyperbolic notions of that game being “must-win” suddenly sounding a bit more sober after the past week – before flying to Saitama to take on group leaders Japan.
In effect, that means that Arnold has probably only got about a fortnight before he needs to largely settle on a squad for that block, as well as what kind of attributes and player profiles he will need to implement any new approach.
Ultimately, amid all this immediate reaction, it is also important to note that Arnold exists in a broader context; that he is not just Socceroo boss but also representative of how Football Australia thinks about and assesses the game, and what they value. Arnold himself exists in a framework set by the federation; it’s not just what he’s thinking, but how they’re thinking too.
