Style Points Don’t Matter in International Football

Style Points Don’t Matter in International Football

James Caughlin

A new era for the Aussie national team kicked off in Adelaide on Thursday night and it was a good enough performance to get by China and start the Tony Popovic reign on a winning note.

It looked like it was going to be more of the same frustrations when an injury depleted China took an early lead with a sucker punch goal after 20 minutes through Xie Wenneng.

Thankfully Lewis Miller ensured the teams would head into the halftime break on level terms in the 47th minute.

Goals from Craig Goodwin and Nishan Velupillay in the second half secured the win, but any fan that says they were not at least a little bit nervous throughout the match was either inebriated or lying.

We would all love to see the Aussies playing open and expansive football, generating highlight worthy goals every single time they take to the pitch.

However, that really does not take into account the different challenge that is international football during the club season.

They have to get played, but the timing of these matches, especially for nations like Australia, flat out sucks.

It was one of the biggest challenges Ange Postecoglou, one of if not the best managers (or coaches) this country has produced, really struggled with in his time in the top job and now one that Tony Popovic will have to endure.

We want our best players to grow beyond the local league (which kicks off this coming weekend by the way) and work their way overseas into some of the biggest clubs in the world.

But it also means that when it is time to play for Australia, they have to deal with an atrocious travel schedule that cannot really be improved upon.

However it makes life super difficult for the manager when he’s got (admittedly incredibly fit) players arriving as close to 36 hours before kickoff and he has to install his systems for the first time in short order.

The former Victory boss decided to deploy a formation with three central defenders and it was a far from perfect performance with more than a few nervous moments as players adjusted to the new setup, but they got the job done.

Although Goodwin’s goal would rate highly for aesthetics.

But on the road to North America with a spot in the world’s biggest sporting event on the line, the Aussies really just need to get the job done any way how.

Ideally by scrapping their way to one of the two automatic qualification spots from this group stage rather than needing to make it through the next lot of qualifiers or worse, the playoffs.

Nobody seemed to mind that under Graham Arnold in 2022, the Aussies made it to the Round of 16 in Qatar even if it was more through grit and determination than channelling their inner 2009-era Barcelona.

And when a coach is taking charge of a team for the first time with 36-72 hours with the squad, most of whom are coming off a long flight and playing for different clubs, implementing some sort of intricate and in depth system just is not practical.

Sometimes it is ok to just keep it simple and give the guys a couple of straightforward things to remember once they are on the pitch.

With a trip to Japan still to take place in this international window before November brings a home game against Saudi Arabia and a surely heated clash with Bahrain, it is a nice reminder that in international football, style points really don’t matter.

Japan are a damn good team and if you try to play them at their game, you are going to lose… actually even if you try to play it your way Japan might still win.

If Australia does (somehow) manage to get anything from Japan then we should be ecstatic, but this football snobbery of wanting teams to always play one specific way doesn’t always account for the issues national teams face during these qualifiers.

Besides, next month against Saudi Arabia will be a far more telling match because that is the main competition for that second spot in the group behind the wagon that is Japan.

Just get the job done over the next nine months, however you can manage it.