Style over Substance?

April 16, 2009

For all intents and purposes, Australia has qualified for the 2010 World Cup. It only requires one point from its final three matches to make it back to back World Cups for the first time in its history. Soccer betting on Australia’s qualification has basically closed down. For a side who has taken 13 from a possible 15 points to date, qualification appears to be nothing more than a formality. In fact Australia’s participation on soccer’s greatest stage was a formality once the draw for the fourth round was done.

In its five team soccer league it avoided the likes of North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia – all much tougher opposition.

When qualifying for the World Cup was so much more difficult for Australia, the media was solely focused on the final destination; the desire to enter the Promised Land. But that angle is gone now so a new one has had to be found.

The one which has been found was the style over substance debate. People don’t just want Australia to win, they want it to win in style. The draw in Yokohama was labeled as drab and boring. The win in Manama was criticized for being an ugly one.

Questions are also being thrown up about what can one expect from the Socceroos in the World Cup itself? They are questioning if Pim Verbeek should lead the side at the World Cup. People don’t want them just to make it if that is going to mean a limp exit from the group stages. They want the team to come out blazing and to play exciting aggressive soccer.

Pundits have to realize something and that is that to do well at the World Cup is very very difficult. Only a handful of sides have done consistently well at the World Cup and they are the absolute elite of the sport. Even great sides such as France and Italy have had long droughts at the World Cup.

Every tournament is a crap shoot where you have to peak at the right time and have a healthy dose of luck. This time, Australia will not have the benefit of getting to face an Asian side. This means they could be in a group with a European team, a South American one and an African/American one. They could be in a Group of Death along with Argentina, Cameroon and Greece.

In this day and age there are fewer and fewer weak sides at the World Cup.

The Australian soccer public has to manage its expectations. It needs to be realistic and be less trigger-happy with its criticism. Still there is some merit to the notions of being more adventurous and attacking. If Australia had done so in Kaiserslautern it might have defeated Italy. Who knows what would have happened next. What is for sure is that someone else would have been crowned World Champions.

David Wiseman is a sports journalist, who also writes about cricket and tennis for Betfair Australia. He is still excited that Australia are ‘almost there’ in their World Cup qualifying bid, and can now concentrate on preparing himself for the Ashes cricket this spring.

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