Time is up for the senior servicemen
MICHAEL LYNCH
June 22, 2010
Harry Kewell's Australian career looks over and some of his teammates should join him, writes Michael Lynch in Johannesburg.
BARRING a minor miracle on Wednesday (4.30am Thursday AEST) - which is what Australia will need to progress to the next phase - Harry Kewell's ill-starred World Cup has lasted 24 minutes.
It should also be pretty much the end of his tempestuous 14-year affair with the Socceroos.
Not that Kewell, even as he approaches his 32nd birthday, has nothing left to offer.
He showed enough, in that 24 minutes, to illustrate why his presence on a more regular basis might have been so essential to the Socceroos' World Cup hopes.
Australia are lacking in flair players so Kewell, even with his mobility much reduced from his heyday, still offered far more than Josh Kennedy in the lone striker role. He can hold up the ball well and bring others into play, and his ability in the air is much better than most imagine.
But he is now, along with several of his teammates, reaching an age when his best is behind him. The time for a transfusion of fresh blood has arrived and it must start as soon as Australia's involvement in South Africa is over.
It is just too big a gamble for Australia to continue to build most of a team's offensive strategy around a crock who struggles, despite his best intentions, to get on the field.
With a new coach due and a long and arduous qualifying campaign for the 2014 World Cup stretching out on the horizon, ageing bodies that cannot stand up to the demands imposed are the last thing the Socceroos need.
Kewell may have, as Australia's outgoing boss Pim Verbeek made clear after the Ghana game, performed miracles to have even been available in South Africa but he can probably consider himself lucky to have been included at all.
A lot of big names, including Ghana's leader Michael Essien and Germany's Michael Ballack, were not offered the same privilege when ruled out because of injury concerns.
It is sad that the last World Cup memory of a player who possesses more natural ability than perhaps any other Australian should be of him taking the walk of shame after being red-carded. There are great memories: the goals against Iran, home and away, in the heartbreaking World Cup qualifying loss in 1997, the ecstasy he inspired in a nation with his equaliser against Croatia in Stuttgart in 2006.
But there have not been enough of them.
Despite that, the fact that Verbeek was prepared to leave Kewell right up to the last second to prove his fitness spoke volumes about Australia's lack of depth and paucity of strikers.
That is a key reason he and other veterans in this side should be thanked for their services and moved aside for younger players to be given the opportunity to gain the international experience needed to successfully qualify Australia for Brazil 2014.
This World Cup has so far shown that it is the younger, fresher sides that are prospering, while older, more experienced teams are struggling. England have just two points from two games, France and Australia, both among the oldest squads, one each.
So for Kewell and his fellow stalwart servants of Australia, Craig Moore and Scott Chipperfield, who are both 34, this should be the swansong. Included should be Vince Grella and Mark Bresciano, both of whom have indicated that they might want to take a break from international football and not play in the Asian Cup finals in Doha next January.
Players now should not be allowed to pick and choose when they are available. Grella's absence will give Carl Valeri a chance to gain the experience he needs to become the midfield pivot Australia will need in the Asian Cup and on the long road to Brazil.
Clearing out the ''Golden Generation'' will hurt - the Asian Cup campaign will be much harder for one thing - but for the sake of the development of the national team, the time is now.
http://www.theage.com.au/world-cup-2010/world-cup-news/time-is-up-for-the-senior-servicemen-20100621-ysd1.html