Our glorious failure


Those who feared that this Australia may not be able to repeat the feats of 2006 – and I was among those harbouring doubts – may smugly feel vindicated.

Yet the numbers suggest there wasn’t that much difference. In the group stage in Germany, Australia tallied four points from a win, a draw and a loss with a goal ratio of 5-5.

This time, too, it was four points from a win, a draw and a loss, but the goal tally, 3-6, killed the team’s chance to advance.

So the culprit will be the 4-0 thrashing by Germany in the opening round and the culpability will go, as it should, to those who engineered it.

The critical difference between the performances in South Africa and in Germany was not the playing personnel, not their ages, not even the absence of Mark Viduka.

It was, as I had feared, that this time there was no Guus Hiddink and what separates that giant among coaches from his one time assistant.

Facing Brazil, an even more fearsome opponent than Germany, in 2006 Hiddink sent out his men to attack and to take the game to the world champion. They did attack and for large periods outplayed Brazil, eventually losing to two goals both of which may have been prevented.

This was because Hiddink understood not only the players’ technical capabilities but also their soul.

Despite being a Dutchman, he understood the unique cultural qualities of the Australian players, what we would call the Digger spirit, and trusted them as potentially lethal weaponry.

By contrast, Pim Verbeek, with his grotesque and paranoid tactics against the Germans and the messages it carried, disarmed the players of those qualities and sent them to the slaughter.

By the second game, against Ghana, the players took matters back into their hands and, with their guns reloaded, marched out to put in two superb efforts that were no less splendid nor heroic than what they did in Germany.

Verbeek, who had never been tested at this level before, failed miserably as some of us feared he might. As a coach who didn’t believe in the players, and of whom he was publicly and unforgivably contemptuous, he got just what he deserved.

That was the only piece of justice that was to come out of Australia’s failure to advance.

The lesson then is to be extremely careful when choosing Verbeek’s successor, for we cannot afford the same mistake in appointing a man, no matter how elite his name, who doesn’t understand, much less is able to harness, the cultural qualities of Australian players and how those qualities fuel them to attain extraordinary deeds.

In the meantime we can be thankful that the self-detonation of Australia against Germany will not be the only thing for which this country’s 2010 World Cup will be remembered.

That now has surely been eclipsed by the gallantry and bravery shown by the players overall.

We desired and expected no more and no less.

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/les-murray/blog/1010435/Our-glorious-failure