Brett Holman: a mea culpa
http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/jesse-fink/blog/1010621/Brett-Holman:-a-mea-culpa
Hard to know where to start today, with so much going on at this extraordinary World Cup, but I will begin by issuing an apology to Brett Holman, a player I have hammered in this column over a period of years.
I don’t resile from my belief that there are better players than him that could do the job for Australia or that he got cut a lot more slack than perhaps he was entitled, but he has proven in the lead-up to and during South Africa 2010 that he has a place in the Socceroos.
He was our standout performer at the World Cup and his goal against Serbia was one for the ages.
This is not an opinion I’ve come to after one game. I was all for Holman starting against Ghana and have, like many Australians, been amazed by his reversal of national form in recent months.
He came good at the right time and all power to him. I was chatting to one of his best mates today, a bloke who had roomed with him in Holland, and even he admitted up till this World Cup Holman's only decent game had been in his third international, against China in March 2007, and “if he’d gone to hit that goal he got against Serbia a year ago at ANZ Stadium it would have ended up 20 rows back”.
His point was Holman is a confidence player; that he tried to do too much with the ball when playing for the Socceroos because he was so desperate to impress.
One bad kick and it all went to garbage. He couldn’t replicate the same form he had in the Eredivisie for Australia – until now. Something clicked in South Africa.
So Pim Verbeek has to be given full credit for persisting with Holman. He was right. I was wrong.
In what will be remembered as a brave if poor campaign, Holman, along with the redoubtable Luke Wilkshire, stood head and shoulders above the rest of the team for consistency, discipline and performance.
Against Ghana and Serbia Verbeek confirmed beyond all doubt two immutable truths: one, that he is a capable coach and two, that his stuff-up against Germany was an out-of-character mistake that only he can explain. One day let’s hope he does.
But he was out of line with his comments in an explosive Dutch interview, where he lambasted a number of his players after the Germany match – not for their performance per se, but where they earned their living.
“I have [Nikita] Rukavytsya, who wasn't good enough for FC Twente second team,” he told newspaper Volkskrant. “Because I don't have any better, I have to use him as a substitute. That is the reality.”
“[Moore] played last season only in the Australian league, not at Réal Madrid. And he wasn't even the worst [player in Durban].”
Sure, Verbeek was at the time under immense pressure and getting torn a new a***hole by the press, but to turn on Craig Moore for playing in Australia and Nikita Rukavytsya for not cutting it at FC Twente is beyond the pale.
He chose both players. It was his decision. He cut Scott McDonald and wouldn’t even look at Sasa Ognenovski, two players who have performed at the highest level respectively in the European and Asian Champions Leagues.
It also went against all his admirable displays of humility in front of the Australian press that he took “responsibility” for the loss to the Germans and the buck stopped with him.
It is hard to have sympathy for the man when he turns on his own. But, as my own hasty dismissal of Holman proves, we can all make mistakes. It’s part of being human.