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Now I've gone back and had a second look at the game in terms of Ball Possession, by both teams, it was one of the worst games the Socceroos have played for some time.
We got the result, but apart from the goal, from a team perspective and individual perspective which was brilliant, and a few other short passages of play, we were pretty awful in Possession.
Denmark were worse than I thought in their Possession watching the game for a second time, dispassionately, compared to viewing the game the first time as well. Their long diagonal passes to the wingers, were superb in their accuracy and the receiving of the balls, but Denmark played a lot of hoofball, particularly at the end.
Their intensive Squeezing within their modes of Pressing in their BPO, was superb though. It forced us to turn the ball over far too quickly for too much of the game. We were barely able to string sequences of three passes in the middle third and our attacking third of the pitch.
Denmark even closed down our playing out from our defensive third, forcing us to play longer diagonal balls. Maybe they used too much energy when we had the ball, that it negated their efficacy when they had the ball?
We played heaps of long, high, speculative straight balls when our defenders, Souttar in particular, had time on the ball. We were forced to make a lot of desperate clearances, but I'd surmise a much greater percentage of play was in the Transitions or contested Ball Phases - when both teams were battling for the ball.
Brilliant defensive effort in Ball Possession Opposition by us, except we didn't Squeeze intensively enough in the first half. We focused on maintaining a compact, optimum, defensive shape in Ball Possession Opposition. It was possibly our greatest defensive effort ever from a Socceroo team, but when we had the ball it was pretty poor, even though faced with superb off the ball play from Denmark.
Thankfully, though we won.
I hope Argentina are too tired to close us down as effectively as Denmark did.
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