Twenty near-certainties in Verbeek's initial cup squad leaves just three spots up for grabs

MICHAEL LYNCH
May 12, 2010

SOCCEROO coach Pim Verbeek has done the relatively easy job, naming 31 players from whom he will make his final World Cup squad selection on June 1.

He has chosen almost everyone who has gained a couple of caps for Australia in the past couple of years.

Granted, he has thrown in surprise selections in youngsters Shane Lowry, James Holland and Tommy Oar, in particular, players whom he must hope will go on to prove that he has left some sort of legacy for the domestic game he will be leaving once Australia's interest in the World Cup finals is ended.

And he has left out players who might have been expected to be named. Simon Colosimo would be the biggest surprise, while Joel Griffiths and Sasa Ognenovski would have their supporters.

But, in the main, the squad was widely predicted in the days leading up to its announcement and few pundits were wide of the mark.

Verbeek's more difficult task will come over the next three weeks, when he will whittle the group down to the 23 who will form the final party for South Africa. In reality, Australia's lack of a deep talent pool means even that can very much be chosen now.

There are probably 17 men who can already start taking their duty-free orders from family and friends (Bresciano, Cahill, Carney, Chipperfield, Culina, Emerton, Grella, Holman, Kennedy, Kewell, Moore, Neill, Valeri, Wilkshire and the three goalkeepers, Schwarzer, Federici and Jones).

There are another three - Rhys Williams, Mile Jedinak and Nikita Rukavytsya - who will almost certainly join them.

That leaves only three spots up for grabs, with the seven hopefuls having a training camp in Melbourne next week, the match against New Zealand at the MCG on May 24, and then a few days in South Africa to convince the coach they should be in the party. Adelaide United goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic will be included only if one of the other three keepers is injured before the June 1 cut-off.

The list of 20 near-certainties contains six defenders, eight midfielders and three strikers, as well as the three goalkeepers, so squad balance would suggest at least one striker and one defender, more likely two, are added to the mix.

If that is the case, then Mark Milligan or perhaps Lowry will hope to make the cut as defenders. The dearth of strikers means that Scott McDonald will once again come into consideration despite his poor record in the green and gold.

McDonald, however, needs to play off a bigger striker, which means Verbeek may be tempted to look to attacking midfielders such as Nick Carle or Dario Vidosic to provide attacking support, given there is more chance of Coalition leader Tony Abbot passing Kevin Rudd's ETS legislation than the Dutchman changing his lone striker set-up.

While much of this squad could have been picked 12 months ago, there are a handful of players who could, and perhaps should, have been included. There are others who would appear to be lucky to be on this list.

Michael Beauchamp has been out of the Socceroo reckoning for some time, and has failed to convince in numerous attempts at international level. Jade North has been given several chances and has yet to nail down a regular spot. His move to South Korea didn't work, and he is now playing in Norway. Hardly the CV of a World Cup squad member.

Given Australia's dearth of forwards with proven goalscoring records, surely it was worth taking a punt on Griffiths and giving him the chance to impress at least in the training squad. He is a regular with a leading Chinese side that has reached the knockout stages of the Asian Champions League.

Similarly, it could have done no harm to bring Ognenovski into the fold just to have a look. The big stopper is a regular with a leading South Korean team that has also blitzed its ACL group. Surely he and Griffiths are playing regular football in a more competitive environment than the likes of Beauchamp, North, Holland or Oar?

The omission of the likes of Mile Sterjovksi, Chris Coyne and Jacob Burns surely brings down the curtain on their international careers. Their moves back to the A-League to play for Perth Glory clearly backfired.

That's hardly surprising as Verbeek has made it clear on numerous occasions his disdain for the domestic game. In this squad only standby keeper Galekovic and Oar could be considered to be A-League players, and even Oar has now signed for Utrecht.

Yes, Craig Moore and Jason Culina play in the local league but they were established internationals before they returned.

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