Panic stations people!
Australia only have until Monday evening/Tuesday morning local time to perfect their Asian Cup preparations and we've begun with, what, a dour draw against tournament outsiders United Arab Emirates, the 88th ranked team in the world?
Not good enough, although it's not exactly a result which dooms us to failure as some seem to be making out.
In all honesty it was a poor showing. Nothing more, nothing less. There was little cohesiveness, no constructive moves in possession, no well-thought-out structures in attack; it certainly wasn't a performance befitting that of an Asian Cup contender.
But, for me, there was one standout disappointment.
I went into this game - especially once seeing the team sheet - hoping that we might finally have conclusive evidence as to who should be in the starting line-up out of Mile Jedinak and Carl Valeri. Instead, I'm more convinced that neither should be.
You would have to assume that with five players chosen in the squad who are recognised as holding/central midfielders that at least two of them will find a starting place. And with the anonymity of Jedinak and Valeri in recent internationals I'd prefer those players to be two of Jason Culina, Neil Kilkenny and Matt McKay.
For guys who play essentially as ball-winning midfielders Jedinak and Valeri haven't been doing a lot of that in recent times. So why not resign them both to appearances as specialist 'shut-down' players should the need to try and man-mark a Park Ji-Sung or a Shinji Kagawa out of a match arise?
A midfield combo of, say, McKay and Culina would be surer in possession and just as busy in defence. Furthermore, a midfield position for McKay would allow him to cover David Carney at left-back more effectively than he could as a winger - where he never appears for Brisbane Roar anymore. If McKay then struggles to handle the step-up to international level or Culina becomes over-reliant on the short back pass then Kilkenny, who impressed with a few nice passes against UAE, can earn his opportunity.
Unless one of Jedinak or Valeri can lift their worth to the Socceroos considerably then neither should be starting ahead of the aforementioned trio.
Now that I've got that out of my system, there weren't really any other individual performances worth complaining about. In fact, there were even some positives! Nathan Burns showed touches worthy of a starting place in behind the striker, McKay was involved for many of the Socceroos better moments despite his position and the Lucas Neill/Sasa Ognenovski partnership was untroubled.
The following are fairly meaningless notes I took on what was an uneventful friendly:
- The forward runs which prompt Lucas Neill's long passes - which can be fruitful at times - will need to be very clever if they are going to be a worthwhile exercise.
- The Australian players will have to do their best to avoid committing petty fouls unless absolutely necessary.
- How exciting was it to see Oar, Kruse and Kilkenny all entering the pitch at the same time?
- Words can't explain how glad I am that we don't have people shouting what I can only assume were either words of encouragement or expletives over megaphones during play.
For all those Socceroos fans out there still in a fragile mental state following the World Cup bid unpleasantness, worried that they won't be able to continue should we fail at the Asian Cup (myself), a word of encouragement: Tim Cahill hasn't made his appearance yet.
