Great teams tend to be built around great players.

Our Golden Generation team of 2006 was, by our standards, a great team, but by World standards, it barely caused a ripple. Few, if any, of the players would be regarded as great players outside Australia – Kewell, Viduka, Cahill and Schwarzer come closest.

The truly great teams tend to have at least one truly great player.

Brazilian teams tend to have three or four, but you can get away with just one if you have the right structure and systems around him/her. Maradona in 1986 and 1990 for example. He had good players around him but not too many great ones. But that was enough to make two World Cup Finals in a row (winning one).

Other great teams have been built around just one (or two) special talent – Messi’s Argentina; Ronaldo’s Portugal; Beckenbauer’s West Germany; Gullit’s and then Bergkamp’s Netherlands; Zidane’s France…

Now… I am not remotely suggesting that Australia has a player at that level. (I sigh in advance at the inevitable misinterpretations…)

But I am suggesting we have, by our standards, one very special player indeed.

If I was Arnie, I’d be looking very closely at building our World Cup team around Garang Kuol.

No doubt, there will be any number doubting my sanity at this point, but that’s how highly I rate him. Pace, touch, strength, vision, calmness in front of goal – these are priceless commodities that NO-ONE else in the Socceroos has, in Kuol’s measure, and are precisely the qualities needed to break down the chess match of high level football. He is a game-breaker, and the only one we have (with the possible exception of Daniel Arzani who is nowhere near as fast and will have to play out of his skin to even make the squad).

So humour me…

If we were to base our squad around young Garang, how would that work?

For a start we’d have to get around the natural Australian democratic idea that everyone is equal. Of course they are, but not when it comes to football. It’s a team sport but that doesn’t mean (at World Cup level) that you pick 11 players of equal ability.

We’d have to find a way to empower his strengths, which basically means giving him the ball in space when he wants it. For a start, that means actually having a plan to do that which is drilled into all players. Then it means picking players around him who are capable of putting the plan into action. We need other players with pace, and speed between the ears.

Riley McGree immediately comes to mind. I noted how quickly he got into the box when Garang made his run down the right against the Kiwis. He’s also a goal maker and scorer in his own right.

Jason Cummings also comes to mind. He’s used to playing with Kuol at the Mariners and club-forged combinations can be key to international success. Cummings also has, in my opinion, the most complete game of any of the strikers available to Arnie. He can score from anywhere around the box and works hard to bring others into play.

But how do you fit those two together given Arnie’s current preference for a vague 433 transitioning to a 2224 in attack and 442 without the ball?

I’d think about playing two up front (Cummings and Kuol) supported by wingers of Boyle and Mabil. They’ve been two of our recent best players and both have pace and trickery. Neither are noted crossers of the ball but that’s okay when Cummings wants the ball to his feet and Kuol wants the ball in space.

In the middle of midfield, I want an excellent tackling screener so I’m going for Cam Devlin behind Riley McGree. Devlin is just about first man picked at Hearts these days, in particular for his unrelenting defensive effort.

The defence has to be rock solid, to support such a top-heavy attack, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that Kye Rowles recovers in time from his broken foot. His MOTM performance against Peru and subsequent starring role for Hearts sets him head-and-shoulders our best defender right now.

His partner needs to have lightning pace, so while Bailey Wright also had a brilliant game against Peru and plays at a very decent level every week, I think I’d be inclined towards Thomas Deng. The idea of Sainsbury and Degenek against France and Denmark gives me the willies. In fact, with an eye to the future, I can’t see the point in picking them at all (which could lead to a very frosty Xmas for Arnie).

The wide backs are a bit of a pickle. I’ve no idea why Callum Elder didn’t make the last squad. Joel King is okay… Aziz Behich is hot and cold and has a few howlers in him… I wonder how Jason Davidson is going in Belgium? He had a good last year for Victory. And what ever happened to Brad Smith and Alex Gersbach? King probably gets the nod – not least for his ability to play decent balls forward.

The right side is just as tough but the various choices give me a little more confidence. Nat Atkinson and Fran Karacic have mainly shared the duties recently, but both are capable of errors. Atkinson is definitely the better attacking threat so probably edges it, but I wouldn’t be writing off Ryan Strain. He’s had a fabulous start to his St Mirren career and is already (with Keanu Baccus) a fan favourite. Only two right backs will be picked and if Strain does make the squad then whichever of the other two who go will be looking very nervously over their shoulder.

Mat Ryan will certainly be tested by Mitch Langerak in training but Ryan has done enough to expect to be Number One, for now.

That means a starting XI of:

                        Ryan

            Deng               Rowles

Atkinson                                  King

                        Devlin             

         McGree

Boyle                                       Mabil

            Kuol                 Cummings

There is no way that Arnie will pick this team, or anything remotely like it. And I do concede it is desperately lacking in international experience. But I would suggest that most of our experienced players are too experienced (old) and/or out of form.

But it’s a team that would have a go and be great to watch. The pace in that team would be a challenge for any opposition – both with and without the ball.

The thing is, man on man, we are nowhere near the quality of France and Denmark so we have to upset them. And the best way to upset them is to be faster than them, get in their faces, and strike like lightning when they (occasionally) turn the ball over.

Trying to base our campaign on the usual sturdy defence (from the front), hoping to nick a goal, will be pointless against the better teams. Indeed, it’s what they expect us to do.

Announcing a team like the one above in the hour before play won’t throw France and Denmark into disarray, but it will surprise them, and if we get it right will force them to adjust mid-match. They hate that.

Garang Kuol is a weapon, the like of which Arnie has never had before. He has to be used in the way that will most disrupt the enemy and that means getting him running at them and past them. Once you accept that is our best means of scoring goals at the World Cup, then everything else starts to make sense.

It might seem an extraordinary burden to heap onto such a young player, but having heard him interviewed on numerous occasions, I’ve no doubt that’s exactly the sort of pressure he would welcome. This young man is going a very long way and the World Cup might just see the creation of a legend.

 

Adrian's books can be purchased at any good bookstore or through ebook alchemy. His first sci-fi novel (Asparagus Grass) will be published by Hague Publishing in early 2023.