Uruguay probably remembers Aloisi’s finest moment for the Socceroos as well as we do. Uruguay probably remembers Aloisi’s finest moment for the Socceroos as
well as we do. Images: Getty Images

And the Socceroos’ performance?

The first game, as everyone knows, was a disaster in every aspect. It wasn’t the players’ fault; they didn’t believe in what they were doing and it showed when they were playing against the Germans. They looked a little bit lost and that wasn’t the Australian way. Usually we know what we have to do – go out and not win the game necessarily, but try and win the game, and they didn’t do that. In the next two matches they did. People can go on and talk about how good Germany were, which they were, but so were Ghana and Serbia – they’re both great sides. Serbia qualified very easily for this World Cup; they make it hard for any team and they beat Germany, so why didn’t we set up the same way against the Germans the way we did against Serbia and Ghana? We mightn’t have won, but we certainly wouldn’t

have lost 4-0.

Your prediction that the Socceroos would upset Germany came back to bite you on the arse ...

I played against Germany five years ago and I predicted that we’d score goals against them if we played the same way. We lost 4-3 then, but we had a go. And that was playing them in Germany. That’s why I thought we had a good chance. I still think if we did set up that way, the boys would’ve proved me right and caused an upset. But I did predict Timmy would score against Serbia and we’d win. So I got one out of two right!

How will Pim Verbeek be remembered?

The sad part about it is he’s going to be remembered for that German game. He did qualify Australia for the World Cup, which was great, but the Australian public won’t be so forgiving for that German game. You can win 20 games, but to lose one that’s so costly, that’s the way you’re going to be remembered. The same thing happened to Terry Venables. He went undefeated with the Socceroos for so many games, but he was remembered for not qualifying for the 1998 World Cup.For me, the belief wasn’t there from the boys – and that has to go down to the coach not believing in them.

There’s been a lot of talk about the need for the next coach to embrace the Aussie spirit. Fair call?

We need to embrace the Aussie spirit because that spirit is never going to die. We can change our style of football, but that spirit is always going to be the same. The Spanish have sort of adopted the way Holland played back in the 1970s, but they’ve done it with that Spanish flair. It’s the same with us. We need the belief that we can beat anyone. That’s what we were like before. We believed that we could beat Brazil at the last World Cup. We didn’t end up winning, but we weren’t disgraced either, and I thought we were unlucky not to get a result. It was the same against Italy. We believed we could beat the Italians and we probably should’ve beaten them. We believed we could beat Japan, even when 1-0 down with only seven minutes left. That spirit will never die and we have to keep playing that way, even if the style changes.