Santo: Has Arnie got the smarts to be Socceroos coach?

The Ange era

I wish I could understand what it’s like to manage a team of  World Cup players because it must be a different world. You’ve got all the different players from different clubs with different personalities, strengths and weaknesses. And you have to draw them all together and make them play as a group of 11.

That's a real mindf*ck. It’s a very, very hard thing to do.

We used to joke about it on the podcast. Why doesn’t Ernie Merrick coach Australia? And in all seriousness, do you think our results would have been that different had Ernie Merrick coached Australia at the World Cup?

We probably could have got one draw and that’s it. It’s not all that different.

But I like what Ange did, I like what he was building up. I don’t know why he left. I was shocked when he left. I haven’t spoken to him since.

We used to speak quite often but he is away and quite busy with his new team. We don’t know what happened behind the scenes. For all we know he needed support for his vision. Who knows how big and how long his vision was.

It could have been a very long term vision that required safeguards and guarantees from FFA to enable it to come to fruition and maybe that wasn’t forthcoming.

He’s a pretty tough and smart and stubborn guy and he thought I’m not going to do it my way and he thought I’m not going to hang around for this I’m going to go on my next challenge. He’s a strong willed person. But I thought he did remarkable things for the team.

You cannot question our determination and our never say die attitude. Even to the point of delusion. I reckon that is one of the great things about Australia. We’ve never set ourselves a ceiling of how high we could go.

That’s what I liked about Ange. Ange said c’mon guys we’ve got to dream not just competing at a World Cup – but winning a World Cup.

As told to Con Stamocostas