More than two months have passed since Australia’s painful penalty shootout defeat against Egypt ended a World Cup adventure that had begun so brightly. Although the Socceroos upset Turkey and progressed to the knockout stage with the youngest team in the tournament, coach Tony Popovic wore criticism for his selections, especially in that shootout in Dallas. Sitting in front of a bank of microphones in Sydney on Tuesday in his first media appearance since the World Cup, the coach is finally ready to talk.
And I’m comfortable with that purpose for all of them. Australia’s victory against Turkey in the first match of the tournament, of course, had sent expectations sky high. The defeat to the USA was a deflation, even if the second half showed the team had more to offer.
The Socceroos navigated the Paraguay clash, then came close against Egypt, before the heartbreak of Harry Souttar and Lucas Herrington’s spot kicks. The Socceroos’ World Cup side had an average age of 25 years and 165 days, the youngest in the tournament, and 155 days younger than second-youngest Côte d’Ivoire. They had shown they could compete on the world stage.
Yet there was a nagging feeling the team might have gone further. Back in Sydney, Popovic stares down the assembled media and continues. He says that he is his own critic.
That he always looks back at the calls he makes. That hindsight only comes later. Having equalised against Egypt, they could not find a way to finish off their opponents and within an hour they were packing their bags.
In the first half, we gave him a lot of problems with Cristian [Volpato] and Jordy Bos. And unfortunately, when Jordy went off, we lost a little bit of that dynamic, and then Cristian was fatigued. We just couldn’t punish them, it was a real weak area for them, which we knew, but we just couldn’t… unfortunately, in the game, we didn’t punish them for that on that right side.” Fans have derided Popovic’s controversial selections for the shootout, including bringing on Maty Ryan for Patrick Beach in goals, and having teenager Herrington take the high-pressure fourth kick.
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