Osi Rules

The Marienplatz was coloured gold. It was 17 June 2006, Munich swept up in a flood of world cup fever. I was awed by the number of Australians who had gathered for the event in Germany, hundreds of the green and gold army mingled with countless fans of the Esquadrão de Ouro. Every World Cup seems to mark another milestone in life and a new chapter had just started for the Socceroos. The next day the Aussies were to face Brazil in their second group match after having secured their first world cup win against Japan in a historic 3-1 victory.

 

Prior to 2006, my only link between the land downunder and the World Cup had been an ancient 1974 World Cup sticker album I'd found in my grandparents' house, which once belonged to an uncle. I was surprised to find a team of beaming and moustachioed Australians included among the yellowed pages which contained the sixteen 1974 World Cup finalists. It made me wonder why Australia had disappeared from subsequent World Cups without a trace.

 

But Germany 2006 was the start of a new dawn for the plucky Socceroos. They even went on to make the last sixteen before being narrowly and contentiously beaten by eventual champions Italy. As soon as his reign ended, Hiddink jetted off to claim Russian petrodollars before you could say 'Guus', leaving the Socceroos faithful heartbroken but grateful. Hiddink had shown that with enough confidence and tactical nous, Australia could afford its fans the right to dream. 

 

The next international tournament was the Asian Cup in 2007,  and the Aussies entered it with one of their own at the helm. New manager Graham Arnold and his charges vainly tried not to sound all gung-ho but were soon stunned by the difficulty of weather conditions and the quality of opposition in their new confederation (they had previously formed part of Oceania before joining Asia), nearly losing to Oman in their first game. In their second outing they were outclassed 3-1 by eventual champions Iraq before they finally did the nation’s proud  by trouncing hosts Thailand.
 

 

 

In the quarters they faced Japan, a team desperate for revenge after their defeat to the Aussies at the World Cup in Germany a year earlier. A tight game ended 1-1 before Australia lost on penalties. Arnold was torn to shreds by the press before he had even returned to home shores. Not satiated by the Sydneysider’s blood, the public clamoured for a foreign coach.

 

And along came Pim.

 

For some reason, I always thought Pim Verbeek would not look amiss in a Spaghetti Western. He seemed to stare journalists down like a gunslinger and his laugh was almost hesitant. After the perceived failure at the Asian Cup 2007, any concerns about him eased when his first competitive fixture met with a win, as Australia trouncing the might of Qatar 3-0. The Socceroos faithful were now more respectful of Asian opposition and whatever Pim said was law.

 

A League players? ‘Not good enough.’ Melbourne Victory heroes Danny Allsopp and Archie Thompson? ‘Hopeless.’ After New Zealand’s heroic showing at the last World Cup, one wonders how far Kiwi gaffer Ricki Herbert would have gone with that attitude.

 

Yet Pim got results so everyone took it. So long as he won, Australians would take it.

 

But God he won boring.

 

 

After the win against Qatar, results against other Asian sides were agonisingly ground out, until we began to wonder what all the furore around World Cup 2006 had been about in the first place. Yet Pim was defiant. He clearly felt that Australians were wrong to doubt his tried and trusted formation of two holding midfielders and crossing wingers. My fellow pundits and I were often bored to tears watching world cup qualifiers, hoping that Pim would for once replace Kewell with the benched Carney on the left wing and instead place Harry behind the striker where he could ask more questions of the defence.

 

Whilst Hiddink maximised the players at his disposition, Pim stuck to his tactics like a dog to a bone. To his credit, after overseeing two poor qualifying games at World Cup 2010, he finally abandoned his rigid formation in what was the last game of his tenure. The Socceroos's 2-1 victory over a talented Serbian team that desperately needed a win was probably the greatest sporting achievement by Australia at any level.  Regardless of what anyone says, it was David vs Goliath. Just compare Premier league stars Ivanovic and Vidic to Neill and Beauchamp. Or Stankovic to Culina or Holman to Krasic. And isn’t Kennedy really a poor man’s Zigic? The comparisons go on and on, and Australia had even taken to the field against the Serbs without their talisman Harry Kewell.

 

So Pim and the Socceroos eventually bowed out of South Africa 2010 with their reputation somewhat salvaged, having entered a group that was much harder than the one in Germany 2006. Pim also remains the last coach to have defeated the Netherlands in Holland, albeit in a friendly fixture.

 

But something had been lacking all along.

 

In my opinion, Pim failed to accept that the Socceroos are not a team like any other. They represent a country which only became a footballing nation four years ago, where the game is still battling for recognition against a handful of other more established ball sports.

 

 

And most of the World Cup qualifiers against inferior opposition were all too boring to watch. ‘So what?’ you may rightly ask if you’re a seasoned football fan, ‘qualifiers are always boring and cautious encounters.’ Which is true, I remember many European qualifiers that flattered to deceive when push came to shove.

 

But in Australia these fixtures are golden opportunities to attract new converts to the game in a country where football is not the number 1 sport. They can also serve to enhance the Socceroos's reputation and increase the fear factor when they face other squads. Winning these fixtures with a positive approach would also increase the attacking thrust of an Australian side. All too often you got the feeling that the Socceroos were being ‘reined in’ by Pim. 

This over-cautious approach was exemplified early on in the piece in his second world cup qualifier against China, when he refused to take any other A league striker except Archie Thompson on the plane. When Thompson withdrew through injury early on in the piece, Australia ended up playing the rest of the game without an out and out striker. It left many to wonder whether A league strikers like Brosque might have had an impact if given the chance. Verbeek’s stubborness and conservatism nearly cost Australia in China and were it not for Schwarzer saving a penalty the game’s outcome would have been more grisly.

 

The opposition always merits respect but at South Africa 2010, Australia draw with ten men against eventual quarter-finalists Ghana (a game they all but nicked) and defeated fancied Serbia - so did Pim really need to fear throwing seasoned A league players into the fray against other Asian sides?
 

 

Journalists like Craig ‘Foz’ Foster have said that Pim got a lot more out of coaching Australia than Australia got from him. That might be a bit of harsh verdict. Perhaps Pim’s only crime, besides refusing to adapt his tactics, was lacking a bit of the charisma which Guus brought to the role of Socceroos manager. Qualifying Australia for World Cup 2010 and Asian Cup 2011 were important feats and he pulled both off. After his departure for Moroccan pastures he will however always be remembered as 'Grim Pim’.

 

Hardly was the curtain drawn on World Cup 2010 that the million dollar question was: who’s the new Socceroos coach going to be? Would he be an Italian with slicked back hair? A nutty South American professor like Bielsa? Would Sven again hog all of the headlines, albeit in a different hemisphere? Ruud Gullit even talked himself up for the job and Ossie Ardiles followed suit.

As the weeks rolled on, the speculation intensified. Robbie Slater chipped in with a colourful suggestion: appoint Maradona! SBS Blogger Jesse Fink even recommended that the FFA choose Skippy.

 

On 11 August 2010, Football Federation Australia named Holger Osieck as the new manager of the Socceroos. As expected, the first reaction was one of ‘Holger who?’ Some showed outright dismay by his appointment: after the assistant of Guus at World Cup 2002 (Pim), we now had the assistant of Beckenbauer at World Cup 1990! Conspiracy theories abounded about the FFA giving him the job to secure Beckenbauer’s vote for Australia to host the 2022 World Cup. Which sounds a bit far fetched if you ask me, even by the highest 'corridors of power back-scratching' standards.

I think the FFA's choice was mature and cautious, which might indicate that they have heeded the lessons learned since Guus’s departure. Being Socceroos manager is not just any coaching job. Although getting wins remains the priority, the Australian public have come to have expectations of their national side and demand that  the game be taken to the opposition. If this means overachievement, we’ve learned that Australian players do want to overachieve, having repeatedly run themselves into the ground and beaten impossible odds for the green and gold. All they need is someone they can rally around, who brings the best out of them with a positive mindset whilst also being technically astute.

 

 

So four years after Germany 06, we hope that the FFA has finally unearthed this sort of manager, who has instantly been christened 'Osi' by the Australian public.

 
 

His CV certainly makes interesting reading. After West Germany’s last world cup triumph, Osi had stints coaching three clubs and a new world country in Canada, another nation where football isn’t yet the number one sport. He even led the Canucks on an incredible run in the CONCACAF Gold Cup against sides like Mexico, going on to seal victory against Colombia in the final! 

 

Canada went on to be called ‘Holger’s Heroes’ and one hopes that if he managed to overachieve with them, he might be able to pull off some upsets with a Socceroos side which desperately needs to blood some youngsters. After all, German coaches have a rep for achieving miracles with less fancied sides.

 

Osi also won silverware in Turkey and had two stints in Asian club football, winning the Asian Champions League with Asia’s biggest club, Urawa Red Diamonds in 2007.  His stint as chief of FIFA’s technical department also indicates that Osi will not only be expected to secure results with the national team but also serve as mentor for young players and local coaches. His experience with world champions Germany in 1990 should also prove timely. After assisting Beckenbauer to manage a team which contained the egos of the likes of Lothar Matthaus and Jurgen Klinsman, this week’s bit of handbags in Australian football should prove a triviality by comparison and should not snowball any further.

 
 

One lesson Osi must learn from Pim is not to slam the A league. It is a young league and everyone knows it’s a bit wet behind the ears. But you would be wrong to diss it. Despite its youth, it’s already produced an Asian Champs League finalist which is more than can be said of other longer-established Asian tiers. However Osi’s initial tone about the domestic competition has already been promising and he has said that he will show up at A league games. In doing so he might discover some lesser known players to help the national team’s cause, like Guus did with Josh Kennedy, an unknown quantity who was thrown on against Japan in Germany 06 and effectively changed the pattern of the game.

 
 

Yet fans should also heed Osi’s warning that the next few years will be a transitional period, with younger players having to be brought on before 2014. So he must be given some time before people dismiss him. And as evidenced by Australia’s latest 2-0 loss to Slovenia, it’s going to be a long haul. However unlike any of his three predecessors, Osi has a full four years in which to work on creating a competitive team.

 

He also looks a hell of a lot more cheerful than any of them, although we must hope he’s not just laughing all the way to the bank. But joking apart, he seems a coach who could suit the Socceroos, a grounded guy with a broad experience of the football world. He’s also keen to live in Australia.

 

And if his rule gets results in Brazil 2014, cries of ‘Aussie Aussie Osi!’ will be both inevitable and deserved.