There has been a fair bit of criticism of the Socceroos in recent times, but the national team’s performance against Chile in the early hours of Monday morning showed coach Ange Postecoglou’s new philosophy is heading down the right path.
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It was obviously always going to take some time for our boys to adapt to the change of style and there is no question that it has resulted in some frustrating displays over the past 12 months.
But, the signs were there against Chile to give Australian fans cause for optimism for the remainder of the World Cup qualifying campaign and hopefully through to Russia 2018 as well. In the end we were unlucky not to get more than a point from a Chilean outfit, which is a top-five nation in world football.
Had we taken our chances, we almost certainly would have walked away with the three points.
It was also pretty impressive to see that the performance came in the absence of some of our star players in the starting line-up, including Aaron Mooy and Tom Rogic who were both on the bench.
For me, that shows the depth is there going forward into a crucial couple of months of qualifying.
We will need to continue to fine tune things in the lead-up to one of our biggest matches in the past 12 months away from home against Japan at the end of August.
If we can win that game, there is a big chance that we could be top of the group heading into the final qualifying game.
From there you would have to think we should be able to seal our passage to Russia with a match against Thailand on home shores our only remaining test.
We might have slipped up when we played Thailand over there, but I can’t see us making the same mistake if a Cup spot is on the line.
- DISAPPOINTING DEFEAT
I walked away disappointed that the Wolves didn’t something out of our match against APIA on Sunday.
Unfortunately it was a moment of ill-discipline that proved costly after Nico Bernal was sent off for a headbutt in the second half.
Up until that point I thought we should have got more from the game. In the end we came away empty-handed, but we have to bounce back quick smart against Sydney United this weekend.