The Matildas are in a deep, dark hole. A high-profile court case, a seven-month stretch without a full-time coach, a series of poor results and an ill-advised radio rant has turned Australia’s favourite team into a national punching bag.
The Socceroos are about to resume their tightrope pursuit of a direct qualifying berth at next year’s World Cup, but the outlook for them is also fairly bleak ahead of this month’s must-win clashes against Indonesia and China. Three of the team’s best centre-backs are injured: first it was Alessandro Circati, then Harry Souttar, and now Hayden Matthews – the Sydney FC product who has made an immediate impact at English Championship outfit Portsmouth since transferring there in January for a record fee – is confirmed to be out for the rest of the season with an ankle problem, leaving coach Tony Popovic desperately short of defensive options.
But there are better days ahead.
In the early hours of Sunday morning (AEDT), the Young Socceroos, the men’s under-20 national team, created history by winning the Asian Cup for their age group. Undefeated.
Most of the country was tucked away in bed when they prevailed 5-4 in a penalty shootout over Saudi Arabia, thanks to a Mark Schwarzer-esque one-handed save by Steven Hall with the final spot kick – but the significance of this achievement should not be slept on.
This team had already made history by reaching the semi-finals and clinching a spot at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile later this year, ending the Young Socceroos’ decade-long absence from the global stage. That alone was important enough; every big club sends scouts to that tournament searching for the next big thing, and a good performance by an individual player can set up or shape their careers.
The Young Socceroos lift the Asian Cup trophy.Credit: Subway Young Socceroos
Then they won 2-0 over Japan to reach the final. Japan is the football nation that Australia wishes it could be, but the Young Socceroos were the better team – and by beating them, they did something the Socceroos haven’t done in more than 15 years, and the Matildas haven’t done in almost seven.
And then they went and won the whole thing.
The U-20 Asian Cup is just the third piece of silverware for Australia in the Asian Football Confederation since switching from Oceania in 2006, coming a decade after the Socceroos’ triumph in the 2015 Asian Cup and the Matildas’ equivalent success in 2010.
To top it off, they did all of this without Nestory Irankunda, easily Australia’s best under-20s prospect, and one of several overseas-based players who were not released by their clubs for the tournament. (Good news, though: Irankunda was just crowned the player of the month for February at Swiss club Grasshoppers, where Bayern Munich has sent him on loan for the remainder of the season.)
Steven Hall makes the winning save in the shootout.Credit: Subway Young Socceroos
But the most significant prize here was not the trophy, it was the way it was won.
This was not a backs-to-the-wall campaign built solely on ‘Aussie DNA’. There was grit, but there was also individual brilliance. There was variety about the way they moved the ball and attacked. They scored goals from counter-attacks and set pieces, but also well-crafted passages of possession football, down the wings and through the middle. They were not afraid of receiving the ball in difficult situations. They played with a level of confidence and cohesion too rarely seen by Australian teams. They went toe-to-toe the whole time.
Much of the credit has to go to coach Trevor Morgan. He has his critics, having overseen numerous youth-level failures in the past – but this time he had the Young Socceroos absolutely purring from the outset, and should now be seen as one of Australia’s best managerial prospects.
The rest of the credit should be spread evenly across the sport. This group of players, mostly born in 2005, is among the first to have spent their entire junior development under the national curriculum introduced by then-Football Federation Australia, a framework often criticised for lazily aping Dutch ideas and turning our best juniors into ‘robots’. So much for that; our best kids now are increasingly technically and tactically adept, and the vast majority of them are emerging from A-League academies and are being exposed to senior football earlier than before.
Musa Toure.Credit: Subway Young Socceroos
This was, indeed, the best-prepared team Australia has sent to a tournament like this in recent memory. In 2018, the Young Socceroos went to the U-20 Asian Cup with their squad having seen a total of just 2,755 minutes in the A-League; this time, it was 12,136 minutes. Little wonder, then, that they performed so much better.
Say it quietly … but is this a long-term plan, coming to fruition? A sign that Australian football is actually headed in the right direction?
Yes, but only a sign. If these are the seedlings of a new golden generation, there is no guarantee they will blossom. It means nothing if this stops here.
There are some serious talents among them: Paul Okon jnr at Benfica, Adelaide United’s Panagiotis Kikianis and Jonny Yull, player of the tournament Alex Badolato, a Western Sydney Wanderers academy product, matchwinner Hall, who is already at Brighton & Hove Albion … the list goes on. But to become serious players at senior level, they must heed the recent warnings of Tony Popovic: they must continue to “raise the bar” and pursue excellence in every aspect.
Some of them will soon be flooded with offers from overseas, if they haven’t already. They must make the correct decisions in their careers, move to the right clubs, and dominate there, too. They shouldn’t settle for this, as good as it is. Nor should the institutions, clubs and administrative bodies that helped them do it.
This is a group of players that can go to a World Cup and feel they have a realistic chance of winning it. Why not? How refreshing it is to be able to say that about an Australian team. The rest is up to them.
