Could Kevin Muscat be the next coach of the Socceroos?
That’s a question he won’t answer out of respect for the incumbent, but he does have some free advice for Graham Arnold as to how his team should tackle the enormous challenge facing them at the World Cup in Qatar.
Kevin Muscat is a leading contender to take over the Socceroos if Graham Arnold’s contract isn’t renewed.Credit:Getty
It is, unsurprisingly, closely aligned with the philosophy of his friend, mentor and predecessor at new Japanese champions Yokohama F. Marinos, Ange Postecoglou: play without fear.
“We talk about getting to the World Cup … but now, let’s go and enjoy it,” Muscat told the Herald and The Age.
“Of course, the definition of enjoyment from one person to the next is very, very different. But what I mean is we should fear nobody. If we’re supposedly meant to be getting beaten, not get out of the group and all those things – why wouldn’t we go and have a real crack at everyone?
Kevin Muscat at the 2005 Confederations Cup with the Socceroos.Credit:Getty
“Die on our feet rather than live on our knees, type thing. The team’s filled with energy. Let’s go and have a crack and try to play some exciting, entertaining football.”
The first players in Arnold’s 26-man squad begin arriving in Qatar on Sunday. The Socceroos are in a very tough Group D with defending champions France, an in-form Denmark and Tunisia.
Most would agree it is probably the weakest squad Australia has taken to football’s showpiece event. Expectations are low given how difficult the team found it to qualify and how few players feature for clubs in Europe’s top leagues.
But it is there that Muscat, who is in Melbourne for his daughter’s wedding after clinching the J.League title last weekend, takes issue with the Australian mentality at World Cups.
In 2006, when the “golden generation” got out of a group featuring Brazil, Japan and Croatia, the Socceroos were also the weakest team on paper, man-to-man, of the four teams. It was the same at South Africa 2010, Brazil 2014, Russia 2018 – and again, now, at Qatar 2022.
“This is a myth. We hide behind this when it suits,” Muscat said of the idea that because Australian teams are unfancied on the global stage, their best chance of success is with conservative football.
“We’ve got to come away from hiding behind that, and looking back. These guys who have made this squad deserve to be let off the leash.
“It’s the players who really deserve that opportunity to go, ‘You know what? Let’s play a brand of football that suits us, and attack teams’, because, hey, as everyone says, or as most people think, we shouldn’t be winning anyway, or we can’t win anyway because the opponents have got better players – well, it’s even more reason to roll your sleeves up and have a crack.”
The good news is that Arnold’s recent rhetoric matches what Muscat is saying, although the proof will ultimately be on the pitch in Doha.
Muscat qualifies his opinions with the caveat that he isn’t as close to the Socceroos’ coalface as he used to be, given what has been on his plate at Yokohama. He took charge of the club last year after Postecoglou joined Celtic.
Kevin Muscat lifts the J.League trophy with Yokohama F. Marinos last weekend.Credit:Getty
Last weekend, the Melbourne Victory legend sealed his first overseas league title when Yokohama beat Vissel Kobe 3-1 on the final day of the J.League season. It has boosted his standing as a coach on the rise, and led to speculation he could take over from Arnold if his contract isn’t extended by Football Australia after the World Cup.
“We’re about to go to a World Cup and Arnie’s in a job. We’ve currently got a head coach,” he said. “I would never lobby for the national team job anyway. But I don’t think the time is right for me to be making comments or statements about my ambition with the national team.”
For what it’s worth, FA sources say the federation has a very high opinion of Muscat’s work.
Others have dreamed of having two Aussies in the dugout at an Old Firm derby, given Muscat’s links to Rangers, where he once played, and the current struggles of Postecoglou’s Ibrox rival Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
While Muscat only just re-signed with Yokohama, he did reveal he had already turned back several job offers from clubs in Europe, where there is more focus on the J.League as a potential market for players and managers, given Postecoglou’s success in Scotland.
“Throughout the year, there was a couple of opportunities but I didn’t really entertain them,” he said.
“We love it in Japan. Until something else comes up that interests me, I’m just going to focus on the present – if you do that, the future will look after itself, but if you’re focusing on the future, you’ll mess up what’s in front of you.
