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At the top, Australia played really well, going back and watching again and again, you appreciate more the rigid formation that stoutly nullified almost all of Tunisia’s open field plays throughout the match. Tunisia had their opportunities, most of which came at odd moments, and it’s those moments that I’ll focus on here as it’s hard to see the Socceroos getting away with them again against Denmark… and hopefully beyond.
Throw-ins
The most innocuous of set pieces. Unless you can hurl the ball like Rory Delap, the humble throw-in is rarely a catalyst for a dangerous attacking play, teams mostly look to re-establish possession and restart their attack. I went through the match and did some stats of each throw to see if the stats bore out what I saw on pitch.
Australia throws kept possession: 7/12
Australia throws sparking dangerous attacks: The best one was a long throw close to goal that gained a corner. There was another from a similar position that should have been handled easily, but was headed into the path of Aaron Mooy, who flashed a long shot just over the bar.
The main characteristic of Australia’s throws were that they were longer, towards aerial contests and tended to go upfield.
There were a few long throws into the box, with an attacker perched near the goal and coming with momentum backwards to contest the aerial challenge, presumably to turn the ball towards a teammate in the box. Each of those was dealt with relatively easily by the defence.
Tunisia throws kept possession: 23/26
Tunisia throws sparking dangerous attacks: 40’, 52’.
Tunisia’s throws were generally quick and to feet, most went backwards to defenders to reset the attack. The times that Tunisia looked upfield were the more worrisome.
Everyone lauds Harry Souttar’s last-ditch block in the 40th minute of Issam Jebali’s shot, but it was Souttar who switched off initially in that sequence, letting Jebali get in behind in and assuming that he was going towards the touchline. In fact, the throw went over Souttar to the one attacker in any position of danger, Kye Rowles wasn’t in great position to cover and it was only some impressive scrambling that kept the Socceroos from conceding to a single attacker without any build-up.
The other switch-off of note came the other side of half time in the 52nd minute, a throw-in was conceded, two Socceroos turned their backs, and the quick throw took them unawares, a scrambling Craig Goodwin unable to prevent Naïm Sliti getting in a very dangerous position to cross the ball.
Those were two let offs for Australia, a point raised by SBS commentator Fahid Ben Khalfallah.
“It’s just a small thing, a lack of concentration, and if they can correct that, they’ve got the game.”
Not subbing clearly exhausted players
Of course, Australia coaches and staff have much better information on the physical status of their players than people watching back home in Australia. However, it seemed utterly bizarre to expect our wingers, Craig Goodwin and Matthew Leckie, to shoulder so much of the burden for attack as well as being a key part of the pressing effort from the Aussies.
Both were essentially done at the 60-minute mark. Goodwin makes a few static contributions to facilitating attack from then on, but most of his work is defensive from that point onwards, maintaining a position to stop counterattacks with Australia in position.
Leckie does nearly gets on the end of that cross from Jamie Maclaren, though it wasn’t some brilliant run to slip his marker. Go back and take a look and you’ll see that Ali Abdi completely misses the Leckie run… he’s trying to drift across and cover Ajdin Hrustic who’s jogging along in midfield before realising that Leckie is free on goal.
Would a more sprightly substitute meet that cross? Hard to say, but it was a desperate sprawling attempt from Leckie that wasn’t short of effort, credit to his work ethic throughout the match. From there however, Leckie had very little left to give, a challenge on the left wing saw him go down, struggle to return to his feet.
Graham Arnold and assistant coach Rene Meulensteen had an intense conversation on the sideline, but the decision was made to eke a few more minutes out of Leckie, during which time he contributed nothing, even halting a promising attacking move when unable to get into position to chest down a switch in play.
Both Goodwin and Leckie put in great shifts, but their boss didn’t realise when they were being unproductive in the workplace, despite their evident exhaustion.
Another was Aaron Mooy. Everyone knows the feeling when you’re presented with open ground in sport you’re either excited to make the most of it, or dreading getting caught from behind. Mooy was definitely the latter when he carried some momentum past the Tunisian defence, but he barely made it ten metres before losing the ball. Mooy was another who played a really good game, but in leaving it all out on the field, there was very little to give by the end and a substitution seemed in order.
SBS commentator Harry Kewell explained the thought process during the game, just after Leckie went down.
“I can understand, Goodwin and Leckie have been absolutely outstanding today, they’ve done everything that’s been asked of them, if not more,” said Kewell. “The only thing they haven’t got is their reward.”
It’s a World Cup, the reward is being able to celebrate with your teammates at the end of the match and your country in the moments of triumph. Goodwin and Leckie were eventually subbed at 85’, probably 25 minutes after they were well past their best. Arnold should ring those changes without sentimentality.
The best thing about these issues is that they are very easy to solve, the last thing the Socceroos need is to concede a cheap goal or be left wondering ‘what if’ when trying to operate with tired players when we’ve got plenty of able fresh athletes raring to go.
