Adam Peacock: Socceroos in chaos and Australian football fractured ahead of Japan World Cup qualifier

Bus breaks down on the way to the game?

The whole team forgets boots and has to play in Birkenstocks?

VAR is hacked on the night by Chinese bots, seeking retribution for Australia’s trade war?

Don’t rule anything out. Not even a psychedelic clairvoyant could have predicted what has happened before the two monumental games of football the Socceroos are about to play.

Japan at home tomorrow, Saudi Arabia away next Tuesday. Both must win to qualify for a World Cup. Everything needed to go perfectly in the lead-up.

Instead, best-laid plans have turned to papier-mache, drenched in a vat of chaos.

Covid outbreaks, the manager coaching remotely, the manager going to the beach and becoming talkback fodder, injuries and laughably, A League club refusals to release players.

It’s been quite the build-up.

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The least of Socceroo manager Graham Arnold’s worries is an errant trip to take in the waves of Narrabeen while in Covid isolation.

It’s not yet known if Arnold will be present on the sideline. He’ll need to provide a negative Covid test to release from isolation on the morning of the match.

The big quandary is what side to assemble to trouble a Japan which has won five on the bounce, conceding just once in that time. Resources are stretched and it won’t be until full-time on Thursday that it will be known how far.

No Aaron Mooy (Covid) and Tom Rogic (ankle) are hammer blows. So much is lost in creativity without them.

The selection and happiness of former Uruguayan Bruno Fornaroli has been one little bright spot, though Mitch Duke is expected to start against Japan up top. The key attacking threat promises to be Martin Boyle, the naturalised Scot now playing in Saudi Arabia.

How Australia gets the ball to him quickly to allow a one-one situation with his direct opponent is fundamental in making life difficult for the technically superior Japanese.

Arnold has pointed to the requirement of a robust attitude against Japan. That is not to say Sonny Bill Williams and Barry Hall will be asked to back up from the night before as cover, but a willingness to unsettle Japan out of their smooth way of moving the ball is a must.

Young players like Connor Metcalfe and Nathaniel Atkinson, not known to shirk a challenge, have been brought in.

A night like tomorrow is why qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics was so important. Six of the current squad, Atkinson and Metcalfe two of them, played in the Olyroos win over Argentina in Tokyo last August. Looking at the overall playing depth, Arnold knew qualifying for the Olympics was critical, to give those players international exposure in big games.

They now have it right when the Socceroos need it.

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Japan is in Australia seeking a win which would guarantee a seventh straight World Cup appearance. It has been some turnaround to be on the verge of confirmation, with a game in hand.

Swivel back to the first meeting in this group last October, and it was Japan’s manager, Hajime Moriyasu, under more pressure than a sumo wrestlers’ belt.

Moriyasu, a former teammate of Graham Arnold at Sanfrecce Hiroshima when former Socceroos boss Eddie Thompson was in charge, is conservative by nature.

That trait was targeted after Japan started this qualifying stage with uninspiring losses to Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Hashtags flew around calling for Moriyasu’s sacking. Disparaging signs used to be the biggest sign of discontent. The hashtag is now the hallmark of a dead manager walking.

Yet Moriyasu survived when Japan dragged themselves to a result against Australia that night in Saitama, the manager tweaking his naturally-conservative game plan to press opponents into errors high up the pitch.

Samurai Blue has thrived since under the same instructions.

They arrive in Australia confident, but without three late withdrawals (a mere blip compared to Australia) – starting striker Yuya Osako, Ange Postecoglou’s January signing at Celtic Daizen Maeda and veteran defender Hiroki Sakai were all ruled out on the weekend.

Incredibly, Ritsu Doan is not in the squad. Doan is one of Japan’s brightest talents, starring with PSV Eindhoven on the weekend and named Eredivisie (Holland’s top division) player of the week. If he held an Australian passport he’d start every game and be on billboards.

Seven Japanese squad members are at clubs in Europe’s “big five” leagues. Australia has two – Mat Ryan (Real Sociedad, Spain) and Ajdin Hrustic (Eintracht Frankfurt, Germany)

Our Asian rivals move forward while we stand still. This is no Socceroos Golden Generation. Start thinking big and frustration is easily found.

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These two matches have a sense of inevitability in the football community. Never a sport lacking opinions from within, some aim grievances to Arnold, others to the state and national federations, others to clubs or broadcasters.

Postecoglou’s recent statements shine a light on why he had a gutful and quit in 2017 and has never been happier since. The inability to agree on development practices, what the club competition structure should be among other unsolvable issues, stuck in the mud of governance.

Just before he took the role in 2018, Arnold attended the World Cup in Russia as an observer and days before the Socceroos final game against Peru, he fronted a fan group in Sochi. He spoke of his passion for Australian football, and all he wanted was for the game to move on as one. In practice, it’s worn him down, sucked in to the same vortex Postecoglou got dragged into of caring so much about the state of the game.

Arnold and Postecoglou haven’t been just managers of football teams. Their care for Australian football has seen them become quasi-administrators too, trying to convince others of their clear ideas on how to progress the game. Dead ends have been met. Self-interest trumps all.

The Curtis Good situation, where the Melbourne City defender was denied a late call up to the Socceroos by his club, is a beautiful example of the ugly truth the game is as fractured as ever.

Administrators of the past, brought in from other sports, have been unable to answer the need for footballing reform. Commercially and aesthetically, the game is in a better place than 20 years ago.

The national men’s team is not, and since the Howard government blew up the old Soccer Australia in 2003 and Frank Lowy started again with the FFA, the governing body has never had to deal with missing out on the trappings of a World Cup.

The current financial state won’t turn into a disaster by missing out of the lucrative pot of money given to World Cup participants (around $15 million in 2022). A nice TV deal for national teams, and hosting a Women’s World Cup will keep the FA in the black and help CEO James Johnson sleep at night.

Back of mind, though, for Johnson will be what next. The short, medium and long-term all need serious attention.

There have been no rumblings Arnold is under immediate pressure or indication he won’t lead the side until the end of the road is reached, be it in June through a playoff loss, or December at the World Cup itself.

After that, expect to see Arnold go back to clubland – either here in Australia or abroad (he turned down a lucrative offer from FC Seoul in Korea last year, and has many contacts in his former stomping ground of Holland).

The medium and long term will have to wait. There is enough to immediately focus on.

Given the last week, the game against Japan starting 8pm on Thursday feels light years away.

Minute by minute, hour by hour is the approach, just to ensure nothing else can go wrong.

There is literally no time left, and no room for error.