There’s no denying Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou still has a lot of work to do before the next friendly and invariably the World Cup.
Just 100 days lie ahead before the Socceroos go up against the world’s best, while Postecoglou will only have 20 days with the whole team to imprint his philosophy and style.
Booking in for May 26 for their next encounter against South Africa, the team will be looking different and hopefully showing signs of readiness for the World Cup.
It was a demoralising loss for Postecoglou’s men in London, taking on Ecuador who managed to put through four goals after the Socceroos earned a deserved 3-0 lead.
In typical Postecoglou style, giving some new player the chance at hitting the pitch was integral to building a new and impressive team, even if this time it didn’t work.
“We learnt some good lessons about what we can do and what we can’t do,” he said.
“We’re exposing 20- and 21- year-old kids to seasoned internationals, but that’s what we’ve got to do. If we don’t give these guys opportunities we won’t
develop the footballers we want – and we can’t go to a World Cup without them having a taste of that sort of experience.
“When you do throw them into the deep end sometimes, like today in the second half, you pay a price because youngsters can make decisions that are a little naive, but I think they’ll learn from that.”
Curtis Good, the youngest player in the squad at 20 years of age, started in defence, while 21-year-old Massimo Luongo made his debut, coming on for captain Mile Jedinak. The two showed that Postecoglou is serious about introducing a new ‘golden generation’, and leaving big names out like former captain
Lucas Neil might be the norm.
Tim Cahill, on the other hand, proved he most certainly deserves a spot after scoring a double in the Ecuador match, making him the highest goal scorer of all time for the Socceroos.
At 32 goals, he surpassed previous holder Damian Mori for the title.
The 34-year-old says it’s a dream come true.
“It’s a great moment in my career. Something you strive for as a kid, to achieve great things like this,” he said.
Now as Cahill and the rest of the team go back to their clubs, Postecoglou will be running through match day game plans again.
“We’re still fine tuning the way we want to play. We have games against South Africa and Croatia before the World Cup so we can strengthen the foundation that we’ve started,” he said.
“I was really happy with the shape in that first half and the team was able to play the type of football we wanted to. We were really bright and positive. Every time we got the ball we tried to find little angles for ourselves and when we broke through Tommy Oar and Matty Leckie and Tommy Rogic it was really exciting to see.”