Qatar v Australia - Match Report

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Qualification for the next phase has been secured. Many congratulations to Verbeek and the squad for successfully navigating the ‘group of death'.

Glass Half Empty

I guess I'll start with the negatives. Qatar couldn't handle the Socceroos as a team. The movement off the ball, players interchanging positions and moving between the defensive and midfield lines caused all sorts of havoc for the Qataris. As for our defence, we couldn't handle the Qataris as individuals. As a team, they didn't create much or look dangerous. They are a team that very much relies on the brilliance of Sebastián Quintana and to a less extent, Fábio César. Verbeek recognised this threat and tried to resolve this by double teaming Quintana every time he got the ball. Unfortunately, Quintana often, if not the majority of the time, had the class and quality to beat two men in confined spaces. The defenders marking him would always be a combination of North or Beauchamp and Valeri or Culina.

Unfortunately, some pretty poor decisions were made when it came to closing down Quintana which either allowed him to get away or win a free-kick. The two men would get much too tight which allowed Quintana to beat both at the same time. Of course, it always took a bit of magic and superb skill. Sometimes he would nutmeg one defender and go around, or he would tap the ball between the two and go through the middle. One of the two men really needed to stand off. These balls he would play into space to get around a defender would have been easily picked up by the second defender if he didn't get so close. The whole point of having two defenders is to ensure that there is backup if one gets beaten. This effect is completely negated if both close in too much on the opponent.

As I said, we couldn't handle the individuals but as a team, Qatar didn't provide much of a threat. Their attack was generally unstructured, hitting balls hopefully up to Quintana to see if he could do anything with it. Luckily for them, in Quintana, they have a player who is capable of making something out of nothing.

As for the individual performances, there were concerns all around. In Brisbane, I commented how the defence lacked structure and didn't work as a defensive unit. Against Qatar, every one of the back four struggled in terms of preventing their direct opponent beating them. Quintana beat Beauchamp for pace while his footwork was too much for North. Carney should have been pulled up for a penalty in the area on Quintana after he was far too easily beaten on the by-line. His attempt to win back the ball was very clumsy as he basically pushed Quintana over to get the ball. Something for the team to work on before we head into the next phase where we will meet teams with several players of the quality of Quintana, not just one or two. Note: I've watched a few games from the other groups and the team I hope we avoid is not Japan or Korea but Uzbekistan who remain the only team with a perfect record.

Glass Half Full

Many positives came out of this win. The passing games of Culina and Valeri were excellent. Every pass was hit with calculation and intent and basically never with mere hope. The passes are well weighted and are to receivers that will not be immediately pressured once they get the ball. You can really see that both have been brought up in footballing cultures that teach players to jealously cherish possession. Hard to pick who was the better of the two because both were excellent.

It was from this base that Australia built from the back, switched play between flanks and recycled possession when no options were available. When Culina played in an advanced role against Iraq, I thought this didn't really suit him. He wants to be the first option out of defence, to be able to look up and direct play as he sees fit rather than basically having the direction of attack already determined for him by receiving the ball in the final third. Verbeek will have some hard choices to make when Grella is available again given his consistency over the years. Headaches, but good headaches to have.

I commented that against Iraq, we played a hit-and-hope game. Sometimes this would occur with a few aimless crosses into the box from the full-backs. Other than that, we built from Culina and Valeri to a fluid quartet of Emerton, Kewell, Holman and Bresciano. It was Holman and Kewell that ran the orchestra in the final third. Holman had an excellent game and was involved in all our best plays. He provided the angled ball to Bresciano which found the Palermo man with yards of space and plenty of time to place his cross into the area for Emerton to convert. It was his lobbed pass which set up Emerton's second and his cross that provided Kewell with Australia's final goal. His movement between the defensive and midfield lines made him very hard to track for the Qatari defenders while his interplay with Kewell made it seem like they had been playing together for years. This performance made those criticisms of him in the fan forums laughable.

Bresciano, although not as lively as Holman, was very dangerous on his return. He was all over the park, often popping up on the opposite flank or in the centre. This fluid formation really works for Bresciano as his intelligent movement off the ball really comes to the fore. As for Emerton, this was a great move by Verbeek. Wilkshire is a tidy footballer but doesn't really provide much going forwards. Emerton should be used permanently in this position. He has a decent cross, bundles of energy, has pace that is very useful on the counter-attack and the ability to take on and beat players. Much of this is wasted when he plays at right-back.

Conclusion

A few headaches, some serious, still need to be addressed. However, the positives definitely outweighed the negatives, particularly with the change to an attacking mentality and the measured and intentional way we broke down the Qatari defence.