World Soccer: The state of the game in Australia.

Well, as I sit here the news has dawned on me that the Australian men's Olympic football team has been eliminated from the tournament in the group stages. There are many who love the World Game in Australia, and to see that a major television station has refused to show the games live as it would conflict with their prime time schedule is just sickening. It seems that people would rather watch Home and Away rather than the Olympic football.

Now that's one farce out of the way there is a bigger issue at hand, and it is the way by which the coach of both the Socceroos coach (Pim Verbeek) and Olyroos coach (Graham Arnold) have thrown together sides filled with potential only to have them play negative football or should I say hoofball?

Pim Verbeek has a serious problem at the moment, he is short of a potent attack. Now I'm not telling the man how to do his job, but I feel that he is overlooking players too readily. For example there is a exceptionally talented player by the name of Richard Porta who plays for Siena in the Italian Serie A, despite the fact that he was born in Australia, he has never set foot on Australian soil since the age of 1. However he has stated his willingness and desire to don the Green and Gold. Mr. Verbeek stated that he didn't want to pick a played that he "..had seen on youtube". Pim here's some advice. Go to Siena during the season, watch Porta. Pim also had the chance to watch Porta ply his trade for River Plate of Uruguay (where Porta scored 41 goals in 78 apps.) and declined to do so.

Graham Arnold is by far the most inept man to ever take charge of a football team at any level. By playing an ultra defensive, negative style he seems to think that the Australian fans should take positives out of what he has done so far. Alright, in Beijing, Australia drew with Serbia 1-1, lost to Argentina 1-0 and lost to the Ivory Coast 1-0. Fair enough that our players kept up with the others in the group of death, but does this recent debacle make up for the fact that Arnold has fielded teams that have struggled to cope with Singapore and Qatar?

Australia has a team that it can be proud of. It's only lacking managers who can mould both the socceroos and olyroos into the powerhouse teams they can become.

Thanks for reading my rant.

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