If the Socceroos can’t give us style, we’re at least owed a decent scrap
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Remember when Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou had the audacity to suggest Australians should dream of winning the World Cup?
"I don't see why we can't win one," said Postecoglou.
"It should be our objective.
"It sounds a bit far-fetched when I tell people that, but there isn't a sport in this world that we (Australia) haven't conquered."
Postecoglou did not mean Australia could win the next World Cup, nor even the three or four after that.
His idea was that each four-year campaign should be a step on the path to that difficult but, in his mind, achievable objective.
That was only 14-months ago when the Socceroos were still fighting to qualify for Russia 2018.
But in the grand (although not very grandiose) scheme of Australian football, that seems like a lifetime ago.
Since then Postecoglou has left his job having delivered World Cup qualification, but in a manner far too nerve racking for those pundits who felt his optimistic approach had imperilled the Socceroos' campaign.
In Postecoglou's place the FFA appointed not one, but two new coaches.
Bert van Marwijk will take the Socceroos to Russia and Graham Arnold will then either bask in the reflected glory or clean up the mess.
So by the time the Socceroos got to this World Cup, in one significant respect Australian football had returned to business as usual.
Fancy pie-in-the-sky notions like one day "winning the World Cup" (or, for that matter, funding the developmental pathways that might make that a realistic possibility) had been pushed to the side of the plate.
In Russia, the expectations are that the Socceroos will again play the tenacious underdog and attempt to eke out what results they can to "get out of their group" — the gold standard for those who derided Postecoglou's optimism and, most particularly, his defensive formation.
But if that approach is seen by some as a sensible acknowledgement Australia does not have, and never will have, the talent to compete as an equal against the best teams, we in turn have the right to expect better results.
In Brazil four years ago Australia's defeats in fiercely contested, hugely entertaining games against Chile and the Netherlands were lauded because the Socceroos played at a level few thought possible.
While Postecoglou and his team were shattered their bold efforts were for nought, there was a sense of exhilaration about seeing Australia take it up to two of the world's best teams.
It felt like a marker had been set for the game here.
Now the Socceroos have reverted to the more defensive, more pragmatic approach you would expect from their Dutch coach whose contractual obligation does not extend as far as the next A-League season.
Consequently we can demand more of this team than we would if the Socceroos were on a long-term mission to improve their overall status.
If aesthetic values are to be thrown out the window, then we at least deserve a hard-fought point or two for our troubles.
The obvious problem is that for Australia's renowned "fighting qualities", trying to arm wrestle the three very talented teams it has drawn is unlikely to prove much easier than trying to play football against them.
Two reasonably heartening warm-up victories over non-qualifiers Czech Republic and Hungary did not ease the concerns about what the Socceroos will face against star-studded France in their opening match on Saturday.
Most chilling was the thought of the damage the fleet-footed French attackers such as Olivier Giroud and Antoine Griezmann might inflict if the Socceroos' defence concedes the ball as generously as it did to the Hungarians.
The France game seems a bit like the challenge the Socceroos faced at South Africa 2010 in its opening game against Germany.
Although, on that occasion, an Australian team containing the remnants of the 2006 Golden Era squad walked into an ambush in Durban and was thrashed 4-0.
These Socceroos have been left in no doubt about their limitations and will be drilled to defend for their lives.
A consoling thought for the Socceroos is that where Germany are famously reliable, France have botched more than the odd promising World Cup campaign.
Not least in South Africa where Les Bleus imploded on and off the pitch.
But with the French players this time willing to share the team bus with their coach, the more realistic hope is that the Socceroos can somehow scratch out a result — or at least not suffer a defeat so great that their fate is sealed after one game.
Then to Denmark and Peru, currently rated number 11 and number 12 on FIFA's world rankings which, as much as their respective footballing pedigrees and impressive team sheets, gives an idea of the challenge the Socceroos face.
The most encouraging moment of Australia's World Cup build-up came when Daniel Arzani came from the bench against Hungary and scored from a long-range strike, albeit with the aid of a goalkeeping blunder.
Any meaningful game time for the talented 19-year-old gets in Russia will be a solid investment in the Socceroos' future.
Otherwise having reverted to old-fashioned pragmatism after a brief period of altruism, we have the right to expect these Socceroos are at the very least bloody-mindedly competitive to the last.
If we can't have style, we are at least owed a decent scrap.
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