Olympic Failure Requires Honest Assessment

So the Olyroos won't be going to the London Olympics this year after failing to do the job in qualifying.  Probably the most worrying concern was the fact that the lads have thus far failed to find the back of the net in five games.  Obviously we need to improve this situation and ensure we have a better qualification campaign for the next Olympics, but how?  Typically we would write off the coach, Aurelio Vidmar in this case, and say he is a total failure and he should be sacked immediately.  As well as that typically this generation would be branded utterly useless and declare the future of the Socceroos is in all sorts of trouble.  To be honest I think it would be stupid to do either, and after such a bad qualification campaign you may ask why.

The major factor that contributed to our problems in qualification are not coaching or the players that played.  It was the players that didn't.  At no stage did Australia ever pick anything like it's strongest squads.  Why you may ask.  Well it comes down to the fact none of the qualifiers were played on FIFA international dates which meant that European clubs were under no compunction to release players for these matches and in Australia's case that proved telling.  Here's list of guys who could easily have been called up but weren't.

Chris Herd, Tommy Oar, Luke Devere, Matthew Leckie, Ryan Williams, Ryan McGowan, Steven Lustica, Jason Davidson, Shane Lowry, James Holland, Brent McGrath, Aaron Mooy, Alex Cisak, Danny Ireland, Dean Bouzanis, Matthew Fletcher

In fact I can make an entire starting eleven in a 4-2-3-1 formation out of this group of players.

GK - Dean Bouzanis
LB - Jason Davidson
CB - Shane Lowry
CB - Luke Devere
RB - Ryan McGowan
CM - Chris Herd
CM - James Holland
LW - Tommy Oar
AM - Aaron Mooy
RW - Matthew Leckie
ST - Brent McGrath

It's fair to say that bar one or two players this would probably have been Vidmar's preferred starting eleven during qualification. So basically we took to the qualification with our B team.  But even that isn't quite true as Vidmar was further denied players when the agreement was reached that for the most recent games he would draw no more than three players from each A-League club.  The reasons for this were obvious as doing otherwise would have had a significant impact on a number of squads who had brought through and were heavily using young players.

At the end of the day we went through this qualification campaign with one hand tied behind our back.  Qualification was always going to be a struggle as a result.  It's unfair to victimise Vidmar and the lads who did play when so many players were unavailable.

Clive Palmer has been one who has been quick to sink in the boot in his recent tirades against the FFA, even going as far as challenge the Olyroos to play an under 23 Gold Coast side.  It's typically childish fare from an individual so lacking in any sort of class as Palmer but it shows the moronic sentiment that gets around.  Palmer may be keen to try and show up the Olyroos side that actually played in the qualifiers but I'm not so sure he would be as keen to take on one like the one I've listed above, and that's the crux of the problem.  We actually have a really good crop of under 23 players, it's just that most of them didn't play for us.  That's an issue that FIFA needs to solve with its scheduling.