The Sun-Herald

Saturday, June 28, 2008

2010: Asian World Cup Qualifiers

We got what we wished for.

Having navigated the first round of World Cup qualifiers and dispatched
potential banana skins China and Iraq, Australia now knows the who, what,
and where of much that stands in front of qualification for the 2010 World Cup.

Here's the good news. No worrying about whether we end up in a play-off against Colombia, Brazil, or Uruguay. No sudden death trips to Montevideo. No race across the Pacific to get back to Australia.

This draw is all quite simple. Sort of.

So say hello to Uzbekistan, Bahrain, and Japan and prepare for another trip to
Doha to meet Qatar, Jorge Fossati's team of Brazilian and Senegalese imports
that is, if not exactly rivals, fast becoming regular opponents.

It could have been far worse. Away trips to North Korea and Iran, drawn in
the other group that also includes South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and the United
Arab Emirates, could have proved complicated.

For Australia, assuming positive results against both Bahrain and Qatar
are formalities, the troublemakers on our route will be Uzbekistan.

Like Australia, the Uzbeks underperformed at last year's Asian Cup but they have a formidable star in Maksim Shatskikh, the former Dynamo Kiev striker who recently joined Russian side Krylia Sovetov.

I met Shatskikh in Kuala Lumpur a few years ago when he polled runner-up
for Asian Player of the Year.

"This is the greatest moment of my career," he told me, somewhat generously.

Hopefully, finding the net against Australia won't trump that night in
Malaysia.

To make it to South Africa, Australia has to finish as one of the top two
teams in its group.

Failing that, the third place sides in each group will play-off against each
other for the right to play against the top side from Oceania.

Pim Verbeek knows that South Africa is now within sight but also knows there
can be no room for error.

"We have a very interesting group. We have to work very hard to achieve the final round," he said after the draw.

"My feeling is the final decision (of who qualifies) will be made in the last two home games.

"And that's good. We will be ready."

Finally, we have a real World Cup qualifying campaign.

Finally, destiny is in our own hands (or at our feet).

Finally, we have what we always wished for.

And finally, Mark Viduka can tell us now if he's coming on the trip.

Asia World Cup Qualifying Group A

Australia
Japan
Uzbekistan
Qatar
Bahrain

Group B

South Korea
North Korea
Iran
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates

• by Matthew Hall at 05:48 AM
• Comments (30)

Saturday, June 21, 2008

The Price Of The Socceroos

Australian football is fast becoming about more than winning on the pitch.

This weekend, Australia will host China for a World Cup qualifier at a close to sold out Homebush Stadium.

Coach Pim Verbeek will send out a young team with only Harry Kewell, playing his fifth consecutive match in as many weeks for the Socceroos, inked in as one of the team's "stars".

The C team selling out the country's so-called "home" stadium?

Not so many years ago, all of that would have been unthinkable, let alone possible to write.

Especially when this game effectively counts for nothing with China, somewhat amazingly, already out of contention for 2010 while Australia has already qualified for the next stage after last weekend's impressive 3-1 away win over Qatar in Doha.

The big match this weekend is actually in Dubai where Iraq will "host" Qatar in a humid winner-takes-all (well, qualifies for the next stage) humdinger.

For Australia, the business has already been done during this month's desert trek - and not just on the field.

FFA's membership of the Asian Football Confederation is now beginning to have an affect on the nation's diplomatic and international business effort.

Two weeks ago, in Dubai, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and his entourage from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade arrived at the match against Iraq as a VIP guest, as he should.

We needn't discuss here Iraq's recent history - and Australia's role in it - but the chances of a senior government minister rolling up for an equivalent Australia v Fiji match at Parramatta Stadium four, eight, or 12 years ago were slim, to say the least.

Three days after the game against Iraq, still in Dubai, the Socceroos were guests of honour at a lunch for Australian businesses based in the United Arab Emirates.

There was no secret that the Socceroos, more so now than any other national sporting team, is now a very important platform for Australian businesses wanting to leverage international opportunities.

"The Socceroos are wonderful ambassadors, are a wonderful platform, and give us the excellent opportunity to get Australian businesses abroad together and also send out messages to the local press about some of the capabilities of Australian business on the ground here," said James Wyndham, Consul Commercial with the Australian Consulate in the United Arab Emirates. "Dubai is a very crowded market, the world is here, and we need every opportunity to promote some of the successes that we're generating."

Wyndham points out that trade with the UAE is worth $7.2 billion to Australia, making that country our 17th largest trading partner. There are also 2.4 billion people within a couple of hours flight from Dubai and 50 per cent of the population is under the age of 24 and embracing Western culture, including football.

"The success that the Socceroos have on the field, no question, has great significance on the success we have in the boardrooms here," he adds. "Within this market, relationships and trust are intrinsic to success and the relaxed, multicultural, Australian attitude goes a long way here."

So, the true value of the Socceroos is only just starting to become known.

This year, Australia has made inroads, on and off the pitch, in China, Qatar, Iraq, and, with Iraq forced to play in Dubai, the UAE.

Next up, Japan, South Korea, and perhaps somewhat bizarrely, North Korea, Iran, and Uzbekistan.

For Australian football, business, and diplomacy, the game just got that little bit bigger.

• by Matthew Hall at 09:45 AM
• Comments (15)

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Hot Arabian Nights

Unlike Doha taxi drivers, the Socceroos are actually going somewhere.

Unfortunately, most taxi drivers in Doha know nothing.

By nothing, I mean NOTHING.

They don't know a World Cup qualifier is taking place.

They can't find the National Museum.

They don't know where a busy street of popular restaurants is.

Nor where landmark hotels are.

Only after a bit of coaxing will they agree to turn their car 180-degrees around and take you in the actual direction of the Al Sadd Sports Club, the stadium that hosted this potentially tricky World Cup qualifier.

The Al Sadd looms up from the desert sand like a mini San Siro.

But Doha is no Milan and inside, the home ground of one of Qatar's top teams is more Club Marconi but without the pokies and with more men wearing traditional Arab dress than you usually find in Fairfield on a Saturday night.

You can the pokies, though, because Sheik dollars are worth more than any coins dropped into one-arm bandits.

On matchday morning, in the narrow souqs of Doha's old town (which actually only means about 50 years ago because the 'city' was never more than a Bedouin camp before) two local men dressed in starched dish-dash and gutras sat in a store that sold pictures of Qatar national teams from the 1970s.

In among their collection was a picture from 1970 or so of a team from Oregon in the USA called 'Hellas'.

"You know that team?" asked one of the men.

So began a discussion about Greek migration, college education in America, and whether Qatar would beat Australia.

In retrospect, that discussion went longer than it needed. Australia were convincing winners.

The hot wind blew in from across the desert and, as bizarre as it may sound, this was a refreshing cool change from wet blanket.

There was a different rhythm to Dubai as well.

In Dubai, the Iraqi crowd had brought in a giant boombox but in Doha, a full band sat in the stand and led Arabic songs that drowned out whatever noise the maybe 500 traveling Australians could muster.

"I'd never played with anything like that before," said Mark Bresciano, afterwards. "It was like a disco."

Qatar had expected to play against a team of Australian giants favouring aerial ping pong but instead they faced a team intent on playing smart, fast, possession football on the ground.

"It would all be about the first goal," Pim said on the Friday before the game and so on 17 minutes Australia delivered.

Bresciano, pride stung by his omission against Iraq, crossed; Kewell took an air swing, maybe a dummy; Emerton slotted the ball into the goal.

Or maybe it was "Bob Emerson" as the ground announcer suggested.

The band played on.

The hot wind blew.

After 55 minutes of tic-tac pretty football, Australia's second goal was as Route One as you get. Schwarzer punted, Kewell found the header, Holman touched, and "Bob Emerson" silenced the Al Sadd.

"The perfect moment," Verbeek said.

Australia soon surged forward again. Kewell found the net, the linesman waved his flag for an infraction few from the stands, or from the coach's bench, could see. (It was offside, apparently.)

Stranger things occurred. Mark Schwarzer was yellow carded for taking a plastic bag off the pitch. He misses Sunday's game against China in Sydney.

When Harry Kewell bagged Australia's third after terrible defending the Qataris decided to empty the stadium.

The hot wind blew but the dust had settled.

FFA CEO Ben Buckley was on his mobile straight to Frank Lowy.

Australia had put in one of their smartest performances away from home since joining the Asian Football Confederation.

The next stage of Asian qualifiers now get interesting.

"Can I spell Uzbekistan?" replied Mark Bresciano - who is actually quite intelligent - to an impromptu Asian Cup Spelling Bee. "No. But it's not my job to."

Australia's job is now to replicate these performances in maybe Uzbekistan, North Korea, and Iran.

First though, some necessities.

"I'm looking forward to dinner and maybe a big crate of beer," Verbeek said before boarding the team bus to the hotel, airport, and then Sydney.

Oh, and me? I'm off to catch a plane to Istanbul which will be another story. So if comments don't show up here immediately, you know why. I also have to explain how Brett Emerton's sweaty shorts ended up in my suitcase.
My wife would like to know as well.

• by Matthew Hall at 09:29 AM
• Comments (28)

Sunday, June 8, 2008

My Night In A Baghdad Disco

Australia's loss to Iraq was not a football match. At least, not as we know it.

This game in Dubai was more like a night in a steaming Baghdad disco (more on that later) or maybe like taking a hot bath wrapped in a thick blanket. I'm yet to work out which.

You'll hear a lot about the conditions - heat, humidity - and so you should.

While you can watch 22 players on television try to play a football match in awful conditions (and hear the television commentators describe them from the luxury of their air conditioned booth at the stadium) unless you are actually in it, it's impossible to describe.

Before the game, on a trip to stock up on bottled water from the Lulu Hypermarket across the road from the stadium, I had to sprint across the street to avoid getting run down by a taxi.

Ten metres? Three seconds? Maybe. But that finished me off for the next hour or so.

The players - from both sides - spent 90 minutes doing this. They earned their match fees.

FIFA would do well to not worry about the problems of playing at altitude and have a think about the insanity of humidity.

The game was hosted by the Al Ahli Sports Club, a legendary football organisation in the United Arab Emirates but a long way crosstown, mentally and physically, from the supposed Dubai glitz and glamour of Jumeirah Beach and the Burj Al Arab landmark hotel.

So the weather was not the only trial, especially for fans caught up in a ticketing fiasco which saw the Iraqi Football Association charge Australians the equivalent of $100 for tickets that Arab speakers were asked to pay just $5 for.

Australians, though, are nothing if not resilient and before kick off a sole Socceroo fan beat the ticket rort and somehow gained access inside the Iraqi section of the ground while carrying a blow up plastic kangaroo on his shoulders.

He was, of course, booed and jeered but ultimately cheered by Iraqis before local police escorted him away. Not before, though, he posed for photos with his new friends.

The hour before kick off was full of more fun and games in the crowd. The call to prayer from a mosque located inside the sports club was drowned out by Australian fans chanting "Djite! Djite" at Bruce Djite, an Australian player sitting in the main stand with fellow teammates not taking part in the game.

Then, kick off. Within the opening minutes, the boisterous, Iraqi crowd hit out. Literally. Harry Kewell, playing wide on the left wing, had projectiles thrown at him from the crowd.

For Australia, though, the plan was possession. That much was obvious when Harry Kewell received the ball 30 metres inside the Iraqi half and then played a long ball back to defender Michael Beauchamp, deep inside his own half.

If it was not possession, it was industry.

Jason Culina, who Australia's coaches say will run all day for fun, waved his hands at team mates when a stray ball was slung into space: "You stay - I'll go."

Similarly, Luke Wilkshire covered the entire pitch, seemingly untroubled by the wet heat.

So too, in the second half, Brett Holman.

There's a pattern here. Despite the high tempo of the English Premier League, this trio - Australia's engine room in Dubai - play in Holland, the home of total football and the homeland for Pim Verbeek, assistant Henk Duut, and Technical Director Rob Baan.

A flair player like Nick Carle, ignored by Verbeek, may be aghast to discover this is no coincidence.

The game, meanwhile, seemed set to become a match like those you play in the park where the next goal wins. Except no one can score, dusk fast turns into dark, and your mum hasn't called you in for tea.

The winner will be the first to drop. Except no one drops.

During the week, Australia's players had been tested at training to discover just how much they sweat.

Everyone, apparently, sweats differently, and the team medical staff's analysis resulted in some players going into this game on salt supplements, others taking water retention tablets.

One of the hard lessons from last year's Asian Cup, was the news that if you lose over 10 per cent of your body's fluids, your performance is impaired.

This time, Australia was not going to be the ones to drop.

Then came a tremendous strike from Emad Rida, a curling, loping, long range shot that beat Mark Schwarzer.

"Good luck or good goal?" I was asked later. The answer was a bit of both.

Iraq's supporters, players, and officials couldn't care less. They celebrated like this was a goal of some destiny. Substitutes ran from the bench to celebrate with their teammates. The crowd burst into spontaneous dancing and singing.

In the second half, from out of somewhere - perhaps smuggled in under someone's long woolen winter coat if the temperature allowed it - Iraqi disco music boomed out from a PA system from the cheap(er) seats across the ground.

The music, Iraqi pop tunes, blared across the pitch, around the ground, and was picked up by the crowd.

Forget the football. We were now in a Baghdad nightclub (albeit with no air conditioning) singing along to the equivalent of Iraq's Kylie Minogue (or maybe it was Nick Cave, it was difficult to tell).

The music (and singing and dancing) stopped only to allow another call to prayer from the local mosque but boomed out again once those formalities were complete.

This was certainly not the Sydney Football Stadium.

As the clock ticked down, and some of Iraq's players fell down, the calls from the crowd for Allahu Akbar! - "God is Great!" - gave way for whistles for the ref to call time, even if there were five full minutes, at least, to play.

As you now probably know, Australia had several chances to equalise but didn't.

The ref finally blew his whistle, a cue for Iraqi fans to invade the pitch en masse in celebration which, while perhaps understandable considering the joy such victories bring to their people, FIFA will not look kindly on.

As the crowd swarmed the players it was as if, forget the Asian Cup, Iraq had just won the World Cup.

Maybe they had. Just over a week ago it seemed Iraq was out of the tournament for political reasons. Qualification would have been impossible had they lost on this night, but here they survive again, at least until next week.

Later, Pim Verbeek looked drained and strained.

"I cannot blame my players," he said of the loss. "I don't know about you but I was sweating just doing nothing."

"We have to win next week. We had to win one of the two games (Iraq or Qatar). We have to see how the players react to this defeat."

Outside the stadium, cars (and a few Hummers) drove down the street, passengers hanging out the windows, waving Iraqi flags.

Who knows? Next time, we might even get to do this in Baghdad.

• by Matthew Hall at 07:09 AM
• Comments (28)