The coach, Bert Van Marwijk, is no young, idealistic, evangelical Australian committed to developing the sport in the long term with a view to winning a major prize within the next year.
He is a 65-year-old veteran of the game, a man with excellent credentials but with necessarily a short-time horizon. His contract ends when the Socceroos say goodbye in Russia.
For the current boss the job represents an interesting challenge and the chance to go to the World Cup again (having taken his own national team there in 2010 where they came within four minutes of taking a brilliant Spanish side to a penalty shoot out and qualified Saudi Arabia at Australia’s expense last year).
It also gives him a chance to remind the football world that he is back in business.
As auditions for major jobs in the second half of the year, it doesn’t get much better than this sort of shop window. After all, his prospects of staying on with the Socceroos are non-existent as Graham Arnold has been anointed as his successor for the 2019 Asian Cup and beyond.
That’s not to say he will be taking the task lightly, as the opportunity has its downsides as well as its benefits.
Do well with the Socceroos and his stocks as a coach will rise and he will be in the frame for other international or club positions. But underperform and his reputation will suffer.
Time, a commodity Van Marwijk does not have at his disposal, is running out more quickly than he would like. He has these two games, plus a couple more in late May and early June, to tweak, tinker and get his tuning right.
Four years ago, the March friendly match window was for Postecoglou the end of the beginning. The World Cup, then the Asian Cup and an exhilarating future loomed.
For Van Marwijk, its already the beginning of the end. How it plays out is the fascinating question, and some, though not all, answers will be provided in the next week.
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SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
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