It’s finally here. The Socceroos began
their fourth World Cup campaign on Saturday morning AEST with a match against
Chile, the side against whom they recorded their first ever result in a World
Cup when the two nations drew 0-0 in West Berlin in 1974. The venue was the Arena
Pantanal in the city of Cuiabá, least populous of the twelve host cities and
capital of the state of Mato Grosso, which shares a border with Bolivia.
It’s fair to say that little was expected
of this Socceroos squad going into the opening match. Unlike 2006 and 2010, the
low expectations of this tournament are more akin to 1974, when we were lumped
in with Haiti and Zaire as the Cup’s easybeats. Since former coach ‘Is The
Bread Holger’s?’ Osieck became toast after consecutive 6-0 friendly losses to
Brazil and France, Ange Postecoglou has built a disproportionately young and
A-League-based squad, from whom, it seems, the best we could hope for was to
play attacking football and to rebuild for 2018.
The received wisdom about the Chileans was
that, unlike Australia’s other two Group B opponents – Spain and the
Netherlands – who tend to monopolise possession, the Chileans prefer to attack,
but can by leaky in defence. With this in mind, the Socceroos played a friendly
earlier this year against Ecuador, supposed to be a similarly-structured team
to Chile, and lost 4-3 after leading 3-0 at half-time. Familiar faces in the
Chilean starting eleven include Juventus midfielder Arturo Vidal, barcelonista striker Alexis Sánchez, and
Cardiff City hard man Gary Medel. Given all this, we were set for what was
predicted to be the most exciting and winnable game of the Socceroos’ campaign,
but ultimately not one in which an upset was expected.
The Socceroos, clad all in yellow (matching
shirts and shorts being FIFA’s latest television-fuelled Brilliant Idea), had
the first chance of the game a few minutes in when Mark Bresciano crossed to
set up a Tim Cahill header. The match quickly settled into a steady rhythm,
both teams playing expansive passes to all parts of the pitch. Two early
Chilean goals showed the weakness of the Socceroos’ defence. In the twelfth
minute, the ball moved around in the box between a few chileño feet before being headed down to Alexis Sánchez, inexplicably
unmarked by any of the (at least) four Australian outfielders in the box, who
toe-poked into the bottom right-hand corner. The second arrived two minutes
later, when a run from near the benches was completed by Sánchez setting up
Chilean football’s enfant terrible,
Jorge Valdívia for a shot into the top left-hand corner.
For i
gialloverdi, chances were almost as plentiful, but relied on Tommy Oar or
Mathew Leckie crossing to Tim Cahill, or from a spate of low, speculative
strikes from Mark Bresciano in the middle third of the match. The only
breakthrough came in the thirty-fifth minute, when the rinse-and-repeat cross
to Cahill method resulted in a headed goal, although the former Everton man was
denied twice in the few minutes after half-time, once by some shirt-pulling by
the Chilean defender, and once by an offside call. A few more missed chances
and a yellow card from the Ivorian referee resulting from some argy-bargy in a
pre-half-time wall rounded out an ultimately frustrating day for him.
After having possession for less than a
third of the first half, the Socceroos came out firing after the break. A
fifteen-minute period played at a frenetic tempo resulted in the aforementioned
chances for Cahill, a miss for Leckie at close range, a caution for captain
Mile Jedinak, and the substitution of Arturo Vidal, who was brought off on the
hour mark after being overshadowed by Sánchez and Valdívia. The fruitless
period almost came to a crashing end a minute after, when an Eduardo Vargas
shot from inside the box was deflected by goalkeeper Mat Ryan and spectacularly
cleared off the line by Alex Wilkinson. Chilean coach Jorge Sampaoli, made to
look psychopathic at one point by some creepy close-up camera work by the SBS
crew, replaced Valdívia in the sixty-eighth minute with Wigan Athletic’s Jean
Beausejour. It proved to be a masterful decision: with Sánchez in receipt of
attention from Australia’s defenders (which earned Mark Milligan a yellow card
when he fouled the counter-attacking Barcelona forward), it was Beausejour who
latched onto a rebounded save in stoppage time to score Chile’s third.
For the Socceroos, it was an adequate
performance, leaving fans with the confidence that the men in verde y oro won’t be embarrassed against
the Netherlands and Spain, although the need to keep Sánchez out of the game
left too many key players one more caution away from a suspension. They now
head to Porto Alegre to face a Dutch side which demolished the world champions
5-1 earlier in the morning.
Chile 3 (Alexis Sánchez 12’;
Jorge Valdívia 14’; Jean Beausejour 92’) – Australia 1 (Tim Cahill 35’)
Cautions: Tim Cahill (Aust.) 44’; Mile
Jedinak (Aust.) 58’; Mark Milligan (Aust.) 68’; Charles Aránguiz (Chile) 86’
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