Across 30 years of coaching some of the greatest players and teams the world has ever seen, and having lifted practically every trophy worth winning, there’s not a lot left in soccer that surprises Carlo Ancelotti.
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that → coach → Ancelotti
Tony Popovic’s Socceroos, apparently, just did.
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Socceroos → do → ?
“They played differently today,” the Brazil coach said after Tuesday night’s 4-2 result in Brisbane, having detected a clear stylistic shift from Australia since their World Cup campaign a few months ago.
“Honestly, I have to say they pressed really well, with high intensity.
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they → play → intensity
They are really well-organised, and they surprised us in this sense ...
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they → organise → sense
they put much more pressure in front, and we had more difficulty to build up from the back.
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we → put → back
“It’s a really good team, in my opinion, a really good team.
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It → ’ → opinion
I have to say, in modern football there are no easy teams.
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I → have → football
Maybe you don’t have the quality that we have, but they are really powerful players, well-organised, strong in the duels.
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they → have → duels
These were not empty platitudes from Ancelotti, but external confirmation that what you saw with your own eyes was real.
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saw → see → eyes
For long periods, Australia were Brazil’s equal – and not because they were physically aggressive, which they were, but because they dared to play.
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they → dare → periods
And while it didn’t deliver a result, the contrast with the way they played at the World Cup was stark, and what it suggests about the future of this team, with January’s Asian Cup on the horizon, is thrilling – especially with the injured Jordan Bos, Mohamed Toure and Cristian Volpato still to come.
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Bos → deliver → horizon
This window might be remembered one day as the moment in which this exciting new generation of Socceroos took a great leap forward.
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generation → remember → leap
So, was this a planned post-World Cup tactical evolution from Popovic?
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this → plan → Popovic
Or are his players now more able to execute what he has been asking them to do, as he has been saying all week?
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he → execute → them
Popovic seemed curiously unimpressed by that obvious question, offering a short and terse response, as if he had no time for its premise.
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he → seem → premise
“It’s probably more them than me,” he said.
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he → ’ → me
“I think that’s a good answer.
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that → think → ?
Yeah, let’s leave it that: it’s more the players than me.”
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it → let → me
Well, the players reckon it’s a lot more him than he was letting on.
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he → reckon → ?
“We got told to play like that,” said defender Alessandro Circati, one of Australia’s best at Suncorp Stadium.
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Circati → tell → Stadium
“So from that end, it comes from him – but then we’re the ones playing, so then that’s us.
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that → come → him
But the guidance, the things that we were told to do, ultimately comes from him, and then we’ve got to apply it on the field.”
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we → tell → field
But as midfielder Jackson Irvine noted, they are not often competitive in this particular way: by playing through trouble, instead of belting it long, and by pressing forward aggressively rather than sitting back in numbers and absorbing pressure.
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they → note → pressure
At times, they looked more like Brazil than Brazil.
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they → look → Brazil
“Obviously, it’s by design.
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it → ’ → design
It’s not luck, it’s not chance, it’s not random.
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it → ’ → ?
This is things that we’ve worked on in the last few days, images we’ve seen, and it’s been a process to build to this.
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it → work → this
And so it’s not a surprise,” Irvine said.
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Irvine → ’ → ?
“But yeah, of course, there are some moments when we’re playing football ... where you think, wow, we look a real threat here.
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we → be → football
“You can see the confidence build in players.
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confidence → see → players
Their desire to make runs, to make forward passes ... and I think that’s really exciting to see, that we have added that to our game.
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we → make → game
We still run and defend and have that part of our game, which is a non-negotiable.
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which → run → game
It has to be there.
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It → have → ?
But the ability to desire to run, to get on the ball, to break pressure, to get yourself free, fantastic.”
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ability → desire → yourself
That the Socceroos did this after recovering from an early onslaught from Brazil, which left them 1-0 down, amplified everything.
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which → recover → everything
They could have “crumbled”, as Irvine said, but they did not, reflective of a newfound resilience.
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they → crumble → resilience
“We played our way out of that pressure,” he said.
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he → play → pressure
“We managed to get the ball on the ground, break the press a couple of times and then build our way into the game.”
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We → manage → game
The crowd of 52,423, a record for soccer in Brisbane, lapped it all up, and the players could sense their appreciation for what they were seeing.
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they → lap → what
“At the World Cup, we showcased ourselves, and now they’ve started to realise, ‘You know what?
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You → showcase → what
…and 17 more, not listed.
The Aporia
