Socceroos with and without Ange

#	Socceroos	MP	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	P
1	With-Ange	8	3	4	1	10	8	2	13
2	After-Ange	8	2	2	4	7	8	-1	8

The same generation of Australian players that Ange Postecoglou coached are now playing together under other coaches. Let’s see if results got better or worse.

In the above league table After-Ange’s results are for the 8 games since Ange left. With-Ange’s results are for Ange’s last 8 games (no friendlies).

After-Ange record

Date	Comp	Home*		Score	Away
25/01/19	AC	UAE (79)		1 – 0	Australia
21/01/19	AC	Australia		0 – 0	Uzbekistan(95)
15/01/19	AC	Australia		3 – 2	Syria (74)
11/01/19	AC	Palestine (99)		1 – 2	Australia
06/01/19	AC	Australia		0 – 1	Jordan (109)
26/06/18	WC	Australia		0 – 2	Peru (11)
21/06/18	WC	Denmark (12)		1 – 1	Australia
16/06/18	WC	France (7)		2 – 1	Australia

*All of these matches were at neutral venues except against UAE.

With-Ange record

Date	Comp	Home*		Score	Away
15/11/17	WCQ	Australia		3 – 1	Honduras (69)
11/11/17	WCQ	Honduras (69)		0 – 0	Australia
10/10/17	WCQ	Australia		2 – 1	Syria (73)
05/10/17	WCQ	Syria (73)		1 – 1	Australia
05/09/17	WCQ	Australia		2 – 1	Thailand (122)
31/08/17	WCQ	Japan (55)		2 – 0	Australia
25/06/17	COC	Chile (9)		1 – 1	Australia
22/06/17	COC	Cameroon (55)		1 – 1	Australia

*Confederations cup (COC) games were at a neutral venue.

These games are comparable

We have a small sample size, welcome to international football. There have been a couple of changes in individual Socceroos players available but not in the overall quality of players.

The average FIFA ranking of teams Ange faced in his last 8 games was 75, in the 8 games since then it has been 69. Given the vagaries of the rankings this is basically equal.

Ange was good but hurt the team by leaving

Ange Postecoglou is a divisive figure amongst Australian soccer fans. He is called everything from our greatest ever coach to a disaster for the national team. I think he was both.

Ange had a great record, he won us the Asian Cup! But he took a contract to coach the Socceroos until the end of the 2018 World Cup campaign. After qualifying the team he lacked the courage to see it through.

Sure there is a lot we don’t know, maybe the FFA were bad to work for, maybe the media were annoying. Geewiz, so everything was not perfect, have some fortitude and finish your job! It was obviously going to be difficult from the beginning. Do you think it was easy to coach Panama or England or Egypt to the World Cup? Ange was in a brilliant position, the position he chose!

The team should not have been left without a coach, and the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) should not have been put in the position of having to find a new coach, 6 months before the World Cup. Ange’s cowardly exit left us in the lurch and lead to the disastrous hiring decisions that followed.

Disastrous post-Ange coaching appointments

The Socceroos coaching appointments since Ange left have been terrible. In one case the FFA took the wrong approach and in the other case they appointed the wrong person.

Short term mercenary instead of long term leader

After Ange left the FFA should have found the right man for the job and hired him to lead us until the end of the 2022 World Cup campaign (5 years at the time). They should not have hired a short term mercenary just for the 2018 World Cup.

They got Bert Van Marwijk for 3 games; 2 losses and a draw. We had no direction or plan or identity. This was not BVM’s fault, he did his best in limiting circumstances. The Socceroos would be doing much better now if BVM was still head coach on a 5 year contract.

Re-hire someone who failed last time

Re-appointing Graham Arnold was stupid, because he had already had the job and failed badly! The circumstances are almost identical to the last time around; he took over from a big name, short term, Dutch coach, right after the World Cup heading into the Asian cup.

His record last time was an abysmal 14 games for 5 wins 4 draws and 5 losses. That’s flattering because one of the “draws” was when we lost on penalties and were eliminated from a disastrous Asian Cup campaign.

Remember he had one of best Socceroos squads ever, with players like like Aloisi, Bresciano, Cahill, Culina, Emerton, Kewell, Neil, Schwarzer and Veduka.

Unsurprisingly he is repeating his past performance, with another disastrous Asian Cup failure, for the country who won it last time. This is nothing against Arnie, he is a great servant of the game in Australia. This is entirely the FFAs fault for giving him a job he had already shown he is not up for.