It's been just over a week since The Socceroos secured a finals spot at the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the victory still tastes as sweet as ever. A beautiful headed goal from Josh Kennedy was enough to give Australia the victory over Iraq in a match that ended 1 nil. It's only fitting that the man once nicknamed "Jesus" (Josh Kennedy) was the man to take us to Brazil, as the 30 year old Striker proved to be the saviour that night. It's also poetic given the statue which overlooks Rio De Janeiro is the statue of Jesus Christ. To say the Socceroos path to the World Cup was rocky would be putting it mildly. A 2-1 loss to Jordan in September last year followed by a couple of frustrating draws with Oman and Japan seemingly put the Socceroos 2014 World Cup hopes in doubt. That all changed on the night of June 18, 2013 in Sydney when Australia came up trumps with a 1 nil victory over Iraq in front of 80,000 fans. Although the future for Australian Soccer looks bright with another World Cup appearance in the bag, a lot of work still needs to be done between now and June 12, 2014.
Part of Australia's shaky qualifying campaign for Brazil 2014 was down to (at times) poor selections and an unspoken rift between the coach and players. Now that the job is done and the Socceroos are in to the World Cup, this will surely alleviate any previous tension some players may have had with Holger Osieck. Needless to say emotions ran high after Tim Cahill was subsituted late in the Iraq game with the scores tied at 0-0. However 20 minutes later when the final whistle sounded, the pair (Cahill and Osieck) could be seen embracing each other with hugs and smiles and any unpleasant feelings towards each other were seemingly forgotten. The job now for Osieck is to concentrate on which players he'll pick to be in the starting 11 throughout the whole tournament in 2014. There needs to be structure and stability when it comes to the Starting 11 players and there positions. Australia cannot afford to implement a heavy rotation policy between now and the 2014 FIFA World Cup, let alone during the tournament. With the 2014 World Cup still 12 months away there's still plenty of time to make preparations, but as for when the tournament starts for Australia? It starts now.
Written by Alex Stilianos.
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