Socceroos have created a monster
14/07/2007 4:31 PM
players have had to interrupt their holidays to be here and the players are tired after not having had a sufficient break following last year's World Cup.
What a pathetic list of excuses.
Compare those so-called problems with what confronted Friday night's opponents Iraq.
This is a country being torn apart by war and Brazilian coach Jorvan Vieira has been in charge of the team less than two months.
Yet Iraq's hastily cobbled together team made Australia's bunch of pampered, over-indulged superstars look decidedly second-rate and unlike the Socceroos' they played as if they wanted to be here.
While the Socceroos' players might not rate the Asian Cup, they certainly rate the World Cup but it is the damage they have done to not only the 2010 campaign but future campaigns after that - that might be their lasting legacy of this tournament.
Not only do Asian countries no longer fear the Socceroos and now consider them to be just another opponent - rather than the almost mythical figures they were in Asia following the last World Cup - but this tournament is also likely to result in Australia's FIFA world ranking falling dramatically and therefore their ranking within Asia as well.
And that could result in a tougher qualifying draw for the 2010 World Cup.
Only then will the full extent of the damage done here over the past week be truly apparent