4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3?

After Australia’s previous game, a 4-3 defeat to Ecuador, I boldly stated that Ange Postecoglou had settled on a 4-2-3-1 formation. I was wrong.

Postecoglou again showed that he is experimenting and trying to find what will work best come the first match against Chile. 4-3-3 was the formation of choice against South Africa, somewhat of a change to the 4-2-3-1 and 4-4-2 Australians are used to seeing.

“We’re working on a few things and, without giving away too much before the first game against Chile, we’re working on a couple of different ways we want our midfield to set up,” said Postecoglou pre-match. “Some of it is making sure we can play our football, the way we want … the idea is that they [the starting trio of James Holland, Mark Milligan and James Troisi] are pretty mobile and rotate through those areas, so I think you’ll see less of set positions and more of all three contributing in attack and defence.”

A midfield trio of Mile Jedinak, Mark Milligan and Mark Bresciano will be nicely suited in a 4-3-3 and going forward, a fluid, rotating midfield can cause problems for the opposition. It allows Australia different angles of attack and frees up the players to express themselves more, however, is a more rigid approach the best option for the World Cup?

Ange continues to demonstrate his philosophical flexibility

Brisbane Roar under Postecoglou often avoided crossing the ball. They instead looked to use intricate build up play in and around the edge of the box to work room for a cut back from the by-line. Melbourne Victory under Postecoglou also weren’t a crossing side. They looked to draw teams onto them and then break into the space behind, with the two wingers often combining with square passes around the box.

But when you have Tim Cahill, a player who scored 55.4% of his Premier League goals and 10 of his last 12 Socceroos goals with his head, it would be silly not to utilise that strength. Postecoglou has been flexible – promoting his wingers and full-backs to hit early crosses into the box to try and play in Cahill when the opposition defence is not set. You have to commend Postecoglou for looking at the strengths of the players available and playing to them, but most of all, you have to admire Cahill’s leap. It’s freaky good.

But crossing isn’t the best long term solution

In truth, Postecoglou has been flexible enough and pragmatic enough to realise he has few alternatives to Cahill upfront. The only realistic striking options available to him are Cahill and Josh Kennedy, and crossing is the most effective way to use both of these options. But this does not mean that a gameplan based around crosses, even with those weapons, is necessarily efficient.

It started with one, then we saw a few more … by the end of the night Australia had finished with 29 crosses from open play. Of those, Australia, and who else but Tim Cahill, scored from just one.

Open play crosses account for roughly 15% of all goals, yet only one in every 4.87 crosses actually reaches a team-mate. It requires, on average, 91.47 crosses to score one goal and a study by Jan Vecer from Frankfurt School of Finance and Management found that teams who cross less can expect to score 0.57 more goals per game. This, understandably, is also due to the fact that better sides have more strings to their bow going forward and are less likely to rely on crosses, thus offering more and different threats and scoring more often. Australia, like they were under Holger Osieck and Pim Verbeek, run the risk of becoming predictable by relying so heavily on crosses. Whilst there is a noticeably higher tempo under Postecoglou, and the fact that Cahill and Kennedy are wonderful headers of the ball and it makes sense to play to their strengths, crossing is perhaps not the best long term solution.

Australia are a work in progress

Sportsbet this week announced that 201 people have backed Australia to win the World Cup at $501. Let’s be honest, that money would have been better donated to charity. Who knows, maybe they clicked the wrong button…

Postecoglou, with just three games in charge so far and a few weeks in camp to implement his ideas, is seeing how difficult it is to change a style of play and implement new personnel. The first half performances against Costa Rica, Ecuador and South Africa saw Australia get off to flying starts, only for the tempo to drop (as with Costa Rica), a crucial error in judgement to be made (as with Mitchell Langerak’s red card against Ecuador) and sloppiness to set in (as with South Africa).

The current training block, in the lead up to the World Cup, is being used to get the players fit, with the intention of ensuring Australia can sustain a high tempo style, both in defence and going forward, for a full 90 minutes against quality opposition. This high tempo will surely be a feature of the Socceroos in years to come under Postecoglou, but no one is expecting complete performances over the course of the tournament.

A breathe of fresh air or craziness?

Like all good media tourists, I saw any and every break in play as an opportunity to refresh my Twitter timeline. Some were concerned about the Mexican wave, others with the standard of the commentary. Obviously ‘Harperisms' aren’t for everyone. Others thought that there were plenty of positives to take away from the match and, heck, we did play a second string team after all.

Overall, the underlying feeling coming out of Australia’s farewell match is that the performance was disjointed and the Socceroos gave the ball away too cheaply and too frequently. Surely, the thought process goes, if Australia plays with the same inconsistencies and openness in Brazil, then it could end in disaster with group stage humiliation at the hands of Chile, Holland and Spain.

Perhaps. Maybe Australia can go out and play scared, defensive football. They did that against Brazil and France and that turned out alright … didn’t it?

It might be crazy to think, but with low expectations (excluding the 201 stupidly optimistic punters who think the Socceroos can win the whole thing…), isn’t it great to be able to watch Socceroos side go out and play aggressively?



Bonus late breaking sixth point: Ange's cuts

Australia have named their 27 man squad, with Josh Brillante, Adam Sarota and Curtis Good the men to miss out. Still, pity the four players who will be cut after flying to Brazil. Then again, a free trip to South America ...

Australia's 27-man travelling squad: Mark Birighitti, Oliver Bozanic, Mark Bresciano, Tim Cahill, Jason Davidson, Ivan Franjic, Eugene Galekovic, Ben Halloran, James Holland, Mile Jedinak, Josh Kennedy, Mitch Langerak, Matthew Leckie, Massimo Luongo, Ryan McGowan, Matt McKay, Mark Milligan, Tommy Oar, Tom Rogic, Mat Ryan, Matthew Spiranovic, Adam Taggart, James Troisi, Dario Vidosic, Alex Wilkinson, Luke Wilkshire, Bailey Wright.