And so it proved once again when Aurelio Vidmar's Olyroos crashed out of Olympic reckoning by failing to progress from their group in the qualifying tournament in Doha. The scoreless draw with Jordan in the early hours of Thursday morning in a must-win match left Australia with four points, one less than the Jordanians and three less than the UAE, the group winners, both of whom progressed to the knockout phase as the Australians returned home along with the group's whipping boys, Vietnam, who lost to everyone. Vidmar was not helped by the fact that up to eight of his first-choice squad members were unavailable. Players such as Liverpool's Brad Smith (turning out for the Reds in an FA Cup replay win over Exeter just hours after the Olyroos were being bundled out) and Lazio's promising forward Chris Ikonomidis were not released by their clubs. Neither were Jackson Irvine (Ross County), Kenneth Dougall (Sparta Rotterdam), Ryan Williams (Barnsley), Milos Degenek (1860 Munich) and Awer Mabil (Midtjylland), all of whom would likely have been there but were not given clearance by their clubs. Roda JC's Danny De Silva was another who was withdrawn by his Dutch team at short notice. That said, all of the above is mitigation and not an excuse for the failure. On paper this was a straightforward group: none of the three opponents was a regional superpower, none had any great football pedigree, although Jordan is fast becoming a bogey team for Australia at all levels and the UAE are one of the Gulf's big improvers.

Australia's biggest problem is that it simply cannot score goals. This is the second Olympics in a row Australia has missed out on. In qualification for the 2012 London Games, when it was also coached by Vidmar, the team did not score a single goal in six matches. This time around it fared little better, scoring only twice against Vietnam - one goal less than both Jordan and the UAE managed against the same opponent. A witch hunt will inevitably follow along with condemnation of the coaching staff and understandable calls for their heads. But cool and dispassionate counsel must prevail, and there must be a realistic appraisal of both the quality of Australia's coaching and the ability of the players.

Are the coaches - in all aspects of the development phase, not just in final team selection - doing the job? Are the players simply not good enough.? Vidmar had proved himself at club level before he got the Olyroo job, having coached Adelaide United to an A-League grand final and the final of the Asian Champions League, so those who would argue that he got the position because he was simply a well- connected former Socceroo are not telling the whole story. But he has now had two goes at the task and failed both times, so few will argue that it isn't time for a change and that he should pay in the traditional way, with his job. Australia is investing in coaching and development. But is it investing enough or spending that money the right way? There will need to be a review of what now starts to look like systemic failure, why it occurs and how it can be rectified.

There will probably be calls for new national curricula, new methods of coaching, new personnel, new rules for A-League clubs to mandate more young players in match-day squads and any other number of suggestions to improve the situation. That is good. Such failure should generate debate, but informed debate, not knee jerk reactions. The issue may simply be that the players - or those in this squad - are not quite good enough. There is no god-given right that they should be, despite whatever achievements Australia has had in the past. It's unfortunate for them that they won't go to the Olympics, unfortunate that they won't get invaluable experience in cut-throat tournament play. It's unfortunate that Australian soccer won't have such a high-profile platform upon which to market itself.

It's not the end of the world, but it's a reminder of just where Australia fits in at junior level: the biggest task is to ensure that similar failure does not occur in qualification for the World Cup itself.