Socceroos boss Ange Postecoglou says fresh-faced Socceroos have gone beyond adding depth to his youthful setup.
With a plethora of young and untried talent at his disposal, Australia were narrowly edged out by world number 10 England 2-1 at the Stadium of Light a fortnight ago and followed up with a 1-0 win over travelling Greece, in both cases putting in strong outings with plenty of positives.
The likes of Alex Gersbach, Jason Geria, Chris Ikonomidis, Milos Degenek and Apo Giannou hold just 11 caps between them. Degenek in particular impressed against England and started against Greece, while Geria was handed a starting debut.
Postecoglou says the ready-made Socceroos have come in and provided more than just intended squad depth.
Tim Cahill to address A-League questions “after camp”
“The intent was to build more depth, but what I’m pleased about is it’s not just depth we’re creating, we’re actually improving the quality in our team. That’s the pleasing aspect,” Postecoglou said.
“The guys we’re bringing in can do a job, but they’re actually adding to things.
“When I’m watching or the staff are watching players, we’re watching them with not just a reference to how they’re playing at their clubs but how well they’ll fit into what we do and how we want to play our football.
“The ones we identify, we think have got some attributes and then it’s about coming into camp.
“We have things we measure after every game that the viewing public aren’t aware of. If we keep improving those measures, and the players know what they are, it just means that our style of game is becoming further and further embedded and we’ll become harder to compete against.”
Having downed Greece three days ago in Sydney, Postecoglou is aiming for another dominant display at Etihad Stadium, insisting plenty of room remains for improvement and evolution.
“We go out there tomorrow night with a strong performance in mind, a dominating performance, we want to dominate possession. If we do those things, the result should follow.
“We can’t be, in two years time, the team we are today. We’re a stronger team today than when we won the Asian Cup so we have to be stronger in two years time. The game evolves, and that’s our mantra anyway.
“We’ve shown we’re competitive against anyone at the moment. We don’t want to compete against the best, we want to beat the best.”
What are your thoughts? Let us know by dropping a comment below via our Facebook comment box. Make sure you follow us on Twitter @Outside90 and like us on Facebook.
