Mariners coach Phil Moss has labelled Australia’s World Cup group as the ‘Group of Education’, while Frank Farina has warned fans to temper their expectations.
Central Coast Mariners coach Phil Moss has labelled Australia’s World Cup group as the ‘Group of Education’, while his Sydney FC counterpart has warned fans to temper their expectations.
Sydney’s coach Frank Farina has reminded Socceroos supporters they have to be ‘realistic’ about Australia’s chances against Spain, the Netherlands and Chile in Group B in a ‘very tough’ pool but Moss argued the draw was exciting for the Australian national team.
Moss believes the opportunity to learn from the reigning world and European champions, plus two other top 15 nations, will be fantastic for the Socceroos and their new head coach Ange Postecoglou.
“There is two ways you can look at it, you can look at it as the group of death or you can look at it as the group of education and I think that’s the way I would rather look at it.”
Moss hopes the event can be a great tool for coach education locally.
“I think we can learn so much out of playing teams like that and hopefully the A-League coaches get the opportunity to learn from Ange but also the coaches we are going to come up against in the World Cup.
“Hopefully their experience and knowledge filters back through the A-League coaches and that can only improve us.”
One-time coach of the Socceroos, including during their ultimately unsuccessful 2002 qualifying campaign, Farina was more circumspect in his assessment.
The man who was at the helm of the national team for nearly seven years labelled the draw as a ‘tough one, very tough’.
Noting the difficulty of coming up against Spain and the Netherlands, both finalists at the 2010 tournament in South Africa, and also Chile who recently beat England at Wembley, Farina said ‘it’s exciting’ but offered a note of caution.
“People have just got to be realistic about what it is and temper the expectations,” Farina said.
