To serve as the coach of the Socceroos is to exist in a world of immense scale. It is to embrace the challenge of coaching players who arrive in camp just days out from the first match of the international window after a series of arduous long-haul flights. It is to tackle the hurdles of crisscrossing the largest confederation in world football to play another game in the days that follow. As Australia will do on Tuesday, it is to face 62,000 Japanese fans at Saitama Stadium in a World Cup qualifier, producing an endless roar of “Vamos Nippon” from the opening to the final whistle. But for new Socceroos coach Tony Popovic, confronting these giant challenges starts not with thinking big but, instead, small.
As his players staged their first training session in Japan on Sunday, cast in the shadow of Saitama Stadium on one of the training pitches that dot its surrounds, a plan was afoot. Under Graham Arnold, who resigned as coach of the Socceroos last month, the opening minutes of training had generally carried an air of brevity, players staging raw action drills that ended in foot races as the boss occasionally interjected with jokes and banter. Here, it carried a more business-like air, more deliberately methodical in execution. Neither approach is inherently better than the other, of course; Arnold’s more relaxed, “Socceroos Family” style approach helped deliver Australia their most successful men’s World Cup in 2022. But the relatively minor contrast gives insight into the change in priorities that have come with the arrival of Popovic.
