Graham Arnold said he knocked back coaching the All Whites to focus %100 on SFC.
Graham Arnold was standing on the middle of Allianz Stadium on his first day as coach of Sydney FC. He had an endearingly gruff and no-nonsense demeanour as he outlined, arms defiantly akimbo, what he wanted to do now that he was in charge of a high-profile franchise that was ridiculed for having more meaningless bling than trophy-winning zing.
He talked a good game. Gravel in his guts, spit in his eye. Bring on the scrutiny, he said. The pressure. The spotlight. The responsibility. Bring on the expectations of The Cove and the demands of the fine-suited gentlemen signing his pay cheques. Bring on the death of Bling FC in favour of a more robust franchise. He wanted attacking and attractive football. He wanted a siege mentality. He wanted to turn Sydney FC into the biggest and most successful organisation in the country.
“A wise man once said to me, you have to be careful what you wish for,” Arnold said on day one of a tenure that has completely transformed the club. “I’ve always wanted to coach this club, from the day the A-League started. I like adversity. I like challenges. If I didn’t like challenges, I probably wouldn’t have come here. Newcastle showed interest. The New Zealand national team, I could have gone there. I’m here to do a job. Bring it on.”
How can the Socceroos job go to anyone else? Former Test rugby league mentor Bob Fulton once stood in the dressing room at Brookvale Oval and spoke about coaches being slaves to form as much as players. You could be in great coaching form, he said. And you could be out of form, too. Either of those phases rubbed off on the players. Arnold is in the middle of a purple patch. He’s been good to every word he uttered about Sydney FC. We don’t need to list the club’s recent achievements. Google it. Sven Goran Eriksson? Guus Hiddink? Why bother? Arnold deserves the chance to do for his country what he’s done for his club.
Thus far, FFA’s process has amounted to naming a selection panel nearly as long as the list of applicants. The queue to replace Ange Postecoglou seems to include every unemployed coach in world soccer except Postecoglou himself. The FFA cannot go wrong. A Kevin Muscat or Josep Gombau or Jurgen Klinsmann or Marcelo Bielsa or Gianni De Biasi or Hiddink or Eriksson are all going to do a serviceable job. Eriksson? He has a formidable resume and well-stacked trophy cabinet. And if he really does want the job, he’s likely to pursue it with great vigour.
Faria Alam, a former Football Association boss he had an affair with, once told an English newspaper: “At tea time, he offered to give me a tour of the house, which is huge, and we ended up making love on the stairs ... He pulled me back to him and tore off my jeans. It was incredibly erotic and very quick, but we both enjoyed it. He was so forceful I grazed my knees. He was very nonchalant but I was taken back with desire.” She said his approach to the art of wooing had amounted to him telling her: “When a man wants something, he goes and gets it. I want you.”
How much do the Erikssons and Klinsmanns really want to coach the Socceroos? Are they interested because they can’t get a World Cup gig for anyone else? It has nothing to do with appointing an Australian just because he’s an Australian. We’re not that juvenile and jingoistic. But Arnold just seems to pass every test there is, from the pub test to the test of recent accomplishments. His application just needs to mirror the promises he made to Sydney FC when they gave him the reins. The promises he has since fulfilled.
“When you say what is success, success for me is attractive football,” he said on day one at Allianz Stadium. “Success is putting bums on seats and filling the stadium. Exciting football. Exciting players. Attacking football. High pressure. A possession-based game. A modern football game. We have to believe. We have to show that we believe. We have to send the message to our supporters to believe in that and come with us. The only way of doing that is getting success on the football pitch. It will be made clear to the players that I haven’t come here to be happy with mediocrity. I’ve come here to achieve success.”
Why Graham Arnold must be our next Socceroos coach
