Pim's forgotten pioneers

Pim Verbeek is about to attempt to fill the gigantic shoes of Guus Hiddink, who was, unquestionably, Australia's greatest ever football coaching celebrity.

This is no small thing and Verbeek should be excused for being a bit pensive and intimidated by it all. I am not here to be compared to any past coach, only to get us to the World Cup, or some such thing is what he would say.

Correctly so. Verbeek's job description is plainly to guide Australia through the Asian qualifying route - still a potential quagmire to us - and then do something seriously decent in the finals. There is no mention or hint of a need to emulate Hiddink in his contract.

But such is life that the comparisons are inevitable, and Verbeek fully knows it. Because he's Dutch, because he follows Hiddink (with due respect to the interim that came in between), because he speaks his English with the same accent, and because his task is the same as that of his predecessor, Verbeek will be lucky to find a hotel mirror in the next year and a half that doesn't have the fleshy visage of Guus staring back at him.

Damn you Guus. Why did you have to do so well in such a short time? I mean, I enjoyed being your assistant and all, but this is my gig now, so can you please get out of my life?

Of course coaches of Australia have had this emotional challenge, of needing to better their predecessor, for a while and Verbeek is hardly the first of them. In the recent era of Hiddink, with all the modern media hype that carted him to his deification, we had forgotten, rather unkindly, that the Socceroos have had no less than 13 coaches in 40 years before him. Indeed Verbeek is neither the first nor the second of our successive World Cup coaches but the 16th.

One wonders what Tiko Jelisavcic would make of all this.

Tiko, a towering, balding forward with Yugal, the 1960s club of Sydney's Yugoslav community, was the surprise choice as Australia's first World Cup coach when this country finally decided, 35 years after the Jules Rimet trophy was first claimed, to enter the grand event in 1965.

He flopped of course. We flopped. The North Koreans undid us in Phnom Penh. Les Scheinflug, as our first World Cup captain, laboured. A spring chicken Johnny Warren watched, agonised, from the bench.

But, be fair, Tiko was up against it. This was not an era when Australia, barely more than amateur in its capacity or ambition, had a right to expect more.

Tiko, bless his soul for I believe he is now dead, was our first Hiddink, claiming for a short span the attention and hopes of the nation, then leaving in his wake a long string of national coaches, all of whom had the same hopes and dreams as Hiddink, and now Verbeek.

A few flopped badly but actually most achieved beyond what may have been expected of them, lifting the national team, and our football, to new levels.

Here is that story, the story of 15 coaches, all very different to each other, but bonded by the same mission: get Australia to the World Cup or at least promote the national team as a catalyst for elevating football as a source of Australian pride.

Tiko Jelisavcic (Era 1965; Games 6, Wins 2, Draws 1, Losses 3, Performance 39%)

Without any prep games Tiko took his squad to steamy Cambodia to be annihilated 2-9 on aggregate over two games by Kim Il Sung's speed machine. He was not entirely to blame and, on reflection, it wasn't so bad. The North Koreans went on to make the World Cup quarter finals. But it did serve as a lesson on how tough a World Cup campaign can be.

Joe Venglos (1967; G3, W0, D0, L3, P0%)

Young Joe, then coaching Sydney club Prague, was roped in to take charge for three games against the touring Scotland, then a seriously formidable football nation, narrowly losing all three games. That was our bad luck, for soon after Venglos returned to Europe, later to become one of the world's most admired coaches.

Joe Vlasits (1967-1969; G23, W13, D7, L3, P67%)

Uncle Joe, if he were still around today, would be a good sounding board. Most of his games were against Asian opponents and he only lost two of them. Tragically, after a most arduous campaign across three continents, he lost the chance to be the first to take Australia to the World Cup finals by one goal, courtesy of a 1-1 draw with Israel in Sydney. He was the first to give the Socceroos self belief and remains a true pioneer.

Rale Rasic (1970-1974; G36, W18, D10, L8, P59%)

Zvonimir, better known as Rale, is in the annals of folklore thanks to his historic place as the first coach to guide Australia into the World Cup finals. He deserves it. He was smart, a master tactician with a brilliant understanding of how to motivate his players and how to discipline them. He was pragmatic and often defensive tactically, some would allege even self promoting and vain. But he remains a benchmark in the skill of getting results out of Australian players and his legacy is monumental.

Brian Green (1975-1976; G9, W3, D3, L3, P44%)

Green, a mid-tier nobody imported from England (our first imported coach), was the first of three successive flops at the helm of the Socceroos. His reign lasted a matter of months, not so much for his results, but because he was nicked for shoplifting and quickly despatched back to whence he came.

Jimmy Shoulder (1976-1979; G26, W10, D8, L8, P49%)

Shoulder, our youngest ever appointment and virtually unheard of before he got the job, boasted early in his campaign that he was so sure Australia would qualify for the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, he had already bought his airline ticket. Double losses to both Iran and Kuwait assured his failure and a wasted ticket. Shoulder will be remembered as the first coach to deliver failure when our entire qualifying campaign was via the AFC route. We should have learnt.

Rudi Gutendorf (1979-1981; G26, W6, D7, L8, P40%)

Some may remember this likeable caricature of a man fondly, but the fact is Rudi was our least successful World Cup campaigner of all time. Our first so-called big name import, he was erratic, controversial and a fabulous headline maker. But when Australia was eliminated when beaten at home by New Zealand, it proved all too much.

Les Scheinflug (1981-1983; G16, W11, D1, L4, P71%)

Rasic's assistant in the 1974 campaign, and our first World Cup captain as a player, Ladislaus (as he was baptised) was the second coach to be dismissed, after Green, before the qualifying campaign had begun. And it was not because of his results but because forces upstairs preferred his successor, Frank Arok. But ever a survivor, Scheinflug went on to coach the Young Socceroos for the best part of the following 16 years and remains a major role player in the growth of our football. The bulk of the 2006 Socceroos, from Schwarzer to Viduka, came through his youth teams.

Frank Arok (1983-1989; G48, W23, D14, L13, P58%)

Arok was the first coach to take Australia through two successive World Cup campaigns. Instilling a 'mad dog' mentality in the team, so readily embraced today by some of his charges, like John Kosmina, Frank Farina and David Mitchell, he had a fierce belief in the ability of his players. It was under Arok that Australian players were first made to believe that they could beat any foe. He failed in both World Cup campaigns - the first narrowly to Scotland - but in between had a distinguished 1988 Olympic tournament. His legacy is long. Five of today's A-League coaches (Kosmina, Mitchell, Farina, Van Egmond and Vidmar) are Socceroos who played under Arok, as is Graham Arnold, as are media analysts Robbie Slater, Paul Wade and Ange Postecoglou. Fox front man Andy Harper was mentored by Arok as a player, as was the great Johnny Warren. Even last season's grand final, five goal hero, Archie Thompson, is an Arok discovery.

Eddie Thomson (1990-1996; P60, W27, D12, L21, P52%)

The late Thomson was a fine coach, an excellent tactician and a brilliant reader of talent, launching the international careers of players like Zelic, Okon, Bosnich, Ivanovic, Viduka and Kewell. But his era was regressive in that, under him, the team reverted to the colonial belief that 'first world' countries are better than us and we have to be cautious and defensive against them (the one-striker system). Still, Eddie had a fine first World Cup campaign, narrowly losing to Argentina, and a brilliant 1992 Olympic tournament, taking the team to a medal playoff. It was only after he copped a hair dryer spray from his boss, David Hill, during the 1996 Olympic tournament that he walked, springing a lucrative career in Japan.

Terry Venables (1997-1998; P23, W15, D3, L5, P70%)

El Tel, our biggest name coach before Hiddink, has an impeccable record, never losing a match during his World Cup qualifying campaign and having the team play the most attractive, cultured football seen from the Socceroos before or since. His downfall was the disastrous last quarter of an hour in the crunch qualifier against Iran in Melbourne, allowing the visitors to crawl back to 2-2 after a 2-0 lead thanks to some bad responses from the bench. Without that, this likeable rogue would now be recalled as a major hero.

Raúl Blanco (1996 and 1998; P7, W5, D1, L1, P76%)

Blanco's short career as Socceroo coach came in two bits. He was caretaker between Thomson and Venables for two games in 1996 and then was given the wand when Venables departed in 1998. He did well but erred big time when he underestimated New Zealand and lost, using only home based players, in a Confederations Cup qualifier.

Frank Farina (2000-2005; P58, W34, D9, L15, P64%)

On the numbers, Farina's record might seem impressive enough, including wins against Brazil, Uruguay and England, but this was the era when Australia spent much time playing the Pacific islanders, spanking them every time or nearly every time. He was celebrated as the first ever Australian born Socceroo coach when appointed in 1989 but was found out as being out of his depth as Australia succumbed in a 3-0 World Cup loss in Montevideo in 2001. Despite that he was reappointed for the next campaign but a disastrous Confederations Cup in 2005 sent Frank Lowy scrambling for his dismissal before it was too late. And, sadly, there went the theory that Australian coaches, at least for now, were up to the task.

Guus Hiddink (2005-2006; P13, W8, D2, L3, P67%)

Hiddink only lost three matches: the away qualifier to Uruguay, and the Brazil and Italy games in the 2006 World Cup finals. But that wasn't the point. Venables, Scheinflug and Blanco had better percentages and even Vlasits is level with the great Dutchman in the record books. Hiddink's massive legacy is not even the fact that he got Australia into the World Cup finals. Rasic did that. It is how he changed the technical culture of the national team, tempering Australia's congenital will to thresh about relying on will and physical power, with some intelligence, wisdom and sense of collective direction. Under Hiddink our national team finally grew to adulthood and ceased to play like a rep team from a football colony.

Graham Arnold (2006-2007; P14, W5, D4, L5, P45%)

Despite his inclusion here, it should be said in fairness that Arnold was never a fully confirmed coach of Australia, only the interim. Despite being anointed by Hiddink, he was not a success, his performance percentage the lowest since Gutendorf. Winning the Asian Cup was his big and only chance to have his appointment confirmed. But he blew it. Arnold's greatest legacy is providing continuity to the technical foundations laid down by Hiddink and he now hands over to a Dutchman with the team's Dutch philosophy remaining unimpaired.

So that is the chronology, and the collective legacy, of the coaches that went before Pim Verbeek.

With Christmas upon us, I wish all readers of this column the most festive and peaceful of times. And to our past national coaches, my gift is the hope that their efforts are not forgotten and are duly recognised.

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