Griffiths bucks the China syndrome

From looking a certain goner as a World Cup passenger before Christmas, the most talented footballer this country has ever produced (I wrote that just to spite some readers) looks a virtual certainty to be one of the 23 players picked by Verbeek for his final World Cup squad.

With some confidence back in his game from putting together a string of first-team appearances, Carle is beginning to look the goods in England. He’s shone against Villa in the FA Cup and while stuck in a team mired in the relegation zone he’s got an invaluable opportunity to play out the remainder of the Championship season without riding the pine.

Gaffers, even ones who don’t like you very much, have a habit of calling on their most creative players when the task is desperate and the stakes are high. It’s ironic that Carle will probably be wishing Neil Warnock, once his bete noire, doesn’t leave for Queens Park Rangers to make way for Gareth Southgate.

One guy who did choose to stay in China, however, was Joel Griffiths, who ran off at the mouth  after being left out the Socceroos squad to face Indonesia in Brisbane and flipped a big bird to the Australia manager by scoring a cracking goal for Beijing Guoan against Melbourne Victory in the Asian Champions League this week.



It was a beauty, made even sweeter by the fact it showed up Kevin Muscat as being as slow, doddery and ineffective as Uncle Arthur. What was Captain Kev doing? Looking for some lost dentures? He was so accommodating he even threw his arms up into the air and sucked his tummy in to let Griffiths past. Obviously Muscat was trying to avoid an obstruction but whatever happened to just trying to get his foot on the ball? Bloody awful defending.

So does Griffiths have any hope of making the World Cup squad?

Unlikely. The player himself says it would be a “big call” and taking a swipe at Verbeek won’t have helped his cause one iota.

But our striking options aren’t great and Beijing is playing good football. If they can get out of the group phase in the ACL, which they couldn’t do in 2009, Verbeek should really look a little bit closer.

One colleague remarked to me during the week that they showed plenty of “terrific close skills stuff, great on the ball”, but just lacked (aside from the fiery Australian) decent finishing.

Perhaps the reason why they’re playing so well is that they have a great triumvirate of young Chinese internationals – Huang Bowen, Yang Hao and Yang Zhi – fresh from China’s recent EAFF Championship victory in Japan. They are riding high on confidence and adrenalin.

Another Chinese team also came through the first week of the ACL with another impressive result: Shandong Luneng’s 1-0 away win over Sanfrecce Hiroshima in Tokyo. In the other two matches featuring CSL teams, J-League champions Kashima Antlers narrowly pipped Changchun Yatai while Henan Construction provided the only disappointment from a Sinophile’s perspective, drawing with Singapore Armed Forces.

So perhaps Chinese football ain’t so bad at all, Pim. And perhaps Griffiths ain’t such a write-off either – so long as he keeps his trap shut.