When did the Socceroos become so soft?

Gotta laugh at Fox's "exclusive" on Mark Milligan linking up with Arsenal. This writer, with his very ordinary network of Deep Throats, first reported on that particular rumour two months ago for a column on another website.

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It was laughable then, and it's laughable now. Even Pim Verbeek laughed when I put it to him. Not to say it can't happen – Milligan is a capable player and why on earth was Arsene Wenger meeting Arnold last month? – but are you as tired as I am of these endless, completely baseless stories about Australian players moving to huge European clubs?

Fox had their own "exclusive" many months ago about David Carney going to Bayern Munich and look how that panned out. Mark Schwarzer has been talked up going to the same club for about ten years now, and the closest he ever got to Allianz Arena in Munich was keeping goal for the Socceroos against Brazil in 2006.

Whatever the hell Milligan is up to right now he is burning bridges rapidly, both in his club and representative career. He went AWOL on Sydney FC when he decamped to France for a trail with Metz, and in this, an Olympic year, he had the audacity to not turn up for an Olyroos training camp in north Queensland this week without letting anyone know where he was. Who's advising this pillock?

You can have your debates about the kid's quality – I'm not about to go into it – but he needs a serious dressing-down from Arnold for taking diabolical liberties with his position in the team. 

The real concern for me coming into the tail-end of the week is the apparent end of Mark Viduka's representative career after he made noises in April about being available for the Socceroos' crucial match program in June.

"Achilles problem"? Christ, I have an Achilles problem. I have gout. A bung shoulder. Creaking joints. Chronic halitosis after three coffees. But I'd put on that green and gold jersey in a heartbeat if my country came a' calling.

Enough of the softly-softly approach with Viduka, Pim. We're now going into four World Cup qualifiers without Dukes, without Timmy, with Harry getting more games on his PlayStation than with Liverpool. Then there's a whole bunch of supporting actors talking about pulling out because of nappy duty.

Is something wrong with this picture? Snap out of it, boys!

Back in the early 1990s, Robbie Slater, bless him, got his then wife, Nathalie, to induce early when the impending birth of one of his children threatened to clash with an important match for his French club, Lens.

That's the Socceroos spirit. None of this whipped, Ted Danson, but-I-need-to-hold-the-rattle-guv crap. And I speak as a father who's had a kid in post-natal care. Trust me: the kids will be grateful later on in life if their dads sacrificed such a formative moment to help their nation make it to the World Cup.

These are four World Cup qualifiers that aren't going to come around again for us to get right a second time. Iraq, our opponent in two of them, is in exactly in the sort of position we don't want them to be in: they have to win. If we lose a couple, we could find ourselves knocked off first spot in our group and suddenly in a whole lot of hot water.

We could find ourselves back where the Socceroos were in 2001 and not in 2005, and who the hell wants to go back there?

It's time for some tough love. No shortcuts. No excuses. No paternity leave. You're either in or you're out, fellas. Or as Dubya famously said, with us or against us.

It's time to harden up.

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