The HUGE admission from Socceroos captain after embarrassing World Cup qualification failure against minnow
- Australia suffered shock defeat to Bahrain
- Will now travel to Indonesia for important match
- Skipper says a big change will be needed
Socceroos captain Mat Ryan says his “naive” team need to work “smarter” not “harder” against Indonesia in Jakarta on Tuesday night, following a shock 1-0 defeat to Bahrain at Robina Stadium in FIFA World Cup qualifying.
On Thursday night, the Socceroos were down to ten men in the 77th minute after striker Kusini Yengi was sent off. In the closing stages, the Socceroos were dealt an even bigger blow when Harry Souttar scored an own goal to give the Bahrainis three points on their way to the 2026 World Cup.
“The goal we conceded after the red card was not good enough defensively, but these things happen when you do everything else well and you put yourself in that situation,” said goalkeeper Ryan.
‘We played the game too naively.
‘I don’t think it’s a case of working harder, it’s a case of working smarter. We didn’t ask enough of the right questions in the right places, and we gave the keeper a pretty quiet evening, and we didn’t test him and test the defence in the final third well enough.
‘When you play against these types of opponents and you don’t score the first goal right away, they are difficult to beat. They have strong points.
“We must now show personality and character to respond as forcefully as possible. It is now up to us.”
Awer Mabil and captain Mat Ryan have words on the pitch during the disastrous World Cup qualifier against Bahrain
Nestory Irankunda and Joe Gauci react after shock loss to Bahrain on the Gold Coast
Australia will need to bounce back quickly from their loss to Bahrain, with a key match against Indonesia coming up.
As well as a frustrating night in attack, the Socceroos were also guided by the Bahrainis’ attempts to convert free-kicks and theatrical reactions to tackles.
“We’ve talked many times about the challenges that come with this (type of) opposition,” Ryan said.
‘If you don’t score early, then there is time-wasting, so-called acting, going to the ground and putting the referee in a position where he has to determine whether it is diving or a fair foul.
“We need to deal with those situations better and more maturely as a team. We need to not put ourselves in a situation where that becomes a factor.”
Socceroos coach Graham Arnold was quick to give Bahrain full credit, despite expressing frustration at the visitors’ ‘acting’.
“That was the least amount of minutes of football I’ve ever seen. In total, the ball was on the park for 46 minutes and there was play. But in general, we have to recover quickly,” Arnold said.
‘We need to move quickly to Indonesia, and we need to learn from that and move on.
‘There’s still nine (Group C) games to go. We’ve got to get over it quickly, bounce back quickly and show that good Aussie DNA way of putting our backs against the wall and off we go.’