GOLD COAST, Australia — Jackson Irvine has acknowledged that Australia’s upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifier against Indonesia has become a “huge game” for the Socceroos after a 1-0 loss to Bahrain that captain Mat Ryan simply declared to be “not good enough”.
After a perfect second stage of Asian qualification in which his side won all six of their games without conceding, an 89th-minute own-goal from Harry Souttar snapped that run and condemned Australia to defeat in the opening game of the third phase on Thursday evening.
It marked just the second time the Socceroos have been defeated at home in a ‘live’ World Cup qualifier since 1981, the other occasion coming during the 2022 qualification cycle when they fell to a dour 2-0 defeat to Japan in Sydney — coach Graham Arnold being at the helm for both results.
As has become a theme for the side, Australia’s men struggled to break down a well-organised, dogged and crafty defence: ending the game with 71% of possession but struggling to create anything in the way of goalscoring opportunities that troubled the Bahranis even before striker Kusini Yengi’s 77th-minute red card.
“Not good enough, obviously,” said Ryan. “I felt like we were too naive in the way we played the game. I don’t think it’s a case of needing to work harder but needing to work smarter; we didn’t ask enough of the right questions in the right areas.
“We gave their goalkeeper a pretty quiet night and didn’t test him and didn’t test their defence well enough in the final third. Defensively, the goal we conceded after the red card is not good enough.
“But those things happen if you’re not doing the other things well enough and you put yourself in that scenario.”
With fixtures against Japan and Saudi Arabia to come in future windows, this month’s games against Bahrain and Indonesia had been viewed in Australia as an important six points to bank in their efforts to directly qualify for the 2026 World Cup and avoid a fourth phase of qualification.
Now, though, anything less than victory on Tuesday evening in Jakarta could see their goal of a top-two finish in the group become a mammoth one after just two of the ten games on their fixture.
“I think it’s massive,” Irvine said of that contest. “The boys, we need to recognise it; it’s a huge game … recognise the magnitude of what that could look like in the context of these ten games.
“[There were a] few harsh truths [delivered in the dressing room post-defeat].
“We have to learn the lessons from this immediately and move to Tuesday because it’s an unbelievably disappointing result in performance, and we need to be far better.
“The kind of naivety and understanding the realities of Asian football … and how games can be managed. How games can slip away from you through not understanding the things that happen here.
“We try to prepare, especially the younger guys who haven’t been a part of this before of how [timewasting and gamesmanship] can happen. A few boys have learned very quickly tonight about that as well.
“There’s a little bit of bad luck as well. Putting some balls into some good areas and things just weren’t dropping for us. On another night, if one of them goes in early, that forces them to open up. And we see these games go very differently.
“We need to find ways to ask more questions of defences because that’s the way that you can make your own luck, in the in the box, in particular: when you can keep asking those questions, then something will drop for you.”
After picking up a straight red card for a high boot on Sayed Baqer, Yengi will miss Tuesday’s clash against Indonesia through suspension — with Mitch Duke and Adam Taggart now Arnold’s sole striking options.
After missing Wednesday’s game through injury, midfielder Keanu Baccus and defender Lewis Miller will both be in contention to return — with the former considered the more likely of the two to feature.
“You’ve got to take the good with the bad,” Souttar reflected after the defeat. “There’s no getting away from it, it was a disappointing performance. We all looked at ourselves in the mirror … I don’t think anyone played 100% tonight.
“But we’ve got a game on Tuesday and we’ve got to put this behind us because that’s so important that we get a victory there.”