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Glimpses of brilliance
Despite France's eventual demolition of the Aussies in the opening group match, Graham Arnold's men ultimately had moments of quality which sent the reigning champions on the back foot early.
The Socceroos stunned a slow-starting French outfit inside the opening 10 minutes, starting from an incisive long ball from centre-back Harry Souttar which found the feet of Melbourne City attacker Matthew Leckie on the right wing.
Leckie cleverly sidestepped his opponent Lucas Hernandez before curling in a cross to a sliding Craig Goodwin, who finished emphatically over the head of French captain Hugo Lloris.
Although the early lead proved to be short lived for the Australians, the attacking energy shown early on proved the potential of Arnold's attack against quality opposition.
However, similar moments proved few and far between for the rest of the match, as the Socceroos only mustered three more shots in the remaining 80 minutes - the goal proving to be their only shot on target for the entire match.
SBS World Cup analyst Harry Kewell lamented the lack of goal scoring opportunities created, speaking shortly before the half-time break.
"Everything is played forward and then our first thought is passing backwards," he said during the match broadcast.
"Nothing in to run in behind. How did we get our goal in the first half? By playing that lovely ball over the top, making a run in behind, putting pressure on them, making them make a mistake."
Belated substitutions come back to haunt
Arnold made just one change before Kylian Mbappe headed home France's third goal of the evening, only to be followed by another emphatic aerial finish from Olivier Giroud three minutes later.
The clinical French attack put the Aussies 4-1 down with 20 minutes remaining, all but ending their slim hope of mounting a comeback. Arnold sent in the reinforcements of Awer Mabil, Keanu Baccus, Milos Degenek and Garang Kuol on his World Cup debut shortly after, but it proved too little too late for Australia.
SBS World Cup analyst Craig Foster claimed that Arnold should have made his substitutions earlier in the piece, particularly struggling right-back Nathaniel Atkinson who was not replaced until the 85th minute.
“I think the question is for Graham whether we should have changed the game earlier. And so, we were 2-1 down but we were also conceding a lot of chances," he said.
“[After] 45 minutes against Kylian Mbappe it was clear that he was doing really well on that side, so we thought that maybe he was going to change Atkinson earlier, I mean he got through an incredible amount of work.
“Should’ve changed him at half-time,” fellow analyst Mark Bosnich added.
“Yeah, so a surprise that he took so long to change, very close to the end of the game, playing against the finest player in the world," Foster continued.
Foster also questioned whether Arnold should have changed his side's tactical approach at the start of the second half in his post-match analysis, citing fatigue in wide areas as a potential reason for conceding the two late goals.
“The other question for Australia is the ambition and the second half at 2-1 down whether you are going to try and change things, and we come out in the second-half and the pattern of the game is exactly the same," he said.
“So, at what point are we going to go up and start to press them? You obviously needed those fresh legs on the wings in particular, as you saw which ultimately happened with Kuol and Mabil, the right full-back changed, [but] bring the team up and start to put some pressure on them and take some more risk.”
Fatigue exposes defensive issues
A lack of match fitness for a handful of Australian players was noted by many as a concern ahead of their World Cup opener, with centre-back duo Souttar and Kye Rowles starting the match despite their respective injuries of late.
Souttar had returned to club football just two weeks out from the start of the Socceroos' campaign, after missing 12 months of international and club football with Championship side Stoke City after suffering an ACL injury last November.
Rowles also made a recent return to club action ahead of Qatar 2022 but was previously sidelined for eight weeks by Scottish club Heart of Midlothian, after suffering a broken foot.
The fatigue of the back-line unravelled spectacularly as Mbappe and 35-year-old Giroud put the game to bed for Australia, with SBS analyst John Aloisi discussing how the defensive lapses occurred upon his particular criticism of the positioning of the back-four at key moments.
“Nathaniel Atkinson, I thought had a poor game," he said.
“He lost the ball here, but it’s not only him. It’s the rest of the positioning of the players – it’s too spread, it’s too open.
“Should never have played the goal-kick short in the first place, simple as that," Bosnich interjected.
“You still practice these goal-kicks and you still practice what to do when you do lose the ball," Aloisi continued.
“And then from here, this goes to show how we weren’t defending well inside the box. Because you look here, you’ve got one striker virtually against two defenders and we’re static in the box.
“This could also be Harry Souttar only playing one game the last 12 months.”
Right-back to square one
Australia’s right-back conundrum, which was previously outlined by SBS Sport's Jonathan Bernard as a concern in the Socceroos' play-off victory over United Arab Emirates, rose to the fore once again in their opening World Cup defeat to France.
23-year-old Atkinson, who struggled in just his second international against the UAE, found similar problems against the reigning world champions and particularly, upon attempting to contain Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe.
The defender was caught out in a moment of hesitation during the first-half which saw him dispossessed by opening scorer Adrian Rabiot, who set up a one-two with Mbappe and crossed into Giroud, who finished with ease to claim the French's second goal of the match.
Although Arnold was late to replace the struggling Heart of Midlothian defender, the head coach may look to Fran Karacic to take the full-back's place in their penultimate group match against Tunisia on Saturday (AEDT).
Being an encounter with little room for error for the Aussies, Arnold may be left with no choice but to not start the young defender in their second group match.
Next stop: Tunisia
The Socceroos will come up against African side Tunisia on Saturday at 9pm (AEDT) in their second match of the 2022 World Cup, an encounter which could be Australia's make-or-break moment in the tournament as a second straight defeat will see their hopes of progressing to the knock-out stage all but end.
Arnold will try desperately to fix the cracks in the Australian set-up in what has the potential to be an exciting end-to-end encounter against the world's 30th-ranked nation.
How to watch Socceroos v Tunisia LIVE and FREE on SBS
Saturday, November 26
Group D - Tunisia v Australia
7:30pm - 11:30pm (AEDT) - kickoff at 09.00pm
LIVE on SBS and SBS On Demand
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