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I was really curious about why Viduka scored so few goals for Australia. After watching old games of his for club and country I cam to the conclusion that we didn't produce any player that was a contemporary of Viduka that could deliver the ball to Viduka's feet when he is in the box and facing forward. You can actually see this in his highlights for middlesborough v Australia
In this video there are 42 goals. 34 are scored with his feet and he is recieving the ball inside the box 30 times. Of the times he scores with his feet he is facing forward 26 times out of 34. So nearly 2/3rds of his goals are from balls delivered to his feet facing forward in the box. There were some marginal calls with a couple either just inside or just outside the box, but I don't think the overall picture is different
Here are ten of his 11 goals for Australia
Only 2 of the goals are scored from balls delivered to his feet in good body position. Every other goal was from an aerial delivery. One time he bycicle kicks, a couple of either times he chests the ball down to his feet. This huge difference between the mix of goals for club and country is due to the fact that nearly every delivery a socceroo made into the box was aerial. when he did receive the ball at his feet, it was usually when he had his back to goal and was well outside the box. He was pretty good at playmaking from that position, but even for his club he rarely scored goals in that scenario.
Australia in that era weren't a hoofball team, we would play the ball mostly on the deck through the first two thirds in build up and that part of the game was more progressive than what the epl were doing at the time where there were a lot more hoofs out of the defensive third. However, Australia were very regressive in the final third in that era, averaging around 2 deck balls to a team mate in the box per game. Despite the aerial pingpong of the epl at the time, they would actually create more in the final 3rd - maybe 8-10 effective deck balls into the box per game. Viduka probably would have suited a more technical league from the replays on footballia I've seen. In any case, I think the way the roos played didn't suit him, but players who were better in the air like cahill and kennedy (or even aloisi) banged them in more frequently for us.
I'm curious, with technicians like kewell and breciano, why did we do so few deck balls into the box in that era?
In this video there are 42 goals. 34 are scored with his feet and he is recieving the ball inside the box 30 times. Of the times he scores with his feet he is facing forward 26 times out of 34. So nearly 2/3rds of his goals are from balls delivered to his feet facing forward in the box. There were some marginal calls with a couple either just inside or just outside the box, but I don't think the overall picture is different
Here are ten of his 11 goals for Australia
Only 2 of the goals are scored from balls delivered to his feet in good body position. Every other goal was from an aerial delivery. One time he bycicle kicks, a couple of either times he chests the ball down to his feet. This huge difference between the mix of goals for club and country is due to the fact that nearly every delivery a socceroo made into the box was aerial. when he did receive the ball at his feet, it was usually when he had his back to goal and was well outside the box. He was pretty good at playmaking from that position, but even for his club he rarely scored goals in that scenario.
Australia in that era weren't a hoofball team, we would play the ball mostly on the deck through the first two thirds in build up and that part of the game was more progressive than what the epl were doing at the time where there were a lot more hoofs out of the defensive third. However, Australia were very regressive in the final third in that era, averaging around 2 deck balls to a team mate in the box per game. Despite the aerial pingpong of the epl at the time, they would actually create more in the final 3rd - maybe 8-10 effective deck balls into the box per game. Viduka probably would have suited a more technical league from the replays on footballia I've seen. In any case, I think the way the roos played didn't suit him, but players who were better in the air like cahill and kennedy (or even aloisi) banged them in more frequently for us.
I'm curious, with technicians like kewell and breciano, why did we do so few deck balls into the box in that era?
