Some Lionel Messi magic was enough to see Argentina take a 2-0 win over the Socceroos on Thursday night.
But while the 2022 World Cup Champions may have claimed the victory, there were plenty of positives to take out of the result for Graham Arnold’s side.
From the emergence of the next generation of Socceroos stars to a new formation firing, here are some of the key talking points from Thursday’s game in Beijing.
PLAYER RATINGS: Young gun’s epic effort signals new era; sub’s 17-min statement
Messi melts Roos in 79 seconds | 00:39
‘THERE’S SOME KIDS COMING’: ARNOLD BULLISH ON FUTURE
Before the match, Arnold repeatedly emphasised: “I’ve got one eye on the Asian Cup, but I’ve got two eyes on the next World Cup.”
That is to say, 2026’s showpiece tournament is the ultimate goal, while next January’s Asian Cup is a stepping stone.
2026 is far away, but it’s clear that Arnold is looking to develop a team for the long term.
Arnold said post-match: “The purpose of this game and the plan I had before this game was obviously to give youngsters a chance … when you’re playing the world champions like that it’s obviously a good learning curve for a lot of people.”
He added: “Overall, the most pleasing thing was: There’s some kids coming. We’ve just got to expose them. And give them the opportunity to be exposed against this type of opposition.”
Of the 23-man squad for this fixture, 16 had 10 international caps or fewer when selected.
That included five of the 11 starters (Rowles, Atkinson, Baccus, O’Neill, Bos). The average squad age was below 25 years!
Some of that was due to injuries – the midfield stalwarts Aaron Mooy and Jackson Irvine were missing, as were veteran defenders Milos Degenek, Aziz Behich, and Bailey Wright. Throw in attackers Craig Goodwin, Awer Mabil and Martin Boyle, and the casualty ward was lengthy to say the least.
But that gave youngsters the opportunity to play – and to shine. None shone brighter than 20-year-old left-back Jordy Bos, who at this stage looks like he might even lock down the position for the next decade!
But it wasn’t just Bos, this is about a new generation that is being given the opportunity to play the very best players in the world. Nine of Argentina’s starting XI also started against the Socceroos at the World Cup: this was a full-strength team in every sense, and Lionel Messi played the full 90 minutes.
Arnold said afterwards: “Everything we do is about growing as a team.
“We’ve got some youngsters coming through. The only way for them to improve is to put them on the big stage.
“If they’re just playing local football or we’re playing against weak opposition, they’re not going to learn.
“Tonight, I think quite a number of them will go home and think: ‘Wow, we belong.’ And a number of the kids are going overseas and their careers are only going to go up from now.”
The kids are coming. And they belong on the world stage.
WILD SCENES AS BEIJING GOES BANANAS
Speaking of being exposed to new experiences, it’s fair to say most Socceroos have never seen anything quite like what this week – even those who experienced the World Cup in Qatar.
Thousands of fans flew from around China to camp outside Argentina’s Four Seasons hotel base in recent days. Both squads kept a low profile, only leaving their hotels to go to training, while hundreds of police were stationed outside the training sites and hotels.
Even that wasn’t quite enough to keep fans away, with one fan hiding overnight in the hotel to try get close to Argentina’s team.
“I first hid in the janitor’s closet, then went up to the team’s floor through the fire escape staircase,” the man told AFP. He was released by security without charge.
Meanwhile, the 68,000-seat stadium in Beijing sold out in one minute. More than 100 million people were expected to tune into watch the game on Chinese television alone.
Pre-game, Arnold quipped to Paramount+: “It feels like we’re more in Buenos Aires than Beijing.”
The Workers’ Stadium was packed in a sea of white and blue – and the vast majority in Messi’s number 10 jersey. Thousands more gathered outside the stadium after missing out on tickets.
Every time Messi touched the ball, the crowd exploded in a roar.
And in the second half, a young fan invaded the pitch and got a brief hug with Messi (and a quick high-five when running past Australia captain Mat Ryan, which is surely better).
He was dragged from the field by a host of security officers, but was reportedly under the age of 18 and was even allowed to remain in the stadium afterwards!
Arnold said afterwards: “Again, it’s a learning experience for the young players, they’ve probably never played in this type of environment before.
“And I thought they handled the occasion, after the first ten minutes, I thought we did very well.”
Next up is England at Wembley in October. Even that seems a little tame compared to last night’s bonkers scenes.
NEW FORMATION PAYS OFF
In the four years building up to the Qatar World Cup last year – what we call the last World Cup cycle – the Socceroos rarely experimented with different formations.
Coach Graham Arnold developed a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 and only tinkered with it when needed.
Last night, injuries gave Arnold a rare chance to try something very different – a 4-2-2-2.
The chief reason for that was the lack of out-and-out wingers available, with Awer Mabil, Martin Boyle, and Craig Goodwin injured. Instead, Arnold shifted to having two strikers (Jamie Maclaren and Mitchell Duke) play side-by-side, with two wingers behind them – but often playing more narrow than in the last World Cup cycle.
The ‘wingers’ in this case were the versatile Mat Leckie and Riley McGree, with Leckie moving to centre-forward when Maclaren was removed at halftime. Hrustic, who came on as the Melbourne City striker’s replacement after the interval, also played in that wider attacking role than his usual number 10 position.
The new formation could well have failed miserably, especially with the limited build-up to implement it, combined with the many young players in the side.
Instead, it worked very well. There were some fantastic passing sequences down the flanks, with Bos in particular overlapping on the outside after combining with the likes of McGree and Aiden O’Neill.
Arnold said: “I changed the system obviously with no wingers available due to injury, that side of things. I thought the system was very good and I was very pleased with the performance.”
Moving forward, it will be fascinating to see if the formation is used more frequently.
HOW ROOS ‘NEED TO BE BETTER’
There were, of course, some issues with the Socceroos’ performance.
They were caught out in the first ten minutes and appeared shell-shocked by the quality of their opponents, before working their way into the game.
And it was a poor defensive lapse that left Argentine substitute defender German Pezzella totally unmarked to head the second goal.
But perhaps the most frustrating issue was one that Arnold pointed out before the game: an inability to hold onto the ball.
Speaking earlier this week, Arnold said: “And if there’s one thing that we could do better than what we didn’t do in the last (match vs Argentina) was in possession, keeping possession better and making sure that we’re making them do some running and some chasing.”
But if Arnold has spent all week drilling his charges on that, it didn’t quite show.
The Socceroos struggled to hold onto possession in crucial moments. They were effective in transition – as they were in Qatar – but frequently gave the ball away in the middle of the park cheaply.
Another major issue was the lack of quality or final touch in the final third, with the Socceroos managing just one shot on target all match despite regular promising build-ups.
Part of that was down to youthful inexperience with decision-making, but some of it was just simple mistakes – like veteran Mitch Duke missing a sitter from close-range (the sole shot on target).
Arnold said after the game: “The whole message I’ve been driving throughout the week is: yeah, the Aussie DNA never changes – you fight ‘til you drop when you lose the ball. But we need to be better with the ball.
“The whole thing was about being brave to play. I thought we played very well, we did some good things, good combinations. (But we missed) things just like the final edge at times.”
The Socceroos have often struggled to maintain possession against elite international opponents – the match against France at last year’s World Cup, for example – and wastefulness in the final third is nothing new either.
But, as Arnold says, the Roos ‘need to be better’ in this regard. It will be a key marker of progress moving forward.