Thursday 6 December 2007

We want it all

Cockerill:

The football community in this country now wants everything, and it wants it now. The legacy of the World Cup is that expectations have been raised to unrealistic levels. Verbeek will satisfy the cultural cringe which demands a foreign coach for the Socceroos, but the honeymoon won't last long. Australia is not a major football power, at least not yet. But plenty of people think it is, as Verbeek is about to find out.
Sad but true.

Pim Verbeek lands the job.

After much heartache, and heartbreak, courtesy of 'dirty' Dick Advocaat, Ben 'Mr. Invisible' Buckley has announced Pim Verbeek as the new Australian Senior National Team Coach - and the good news is he has signed until 2010 and he will live in Australia.

Pim - let me be the first to call him 'Pimmo' - sports a poor track record at club level but did help Aussie Gus with the sensational Koreans in 2002.

Wikipedia says

Pim Verbeek (born March 12, 1956 in Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland) is a Dutch football manager who was the head coach of the South Korea national football team until July 2007. Verbeek was also an assistant under predecessors Guus Hiddink in 2002 and Dick Advocaat in 2006.

The Korea Football Association signed him to a coaching contract on June 26, 2006 until 2008. His brother Robert Verbeek is also a football coach. Pim led Korea to a third-place finish at the 2007 AFC Asian Cup, guaranteeing them an automatic berth in the 2011 tournament. He resigned after the third-place game, however, saying he needs a break from coaching for approximately five months.
Note: Don't make the mistake of comparing his CV to Hiddink, Advocaat, Houllier et al. Instead compare him to a Troussier, Viera, Klinsmann, et al, or better still Frank Farina or Arnie.

We just do not have the $$ to do any better. So for the money I think Buckley did OK.

'Avago Pimmo!!!!!!