DANE ELDRIDGE: Investing more in soccer with a dedicated headquarters will help achieve World Cup success

The national mood following the Socceroos World Cup exit has been a mix of pride and frustration, with many Aussies still staring blankly in to the sky for answers and Harry Souttar’s penalty kick.

Tony Popovic’s boys did us proud early Saturday morning in their gallant defeat to Egypt, a crafty opponent seemingly on AEST time with the rest of us considering how desperate they were for a lie down.

But did the Aussies spurn a golden chance at a maiden knockout stage victory, especially considering the relatively gettable opponent and the encouraging attacking signs from earlier in the tournament?

Despite the superb achievement of advancing beyond the group stage again, many are pleading for the 2026 tournament to be marked as an ideological crossroads for Aussie soccer.

Do we get fair dinkum about contending on the world stage? Or continue treating qualification as the milestone and the World Cup as the honeymoon?

The chorus for change has been lead by Mark Milligan, with the former Socceroo eloquently questioning at full time on Saturday “When are we as a nation and federation going to decide who we are?”

Right now Australian soccer doesn’t have an official headquarters, meaning whenever the squad arrives home they need to gather at the nearest Starbucks and find a park somewhere to train- and it’s a fair dinkum disgrace.

While it was unforgivable to bench Patrick Beach and pick the penalty takers in reverse, this primary disappointment has not extended from the result but the manner in which the team went slowly herbivorous before our eyes.

While the performance against Türkiye was hardly a Pep Guardiola-esque attacking masterclass, for Australia to only hit the back of the net one more time in the final three games after tactically stripping the Turks in a 2-0 boilover has been like going from Pinot Gris to Ribena.

Sure, the side’s negativity wasn’t like Paraguay’s shameful display on Saturday where they shithoused France and kicked Kylian Mbappé so unapologetically an XG rating was plotted on the back of his calves.

But it’s hard to deny that Popovic largely resorted to going “Full Laurie Daley” by ordering his troops to tackle their way to victory.

Yes, playing conservatively is a reality of modern football for the lesser lights and occasionally effective in neutralising big European nations or the 2014 Maroons.

But by tournament’s end, Australia seemed to have it so programmed as its default setting that when the opportunity arose against Egypt to throw the kitchen sink, all they could produce was plug hair.

And again, while there is no shame in playing conservatively at the right time to scrap points to get out of the group, you don’t win friends with salad- and that’s why a line in the sand is being called for.

So how hard can it be to overhaul the nation’s football fundamentals? Just throw more attackers up front and order them to score heaps more goals? Not likely.

For the Socceroos to consistently perform like alphas, they need to press high up the field, hoard possession, dictate terms, then knock it around the 18-0yard box in a horseshoe and thread it to Lionel Messi.

But in addition to developing its own elite possession game and Argentinian genius, Australia would also need huge balls. Why?

Because such a game plan can leave you exposed in defence and I’m sure we’ll all whinge if that happens too.

But with our future looking bright with names like Lucas Herrington, Nestor Irankunda, Paul Okon-Engstler, Alessandro Circati, Christian Volpato, Mohamed Touré and Jordan Bos forming an exciting core for the next decade, there’s no reason we won’t eventually have the continuity and battle-hardened talent to match France in a game of 4D Pep-Ball.

But if we like our Socceroos competitive and our World Cup campaigns extended in the meantime, we need to accept our limitations.

It often gets lost in the debate, but the World Cup is full of good teams of which many are bloody hard to beat.

With the resources currently at our disposal, we need to be realistic for the time being while these youngsters gain experience, and that means suffering for long periods in defence and remaining unfussy on how we pinch goals.

But there is one small resource that can help the Socceroos on their revolution, and it’s a roof over their heads.

Right now Australian soccer doesn’t have an official headquarters, meaning whenever the squad arrives home they need to gather at the nearest Starbucks and find a park somewhere to train- and it’s a fair dinkum disgrace.

And while a compound with a weights room won’t immediately translate to better football, it’s a farce in the professional era that international footballers who proudly represent us on the global stage don’t have somewhere to park their cars.

So to the federation, parliament and sponsors, if you’re desperate for our own Messi, you can start by getting him somewhere he can enjoy an ice bath.