Game one is done.
Now, the Socceroos look towards the challenge of Denmark at the FIFA World Cup™, but not before the players and staff had a chance to sit down and review the narrow loss to France in Kazan.
Here’s a wrap of Day 29 in Socceroos camp, brought to you by Caltex. Stay tuned tosocceroos.com.auas we provide daily updates for the FIFA World Cup™…
The Socceroos were back out on the park at their base camp facilities, undergoing an active recovery session at Stadium Trudovye Rezervy.
The players who put in the hard yards in the 2-1 loss to France completed jogging, recovery exercises and stretching and rolling to start the process of preparing them for the Denmark test on Thursday 21 June at 10pm AEST – live on SBS and Optus Sport.
For those who didn’t play, there was a tough on field session which involved 3v3 games to goals, with assistant coach Mark van Bommel barking instructions and making sure the intensity was high.
The team will have two more on field training session in Kazan before they travel to Samara, the city where they will face Denmark, with video sessions also on the menu to analyse the performance against France and prepare for the next opposition.
“It was unlucky,” explained van Bommel to socceroos.com.au.
“We worked after the game yesterday on the video and watched the match again. We made some really good clips that showed we were unlucky in a few moments in the game which unfortunately was a disadvantage.
“But if you see how we worked in Turkey – what we did on the ball and without the ball – and you see the idea of how we want to play, it worked really well [against France].
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the point or win the game.”
Van Bommel also praised the attitude of the players the day after the loss, with motivation still high and the confidence growing after a strong game one performance in Group C.
“We take this with us and we have a lot confidence,” van Bommel added.
“Before the game nobody would have expected we could play in this way, even against the big countries we have a chance and we take this with us to the Denmark game.
“This isn’t a guarantee that we play the same way as we did against France but if you lose, unfortunately, but play really well, it’s better than when you lose but you don’t have a chance.
“It’s always difficult when you lose in the World Cup to get new motivation one day after but they worked hard, with a lot of humour and a lot of passion so we were happy and I think the players were also.”
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