Australia coach Ange Postecoglou said he is not worried about South Korea’s miserly defense in the Asian Cup final after the Socceroos underlined their incredible ability to score through almost any player.
Defenders Trent Sainsbury and Jason Davidson struck in Tuesday’s 2-0 semi-final win over the United Arab Emirates to extend Australia’s tournament-leading tally to 12 — with 10 different scorers.
Australia’s record has given Postecoglou heart as he prepares for a South Korea side that has reached the final without conceding any goals, the first team in 39 years to do so.
“We’ve played five games, we’ve scored 12 goals and conceded two, and we’re in the final — I think that speaks for itself,” Postecoglou said.
Striker Tim Cahill is the only man to net more than once, with Massimo Luongo, Mile Jedinak, James Troisi, Matt McKay, Robbie Kruse, Mark Milligan and Tomi Juric all grabbing one apiece.
The UAE marked Cahill heavily after his two goals in the quarter-final against China, but they were caught by surprise when Sainsbury and Davidson popped up for their first international goals.
“There has been a lot of emphasis on Timmy and rightly so, because he was fantastic in the quarter-final, but I think this tournament has shown that we can score goals from other areas,” Postecoglou said.
“We’ve never really felt that it was just about Timmy scoring,” the 49-year-old added. “We knew building into this tournament that if we play our style of football and get players in positions, we could score, including at set-pieces.”
Before South Korea, Iran were the only side to reach the final without conceding, in 1976 — when only six teams played — and they remained unbreached as they lifted the title with a 1-0 win over Kuwait.
However, Postecoglou remains confident over his attacking philosophy, saying it is popular with both players and the nation. No other Asian Cup side has had more than six different scorers.
“I think Australian sporting teams would want to be really aggressive, proactive and attack the game to opponents and I think we’ve done that this tournament,” he said. “The general feeling I get from the supporters is that they are loving watching this team play and that’s great because we want to be successful, but we also want to continue to grow this game in this country.”
Postecoglou is set to field a different team to the one who lost 1-0 to South Korea at the group stage, when he opted to rest his first-choice strike partnership of Cahill and Kruse.
And with Australia into their second straight Asian Cup final after their 2011 loss to Japan, the boss urged his players to grasp the opportunity of a lifetime.
“It’s a massive game. We’ve now been in Asia a little while, but we haven’t won anything and this gives us an opportunity to achieve something,” Postecoglou said.
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