Graham Arnold's coaching career highlights the fractures and fault-lines in Australian football

On Thursday night — at the end of his deflated post-match media conference — Socceroos head coach Graham Arnold was asked the golden question that has shaped Australian football's discourse for the past few years.

After a lifeless 2-0 defeat to Japan in a must-win World Cup qualifier in Sydney, in which he fielded a number of inexperienced youngsters due to the cavernous absence of more senior stars, Arnold was asked about Australia's player development pipeline.

«What does it say about Australia's standing in relation to the rest of Asia when we're bringing on youngsters like [Ben] Folami and [Marco] Tilio and they're bringing on [Genki] Haraguchi and [Kaoru] Mitoma?» a journalist rightly asked.

Arnold paused.

«Well,» he said flatly, «If you notice that, write what you think.

»At the end of the day, I've been saying this for probably 10 years."

And that was it. Media conference over.

As often happens, the shortest, sharpest answer turned out to be the most revealing — not just of Arnold, whose job is now likely on the line, but about the world of Australian football he is both a product and producer of.

The Socceroos' World Cup qualifying failure is the latest variation on a theme that has been the driving anxiety of the Australian game for the past decade.

Late goals deliver Japan a 2-0 victory, meaning the Socceroos will have to go down the intercontinental knock-out path to reach the World Cup in Qatar.

Two months after the Matildas' quarter-final exit from the Asian Cup earlier this year, the game has finally arrived at the existential crisis it has been keeping at bay: how it is identifying, producing and showcasing the next generations of Australian footballers.

In both the men's and the women's game, the past two decades'