UAE v Australia: veteran managers set for another high-stakes battle in World Cup play-off

The pressure of a World Cup play-off can turn the calmest of coaches snappy. Graham Arnold, charged with taking the tough decisions for Australia on Tuesday against UAE, recalls the moment when, as deputy to Guus Hiddink the last time the Socceroos took the indirect route to football’s greatest showpiece, he was told to mind his image.

It was during a nail-biting second leg in which the Australians were battling with Uruguay for a spot at the 2006 World Cup. The Socceroos had lost 1-0 in Montevideo; Australia clawed back an equaliser in Sydney. All of a sudden, tension mounting, Hiddink caught sight of live, big-screen pictures of the home team’s bench.

They showed the worldly Dutch manager on his feet, pensive but unruffled. Seated behind him was Arnold, chewing furiously, eyes cast skywards. Hiddink turned to Arnold and gave him a simple instruction: “Spit out the chewing gum, Arnie!”

Arnold tells the story with a smile, because that evening, settled on penalties, ended well. Hiddink’s point was that those in charge of a nerve-shredding contest should exude a cool confidence. The gum-chewing gave away Arnold’s intense anxiety - not a good look to transmit to players who, at that stage, had inherited 32 years of Australian near-misses when it came to reaching World Cups.

Arnold, 58, may want to reach for the chewing gum in Doha this evening. No Australian has known more intimately the saga that is the country’s agonising relationship with World Cup play-offs. He made his Socceroos debut, as a combative centre-forward, the month before his country fell short in the play-offs for the 1986 tournament, defeated by Scotland.

He was still being entrusted with finding the missing killer instinct in the opposition penalty area