Easy. Rule got changed in the last year or two so that for the denying obvious goal scoring chance (aka last man etc), you no longer award a red card and a penalty for the same offence. So if its outside the box and a free kick, still a red. If its a pen then only yellow. Reasoning is that a red card and a pen for one incident is too heavy a punishment given that the penalty is a high chance of a goal. It can still be a red if the foul would have been a red elsewhere on the pitch, so for excessive force or whatever the proper terms are.
I wondered this during the Syria game actually and you're probably right. We're not really good enough to be Man City or Barcelona and break down anything in front of us. But blokes like Leckie, Rogic, Mooy, Kruse do ok at club level because they're not facing parked buses, they don't play for "big" clubs (maybe Rogic excepted in the Scottish league). Our pace on the wings will become a more valuable asset, so we may actually look better with less ball.






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