Dawson gets CB starting spot with Pocognoli on left and Davidson benched, Damn! Good Langerak is starting.

Langerak starting.

Edwards on the bench

Williams still suspended for Fulham. Burgess starting, Taggart not fully fit yet

Edited by moofa: 16/8/2014 11:27:24 PM

worst start to a season in two years for osaussies

must admit im unpleasantly suprised. Things looked like they were improving from year to year

It is rough but Halloran and Leckie deserved the bench spot after their lackluster openers. They'll be motivated to get it back. Amini's development has been positive and look at Brilliante. Langerak is playing a bit more too.

Also bozanic and vidosic disnt make their squads

I thought the dark ages were over but now I am worried again
I hope those players at big clubs do ideed come through

Just out of curiosity what made you think we were out of this slump when barely any of our current crop are playing regular football at the highest level?

When 70-80% of our Socceroos starting XI are playing regular football in the top 4 leagues, then you can say we have a new golden generation.

Davidson might be brought on to defend the lead. Brunt has come off for Baird which is a little weird.

Langerak conceded in a 4:1 win but the scorer was massively offside and caught him off guard.

Langerak's BVB winning 4-1 over their 3. Liga opposition, Davidson looks like he won't make it off the bench today for WBA with just a few minutes left at 2-2, Luongo starting and heavily involved in the attack according to Swindon Town's twitter, although losing 1-0 with just a few minutes left, Burgess and Williams started for Fulham, the latter subbed off at the 76th minute and also heavily involved in attack according to his club's twitter. Some promising prospects for the season.

You're sounding a bit glass half full, the first round of the new season isn't even over in any of the biggest Euro leagues.

Kruse is back and may well get loan time, Langerak has his manager's full faith with two consecutive starts, Williams debuting for the Fulham first team, Davidson just came back from injury and is on the bench in the EPL and will surely play soon, and in half an hour Jedi will be starting as captain against Arsenal. Probably heaps more from just today that I'm forgetting about.

Plenty there to cheer about.

Burgess playing all 90 at CB in the 1-0 loss to Millwall, singled out for praise several times in Fulham's official twitter.

Are you sure it's not George Williams? Thought Ryan was suspended?

Jedi earning his pay check against Arsenal.

Langerak played in the 1-4 win against Stuttgart Kickers.

:oops: Seems you're right. :oops:

McDonald played the full 90 for Millwall, at least.

I don't think we have to be at golden generation level to be out of the slump though I would like us to eventually exceed that level

The thing that was frightening a lot of observers was that we had literally no one playing in decent euro leagues that wasn't going to be old by 2014 (the so called missing generation)

the last 2 even 3 seasons there has been significant progress each season for os aussies. It looks like the dark ages are over and we can gradually rebuild up to the level we were perhaps (probably) higher

this year has been the first year in 4 years where osaussies haven't seemed to take a step forward. Even if things improve dramatically in the next 10 weeks its still not the dramatic steps forward that have been taken the last four years mainly due to aussies that had broken the starting line up in decent leagues falling out of favour (and so many at once)

I'm a little more anxious than usual because

1. I didn't care what level we were at as long as we were improving
2. I would really like to win the asian cup as I think it would make a huge difference to football in australia and a really good crop of osaussies breaking through this year would have been nice

Ryan Edwards on in the 67th minute for Reading, while Federici played all 90 in their 1-0 win.

Just incredible what a change in environment can do for a talent, hope to see much more of Edwards.

Brillante on the bench for Fiorentina in their friendly against Real Madrid.

this is a positive

I would say its likely he will get some time this season even if its off the bench occasionally

jedinak with 9 tackles! shame about that 53% passing!
still whoscored gave him a 7.9

The 53 would be for clearances. He made tonnes and at crucial moments.

i think that was brilliante with an assist hard to tell

hard to tell which one is brilliante so I'm assuming he is the dm (from the arial view that this stream has) who looks very good

Edited by grazorblade: 17/8/2014 06:28:19 AM

well the team scored a goal when he was on (from min 67 onward) and I think it was him that made the final pass. The team looked real good when he was on but I had no idea which one he was. But no one looked out of place and the quality was like a league match rather then the languid intensity of the preseason friendlies before now

he needs to grow a red afro for the benefit of fans back home that want to follow his progress :)

Looks like bozanic is injured....thats better news than being dropped
only missing piece of the puzzle is vidosic then

cant believe he got on the pitch , pleasantly surprised , it also great that they are playing him in his preferred position , the jets waisted this guy on the wing and RB

Great stuff Brillante was subbed on, surely a sign he's in the mix leading into the season opener.

Vidosic needs to overlooked for the NT. Lots of talent but nothing between the ears. Time to move on.

To be perfectly honest, I actually think we are in about the same position as last year, just with different players. Last year we were raving about Bozanic, Vidosic and Halloran (among a few others) making progress. Now we just have new players to look forward to take their roles. Brillante, Amini, Sainsbury, Edwards etc.

Overall though, the bulk of our national team will still be getting regular game time. Oar, Leckie, Bresh, Cahill, Jedinak, Milligan, Spira, Ryan etc.

What we have to hope for is that Davidson breaks through at WBA (early days for him but at least he's on the bench so he'll get chances) as our left back stocks are slim. For right back we have Franjic who is also very early days but wasn't in the squad for his team's match yesterday and Wilkshire, who looks like he will get 90 minutes most weeks at Feyenoord.

Crucially though, we have strengthened in areas where we lacked depth going into the world cup. At the moment we finally have three GKs getting regular game time in Europe in Ryan, Federici and Langerak (weidenfeller injured) and in defence with Sainsbury pretty assured to get 90 mins most weeks provided he can stay uninjured.

here are the highlights: http://en.violachannel.tv/video-detail/items/highlights-real-madrid-1-2-fiorentina.html

He us didn't make the pass for the second goal. he is the one following up the shot if the defender kept it out. Number 25

i see I wonder if he was playing higher up the pitch than dm?

can you find any commentary on him