Mile Sterjovski wearing 39 lol.. This must have been around the same time we were capping everyone and from memory Tommy Oar wore #101

:)  It's like we just imagined those free kicks :)

This Socceroos team is better than the golden generation. It has achieved more already (with the Asian cup victory), and it has progressed out of sight since then. this team would dominate against the golden gen, our mids now would control the game and possession.

if we get to the round of 16 i think we can call it.  i dont think we are quite there yet.  even though this squad has more to show - ie the asian cup and it was against tougher competition.

If I go a little ardtho and make some tentative guesses (although he tends to be less than tentative :D)

the golden gen had 2 world cups with 1.3 points per game and a goal difference of -1/6 per game after six group games

At the last world cup we had a goal difference of -2 per game. That of course was much harder opposition. I would guess right now if we had the same opposition as the 2014 world cup we would have a goal difference of about -1 per game based on friendlies against similar opposition and my gut feeling. At 2014 we faced 2 world class teams and a nearly world class team, the goal difference per game is the same no matter how you cut it, minus 2. The GG faced 2 world class teams - germany and brazil - and had an average goal difference against them of -3 per game. If you include the R16 game against italy they had an average goal difference of -2.33. Its not far fetched to argue that the quality of 2014 wasn't miles away from 2010 or 2006 despite the golden gen having a much better club record.

If we faced the opposition the GG faced i think our results against the weaker teams would be to draw, lose or win roughly equal number of times and lose to the bigger teams. We have 2 more years to improve though

There's the trouble with comparisons - "The Golden Generation" (I dislike the term) did actually win the OFC Nations Cup - Who knows what would have happened in the 2004 Asian Cup if they had played.

I disagree with that completely. The midfield might be able to match it with the golden gen, but the defence (fullbacks especially) and forwards are completely blown out of the water by our 2006 squad. We should have easily won the Asian cup in 2007.

Lightbulb - yeah well they had their chance and failed big time in 2007

Grazor - like you say, we have 2 years left. This team isn't even close to peaking. Even Asian cup winning player of the tournament is struggling to make the team!

Gab - on paper yeah emo-Neil-Moore-chippers is a better back line, and we might not ever have another kewell. But in reality this Roos side just works better as a unit. it's a much more proactive, possession based side...and we aren't even close to our final form.

(And Nobody loved watching the golden gen more than me)

interesting thing is that if rhys, good, herd and tombides didn't have their health problems this generation probably wouldn't be far off on paper.

You wouldn't expect every generation to have that sort of bad luck

Fair play. Easy to get a wee bit enthusiastic about it.

Carts and horses.

Also got to keep in mind some of the injuries the golden generation had - Kewell alone is enough to change any team and he went from being a 23 year old sought after by Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea and Barca to a complete crock who lost all his speed. Okon missed about two full years during his time in Italy. Bosnich missed the prime of his career as one of the best keepers in the world due to drugs. Later on Poppa had his fair share of time on the treatment table too.

That aside, I do agree that we could have had an all-EPL backline if injuries hadn't played their part.

This is a hugely encouraging start but we're not yet at the point we can just say the current lot are better than the Golden Generation, imo.

I think we need to try to break it down more before we try to say which is better.

As has been pointed out, there's a reasonable chance (at this rate) that we may have a comparable (or greater) number of Aussies playing in the top leagues.

This is a big, big boost. But there's more to it than that. You have to look at the individual footballers...

We went to the World Cup in Germany with a far better defence and strikers than we currently have (or look like developing). Our central defenders, goalkeepers and strikers were a long way ahead then compared to now. None of our striker options are, currently, anywhere near Viduka or Aloisi.

Fullbacks... imo, our current fullbacks/wing-backs realistically have a decent chance of being better than the ones we've currently got. I think we're onto a really good thing with Smith, Gersbach and Goodwin.

The nuance is, though, they haven't got to the level of being better than the Golden Generation ones yet. They realistically will surpass them. But I strongly suspect Stan Lazaridis or Scott Chipperfield, for example, would be starters for us now, if they were in their prime.

Midfield is where it gets really interesting. I can't quite make up my mind as to which is better. Great problem to have. Rogic and Mooy are on another level. Then when you throw in Kruse, Jedinak, Luongo, Milligan, Leckie, Irvine and O'Neill. They give us so much depth and variety. Thankfully, we have a lot of horses for courses.

In saying that, the mixture of technical quality and resilience we had with Harry, Culina, Grella, Bresch, Emerton and Timmy is something special. Imo, there was more concentrated quality in midfield with the Golden Generation than we currently have.

We had more technical quality in defensive midfield then compared to now.

But there's more depth with the current lot and there's the potential to have more individual quality.

There's a few other things to be mindful of.

But, of course, there's more to this than just technical quality. We could do better in Russia (assuming we qualify) with this lot than the Golden Generation did in Germany, even if we don't quite surpass the sum total of their technical ability. Pim's side came very close to reaching the Round of 16, for instance, despite not playing particularly nice football and with an allegedly unhappy dressing room. Then there's sides like Iceland which aren't all that technical but achieve their success through sheer grit, unity and dedication.

This will be very interesting few months. We certainly haven't had this much of an Aussie presence in a while.

That makes me tear up so much.

And not because of what could have been in terms of football success.

If you tried to form one squad from the 2006 World Cup squad and the current available players, I would remove Covic, Beauchamp, Milligan, Skoko, Sterjovski, Thompson and Kennedy and replace them with Ryan, Sainsbury, Smith, Jedinak, Mooy, Kruse and Rojic. So the split is 16-7 and I am not sure any of the 7 makes the first XI. 
Full squad would be
Schwartzer, Kalac, Ryan
Neill, Moore, Popovic, Sainsbury, Chipperfield, Lazaridis, Emerton, Wilkshire, Smith
Grella, Jedinak, Bresciano, Cahill, Mooy, Rojic, Culina
Kewell, Viduka, Kruse, Aloisi

poor tombides :(

Good post Flicky - just a small nitpick - Lazaridis was never close to the level chippers, Gersbach, Goodwin, smith. Nothing more than a kick and run specialist. Also, pims side had 1 point after 2 games and a -5 goal difference compared to Ghana. I've never seen as much revisionism as I have with that campaign. We were dead and buried and our win against serbia was meaningless (zero chance Ghana would be humiliated against Germany like we were). Itwas a catastrophic failure of a campaign.

I'd have basically the same starting line-up as the 2006 one.

Except with 4-2-3-1 and with Rogic at CAM and Kruse at right-wing.

Mooy would also be a terrific option at CAM.

Jesus can you imagine Mooy or Rogic releasing Kewell and Viduka?

The beauty of Dukes was that he took so much defending (he was so powerful and technically gifted), that it freed up our other attacking players. This meant Dukes didn't get quite the statistical accolades he would otherwise have got, but he was invaluable.

Can you imagine if we had both Rogic and Viduka in the final third. It would be impossible to mark both of them out, so one would always have so much space, or both would have more than enough space.

Thanks.

For mine, the problem with South Africa was not the campaign itself. It was that the process of regeneration was all but non-existent.

This is because the FFA gave Pim the wrong brief. They said just get to the World Cup. They didn't account for the how or the who or more grassroots stuff. In terms of how we we went...

I hated the style we employed. But I have to admit getting 4 points in the group stages is not something that can be automatically considered nothing. And that with nothing going according to plan/bad luck...

Timmy getting sent off, unfairly, as Germany and Harry getting sent off, perhaps unfairly, against Ghana. It was ill-fated.

i agree that we are a few paces of the GG. but the roots are clearly there.  imo our whole backline is soft at the moment and no one is stepping up to replace timmy.  striker or two  and two decent central defenders all in form and playing regular football at a decent level and we are almost there.

we need to move on from looking at the GG like they are invincibles.  we can get there and even better again. including matching kewell at his peak.  the a-league is currently doing a very good job developing home grown talent and we are only a couple success stories away from having our lads looked at as potential candidates for one of the big 5 leagues again.

Maybe we need to stop signing so many visa players as attacking options in the a-league, and blocking the path of an Australian 

Edit - forget it, I'll put it in the NT thread

Good conversation, I'm excited for 2018, not willing to call it the next gen now, but after this season if some of these guys get a moves or if their clubs get promoted we will be well on the way to a squad of 23 all at the top level.

The right back "problem" . With 5 lbs currently running around in Europe , can't one of them just play on the right ? Some one very young like gersback you think would be super easy to retrain the position is no different really ?

Something I've spoken about before - people forget that Hiddink had to mould Emerton, an attacking winger, into a fullback because there was no other suitable option. Even Chipperfield was more of an attacking player, and yet played at left back for the Socceroos for how long?

For me, as an absolute short term solution, I think it's something that can be employed until a suitable right back comes through at club level - I feel like Smith is probably the most adaptable tbh, and he is by the fastest in our backline at the moment, and so would be able to cover mistakes much more readily.

That said, Degenek has shown considerable promise in his limited minutes, so I think Ange will give him a crack first.

Curtis Good played a full match for Newcastle 23s against Villa. They got smashed 4-0.

I'm going to do it. This gen is better than the golden generation.

 You can't truly Compare what they are like now to the 2006 squad because that squads average age was 5 years older than our current one. The majority of our best players now are aged 25 and under. Apart from up forward this gen has just as much depth if not more already. One of the biggest differences is that we have more depth coming through as well. 2006 had Milligan and thats it.

2018 will be good but I reckon 2022 will be even better.

I always thought Tony Vidmar was quite good and our best available LB at the time, was better than Chippers I reckon.

Yep, madness is truly prevailing. The current gen is nowhere near the golden gen, nowhere near it, not even close. Guys like Irvine, Luongo, Mooy, Wright, Sainsbury would not even be in contention for the 2006 world cup squad. Leckie might not make it either and Kruse with all his injuries and lack of match fitness would be highly doubtful. Gersbach, Oneill, Lyden etc would not even be in the frame. I think we get overexicted because we see these guys careers going in a perpetually upward trajectory and eventual mainstays in the EPL or equivalent league, but the reality is many if most of these guys will have already hit their ceilings league/club wise and wont progress much further.

Little state of play from the smaller leagues:
Austria:
Jimmy Jeggo the Melbourne product is top of  Austria by 3 points. Sturm Graz are alive in the cup. I don't think it's kicked off yet tbf.

Croatia:
18-year-old Kalik has yet to see minutes for Split despite seeing minutes last season. This could change as they are sitting outside of the Europe zone in 4th.

Denmark:
Mustafa Amini has played every game this season but this could be under threat as they haven't won in their last 6 across competitions. They are still alive in the cup and sit 9/14.
B McGrath and Mabil have seen limited time with the former (344) getting more minutes than the latter (44). They sit 12/14 and are still alive in the cup.

Hungary:

Szombathelyi Haladás are in 3rd, only 2 points behind top spot, and David Williams has banged in 4 from 7 games. Israel: Maccabi Haifa are in 8th with Ruka playing the first 2 games of the season. Too early for any predictions on how things will go. Lithuania: 22 year old Evan Ridley has played 5 matches for FC Stumbras who are 6th. Fun fact, there is a 19 point gap between 5th and 4th place in the A Lyga. Norway: 19 year old Gersbach has played in 14 of Rosenberg's league matches. They sit 15 points and 27 goal difference on top of the table. He has also played 177 minutes in the cup which they are still a part of. Sweden: IFK Goteberg sit 4th with Jamieson playing a part in 2 of their games.

Sorry Rusty, but Luongo, Mooy and Irvine would all be chosen over a 2006 version of Wilkshire and Sainsbury chosen over either Beachamp or Milligan, unless Guus had direct orders to select a certain number of A-League players, which is entirely possible.

What are you on about?
unless it's a bit of tongue in cheek?
Mooy yes, Rogic yes, otherwise we are pretty much of a muchness. Sains has been awesome, never should Beachamp or Milligan be decided over him.
Guus, you really think it's a tin foil hat time?