Cant really blame the referee. Kalic missed a penalty and was also a red card waiting to happen. Firstly, why did he take the penalty? Brimmer has one of the best free kicks in the country, including the senior team (on display on the fisrt half).. now it seems he is not great in other areas but you would think he would bury a penalty...

And then Kalic just goes and gives two pointless and obvious yellows... Not too smart.

We dominated the play but had no real penetration... Piscopo looked quite good IMO, Deng, Youley and Glover totally controlled the back half meaning Tajiks made no threat to our goal at any stage...

but Chapness was all huff and no puff (probably played too many minutes in the tournement)

We lacked real interplay or any creative force..

disappointing to go out .. not a hard group by any measure

http://www.the-afc.com/u-19-championship-2016/tajikistan-reach-afc-u-19-championship-quarters-at-australias-expense

Agree either Brimmer or Youelly should have taken penalty .

Lets not forget our players are out of season.I defy any players to be playing at their best with no regular game time.
Missing goals and conceding easy goals can come down to lack of match fitness and sharpness .
Is this the same team that won a tournament a few months ago?
Then there is selection of the team.We have players 17yrs (arzani)making a debut for City last night,but not good enough for u19?

I'm happy with a draw like that. They can take from that not to get frustrated and to make the most of the opportunities that come their way? With Vidmar it seems like the order was if you can pass back to the keeper I will give you a chocolate. And it won't be the last time these boys will play Asians with a poor attitude and a negative mindset. Where doTajikistan to go from here? Nowhere.

I guess that concludes this years matches. Very sad but we focus on next year and the qualifying paths for the next season.

ufuk seems inconsistent (this is true of youth in general mind you)
I remember his games against thailand 5-1 then 1-5
having said that he looks a world better than his predecessor

if we had a second division there would be more avenues to develop coaches and give youth game time earlier

hopefully it happens. Couldn't give a stuff about p/r but a 2nd division will help youth development a lot i think

yeah good experience for when they face west asian teams as adults and have to score in 35 degree heat playing only 30 minutes of game time because the rest of the time its the opposition faking injury

Didn't see any of the match, was the stalling really that bad? Was it even worse than when Chelsea played Liverpool a few years back and Chelsea used the most ridiculous amount of time stalling imaginable from the first minute?

I think a lot of people noticed early on that there was an issue with this team and finishing. 

I think that is the most concerning thing here, we are struggling to produce many strikers and finishers through the youth ranks. We are producing midfielders by the bucket load and a growing number of defenders but there seems to be a problem with creating creative and effective strikers.

And 36 year old Cahill still probably our best striker, it is worrying.

Yes strikers seem to be a problem , Also just read that Mark Rudan is Defence coach , does he have any form when it comes to coaching youth ?
I know he has coached in NPL ? But I thought he were a fox sports pundit now.

Only comes off coaching Syndey United to a couple of NSWPL and NPL titles. No biggie.

Another failure joining the u23 and recently the u17s failures, its probably the first time in the AFC and probably ever that none of our youth teams have qualified for the world cup at any group, but the worse part is they didnt even get out of their respective groups which makes it even worse!
It shows where we really at football especially at youth level maybe the players we have are not that good as we make their out to be!

They struggled to create any sort of chances, everything was too predictable which made the other team defences easier to read in what we are doing we had issues creating chances i think we are restricting their freedom too but maybe their individually not good enough to play this style? Hope im wrong.

Massive wake up call and it probably devalues what kind of players are coming through if they cant beat these sort of teams, i guess it might be a good thing and realise we are not that good that we made out to be and it might re-evaluate in what we are trying to do at youth level from 9-19.
Huge changes are needed and for once the FFA you must spend money if you want results or else its not going to get better.

The positive is that Ange can argue we need div 2 otherwise national youth will never improve.
If we are realistic,the youth at the moment have the worst ever game experience.Some play amateur npl teams.Nationally there is a mini tournament.Only a handful of youth players get HAL experience.
Out of all that we are supposed to be world class?
Seriously we need thousands of quality youth playing week in week out and most of the year.At the moment we have around 100 playing intermittently and at a low standard.....The result no World Cup qualifications.
Expansion of the HAL and Div2 are needed desperately.Otherwise we should get used to poor national team results.

Absolutely disgusting. where's the accountability ? off the boys and coaches trot back to their demountables and tin sheds in Canberra

Embarrasing 

Given how tonight the likes of Pasquali, Choi, O'Doherty etc it seems they play with so much freedom and expression to do their own thing.
The question is does our national youth team coaches hold back the creative freedom and expressive of our players?
I have a feeling this could be a problem too regardless of where they stand in Asia in terms of results and general talent we got do we hold them back when the pressure is on? Food for thought.

Decentric

a few things to unpack from your post





The antithesis of 1-4-3-3 (with an attacking midfield triangle and attacking fullbacks) is not 1-4-3-3 (with a defensive midfield triangle and attacking fullbacks). Where did you get that from? 1-4-3-3 (with an attacking midfield triangle and attacking fullbacks) is very proactive/attacking. It's surely among the most aggressive conventional formations? The antithesis of it is, necessarily, an extremely reactive/defensive formation. The antithesis of it basically has to be the same thing as building a bus depot around the goal.

For it to be the antithesis, it needs to be among the most reactive/defensive formation. It's obviously not that. 1-4-3-3 (with a defensive midfield triangle and attacking fullbacks) is obviously not the most defensive formation going around. In fact it's not even among the more defensive formations. We're talking about playing with a goalkeeper in a sweeping role, overlapping fullbacks and three very attacking blokes. Obviously, that's nowhere near the most defensive formations. The most defensive conventional formations would have to be something like 4-5-1 with them sitting very deep or maybe the formation José Mourinho got Chelsea to play against Liverpool in that match at Anfield when Chelsea got the early goal and basically blocked off all routes to goal after that. It might have been 5-4-1 (I think I remember that Fernando Torres scoring or creating a goal late).

But no way can the antithesis of 1-4-3-3 (with an attacking midfield triangle) be reasonably regarded as 1-4-3-3 (with a defensive midfield triangle). The latter is basically one of the most stable formations going around in terms of attack/defence balance, imo. It's obviously similar to 4-2-3-1, which, imo, is the most stable.




With all due respect, this misrepresents the situation, imo. You're making it seem as if 1-4-3-3 (with an attacking midfield) is proactive football and anything not quite that proactive is reactive. This is a false dichotomy. It's all a matter of extent. You can play broadly proactive football without being utterly proactive. Imo, it's also untrue that the majority of powerhouse nations have always played completely and utterly proactive football. Completely untrue. Or rather, it's an exaggeration lacking in nuance or an exaggeration deliberately employed with a view to conning people into misunderstanding what proactive football actually is.

The reality is that the majority of powerhouse nations play broadly proactive football and they vary its aggressiveness according to circumstances. E.g. sometimes Germany will play in an utterly proactive manner. Other times Germany will play in a broadly proactive manner but with three central defenders (thus not completely and utterly proactive football).

Basically, playing in a style that's slightly less aggressive than 1-4-3-3 (with an attacking midfield triangle) does not automatically mean a team is "waiting for opponents to make mistakes". A team can have three central defenders and still be playing broadly proactive football. Likewise it can be playing 4-2-3-1 and, depending on more specific tactics imo, still be playing proactive football. Pep Guardiola has done similar things as a coach. Would you say he is a reactive manager, Decentric?

The criticism of the NT is that Ange is going about things in a way that is far more tactically inflexible than a more flexible manager would do, like Joachim Löw or Pep Guardiola. Obviously, those last two are not likely to betray general philosophies of aggressive football.

Finally, we must note the distinction between the NT and junior football. Imo, even though results do matter at junior level, they matter less so than at senior level. How much they matter, I'm not sure. There should be criticism. But there should definitely be an emphasis on technique, tactics, style and creativity. Being mindful of that, you can picture matches where they might not get the result but at least play in a certain way. I believe in somewhat exaggerated training methods to encourage a particular outcome. Therefore, the notion of junior sides playing 1-4-3-3 (with an attacking midfield triangle and attacking fullbacks), even if they're not that well-suited to it, is not so bad. The general idea is for the footballers to be accustomed to it so that, maybe, they can play that way by the time they're in the senior NT. I'm really not sure about whether they should just play that way and risk poor results at junior level. Maybe there needs to be a bit of compromise at junior level. Obviously, it's no good if they don't even qualify for tournaments. But obviously it's far more understandable than the NT playing in a completely idealistic way.

True.

I stand corrected.

The word 'antithesis' is the wrong word for me  to use comparing  the midfield triangle versions of 1-4-3-3.

All good points, QF.
However, Italy prefer to have good possession based teams to have the ball than the inverse.  Conversely, other teams prefer to try and dictate terms, even if moderating their game plans for specific games against specific opponents.  You've made this point, well made, before.

Mentioning Pasquali, and I've observed Arzani for City, who are playing HAL football they must have better claims for the Under 19s than some others.

Pasquale is a midfielder ?
U19s had
Baccus WSW
Youlley WSW
Shabow WSW
Maia WSW
Hope MV
Brimmer LFC
Rose CCM

One thing I have noticed with underage teams both past and present is how many Sydney players are selected along with COE players

Current squad had 6 WSW players and 4 SFC That's 10 players out of a total of 23.

I think most people have noticed that fact that nsw coe dominate when it come to national selection. The u16 had one victorian in the 23 man squad for the qualifiers one would think that surely there would be more then one good enough? 

Yes , this is what I'm saying , once the Ffa realize that there is talent outside of NSW maybe we can be more compeditive in these comps , same deal with the coaches .

Decentric

I get what you mean by the two being antithetical. The three central midfielders are the mirror image in one compared to the other.

Talent ID and scouting is a joke in this country, this is not new NC or not its the same mistakes made time and time again.

Will the FFA and the State Feds ever learn? They should get used to failure then if things don't improve...

Exactly why these lads are not in the squad, whilst others selected haven't had a taste a first team football or maybe they not rated by the first team coaches.

Don't get carried away with this it matters not.

Such a disgraceful result. Our repeated inability to beat minnows across all juniors age levels is incredibly alarming. 

People are saying it's to be expected when many of our boys aren't playing at a decent enough level. But what about our opposition? Are the Tajikistani juniors playing at a better level than our boys? The Thais, Uzbeks, Vietnamese etc. Where are they playing? Higher level than our boys? If so, how? Are they all playing at the highest level in their country? And high is the quality of that league in comparison to ours?

Picking someone like Blackwood to lead the line just screams desperation. He's never been a massive goalscorer and needs far too many chances before he can put one away. Sadly this appears to be endemic of the entire squad. 

I feel there are a few issues. Firstly we aren't picking all the best talent in the squad first and foremost, secondly i am not a fan of instilling such a difficult formation to play in all the junior levels in the 1-4-3-3. The Defence is often isolated, the 6 has an incredibly difficult job and it is a very tough ask for a striker to play alone up top at that age. We complain about a lack of good strikers coming through, or the fact of wasting to many chances. This system is too difficult and i honestly believe at the detriment of our performances.

And we aren't used to playing teams who time stall from minute 1, so our players need to learn how to keep fouls down and be clinical when the chances arise., which leads to the point i said before about a lone striker.

I agree with the talent scouting comments, turning into cricket Australia.

I do think the boys looked a bit flat, especially in the last game and they looked frustrated and had a bad attitude. During defending a corner, you could hear a lad say, 'it's too easy.' It's the wrong attitude to have and there was some clear aggression on the pitch as well because it 'wasn't that easy.' Deng nearly threw a punch at a guy and he seemed the calmest out there, lot's of groaning, pulling hair out, eye rolling and thumping the turf like an 8yr old having a tantrum.
They just didn't seem to have a good mindset going in and it seemed to get worse for me, that's what I noticed.
Sometimes things don't go your way, you have to accept it and just get on with things and rise above them.
Ufuk has done ok, but it's not a good look to be sent to the stands for an underage game, throwing 'f' bombs left, right and centre. It was really disappointing to see in the last game and I think contributed to the performances.

Good point.