Damn those pots are scary! 🙈

Interesting to note we had 9 different goal scorers across only 3 matches.

Great to see we’re playing as a team and not relying on only a few players to score goals.

Vietnam... 4-0 against Thailand... impressive...!
Happy Australia made qualified for the U23 Asian Cup as well.
Look at Pot 1 ,,,, a changing of the guards maybe?



[Side note: The Olympics is not the only tournament Australia U23 plays in,  should we still call them Olyroos?  In fact, we haven't even played in the last few Olympics  :)]

This should be the major talking point throughout any forum on Aussie Football. We have A League players going to Europe and sitting on the sidelines until they are fit enough. We have ACL fixtures where Chinese, Japanese and Korean teams in pre season run us off the park. Yet nowhere in the coaching echelons of this supposedly great country has it sunk in that our players need to increase their fitness levels. It is beyond belief!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I watched all three games and saw a few positives. Tactically they were sound, and Arnie had them working well together. He certainly was coaching them heavily during the matches to make up for their lack of time together. Getting more time together before January will be important, if possible. There were also several individual performances that showed great promise. Hopefully Arnie can get the Euro boys released in January!

Anyone know if the January tournament is held in a FIFA window?

if it was just youth I wouldn't care and just look at tech skills

but these guys play a league week in, week out so it does raise questions about the fitness levels of our league

Every draw result from those pots will be a challenge for us. I sincerely doubt that we will get through based on the results of this tournament without the U23s actually training together consistently. Listening to the micromanagement taking place during matches was painful, these boys aren't expected to make a single decision - when people talk about robots this is why.

If you read the accounts of former HAL players they say it pretty clearly that training in Australia is a walk in the park. 

I think our pot looks OK, japan's group looks like the worst, we've got a chance I reckon. 

Those are the pots that the groups are drawn from, not the groups :)

D'Agostino looks awful at HAL level but has seemingly done ok for the NT.

Should we be worried or

I believe the micromanagement is a symptom of not playing enough games together, having the time to work on tactics and understand each-others positions/roles properly. 

Take for example the so far successful Vietnam U-23 team, they have played together since they were U-16's and play in multiple tournaments per year (VFF Cup, M-150 Cup, ASEAN Games, Asian Games).   

How about all aleague based olyroos and joeys go into a camp for 2 months every off season. There's more than enough time, and the extra coaching and time to gel might help us actually qualifying for major tournaments. 
Or should we just allow our talented youths to stay home playing PlayStation for 5 months every year?

good point what the hell do they do in the off season?? 

Think we should focus on having a dedicated manager for the Olyroos first.

Of course, they could come at us in the second half, it didn't help that we sat too deep inviting the pressure as well.

If we had a bigger lead going into the second half we could have won, but taking our chances is a problem at all levels.

We had that just recently, still didn't train regularly

Vietnam look impressive, whoever we get it will be a tough group to get out of.

What is the equation to qualify is it through in making the semi's? or you have to finish in the top 3?

Daggers scoring both is a good example of our problems with player development in this country, can score at this level but barely gets a chance to develop as a striker at Brisbane.

i think arnie looking after them is a great idea. no excuses. no second rate management.

hey come on Bowden lol....there hasn't been much to be excited about for some time locally BUT this is brilliant finally.
Great effort to date by the boys and well done GA.

And when we're deep into a WCQ campaign where our main NT demands his entire focus, what then?

For those saying the Olyroos should be having camps... They have been, but FFA just never reports about them.

Arnie has ran 2 separate Olyroos camps at the AIS since taking over the reigns.

Literally the only way we know about these is via the Instagram stories of the players.

It's games not training camps that they need, and if Arnie still has to micromanage them through an entire game then his training camps aren't achieving what he needs.

Yeah fair call. Can’t temember the last time the Olyroos played a friendly match outside of a tournament window.

The last tournament was in freezing Changzhou China, were Vietnam lost 2-1 to Uzbekistan on the snow covered pitch. Would be interesting if these 2 meet again, in the heat of Bangkok!
I'm actually considering going, skip the yearly Lakes Entrance family trip in 2020,  haha,,  Thailand is not that far away, a good destination and summer holiday. Follow the Olyroos & Vietnam !!!

Oh, hahaha, I'll blame it on early morning miscomprehension. 

I was thinking the same. 

Just looking at the pots the best we can hope for is Thailand, North Korea, and Bahrain.

The worst we could get would be Qatar, Japan, and Iran.

We better hope its the former! 

A-League coaches better get used to losing their best young players for more camps and friendlies in the next year if Australia's under-23 men's team is to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

That, it appears, is the message from the Olyroos players themselves, who have put their strong performances in Cambodia over the last week down to the pre-tournament camp their club mentors didn't want them to have.

We want more: Olyroos captain Thomas Deng says the team's week-long training camp in Malaysia was invaluable.

Graham Arnold, who is juggling dual roles as coach of the Socceroos and Olyroos, had to fight for the A-League players in his 23-man squad to be released from their clubs so they could assemble in Malaysia, a week before the qualifiers for next year's AFC U-23 Championship.

Melbourne Victory defender Thomas Deng described the time spent together as "priceless", and said without it they may not have yielded the same results from the tournament - 6-0 routs of Cambodia and Chinese Taipai, and a 2-2 draw with South Korea which booked their spot in the final stages of Olympic qualification.

"To perform how we did in a short space of time was amazing, I think, and the more time we have together, the more things we'll achieve," said Deng, who skippered Australia through the three games.

"We just need to be in camp more with each other and just get to know each other a lot more."

That won't exactly be music to the ears of Victory coach Kevin Muscat, who said it was a "slap in the face" of the A-League that players like Deng were taken away while domestic fixtures continued. Western Sydney coach Markus Babbel was also no fan of the arrangement, describing the loss of Keanu Baccus, Abraham Majok and Tass Mourdoukoutas as a "disaster" for the Wanderers.

January's AFC U-23 Championship in Thailand will likely see players called away from their clubs again, as the Olyroos fight for one of three available spots for Tokyo 2020. Australia has not been represented in men's football at the Olympics since 2008, but Deng believes this is a crop of players who can end the drought.

"The future's looking bright for us. I think we can go to the Olympics, with this squad that we have," he said.