Popovic could have been sent in injury time. Just a shithouse tackle.

We have scored one goal in 270 minutes against jordans u23. They are hard to crack at this age

Look it may end up in our advantage if we come second and play South Korea instead of Japan, that is something we should consider. We have a much better chance against South Korea than beating Japan. But if we play like this then we won't get close to either.

Only 2 on target for the whole game. This is as bad as it gets.

Talbot is so poor in possession. Italiano should've played and captained the side. No idea why he didn't

hard to tell, we looked good against a stronger sk team a few weeks ago and the senior jordan side walked past sk

We need a late winner and no one decides to dictate it from midfield. We end up seeing centre backs with few ideas and Talbot running in circles. It was markedly better with the subs on due to Jordan's fatigue. That was clearly Vidmar's plan. Wear Jordan out then bring on the stronger players but we ran out of time and had few ways to get in there.

Fuck these idiots rolling around like stuck pigs after the slightest touch. I wouldn't piss on any of them if they were on fire.

Senior side is kind of irrelevant. And Jordan means nothing to us now as we won't play them again until the final. Sk are missing their best two players from the WAFF tournament and only 1 player from Europe. They are severely undermanned, and the time to strike is against them. Japan as you've shown with ur stats are probably better than us on paper so it's that would be very hard to win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h26sHiVrndc

Qatar vs Indonesia in 15mins.

I don’t watch these players however I saw Jordan were extremely organised and compact. It’s hard to show quality when the other team isn’t playing football. From what I saw I believe Jordan could keep it tight against some of the best teams at the Olympics. 

Considering the lack of fluency in our performance ill take an 0-0 and get a point on the board rather than lose 1-0 in a dodgy way to these stingy middle eastern teams which previously has caused us problems in the past.
Clearly we need to be better but you can tell the pressure is alot more than the tournament in march where the boys played with more freedom, clearly they played not to lose but second half was a bit better but we didnt do enough to score.

Hopefully we can get better in games 2 and 3 and get out of the group because this will not be easy at all.

Prime middle eastern time wasting bullshit!! Fuck I hate playing these countries, it's just anti football. Saying that, I was expecting a lot more from Holman, Milanovic & Brook - there were glimpses, but they are all far better than that. If only we had a player that can score from anywhere & win you a game singlehandedly on the bench!!! Thanks for thinking of his wellbeing Tony

so we were uncharacteristically sluggish despite showing some good skills individually

did all the drama over irankunda's non-selection and the resulting media coverage get in their heads?

If that's the plan, that is shocking. 

I'd make a few subs next game. 

Natta and Girdwood-Reich for Courtney Perkins and Popovic. Jelacic for Hollman and maybe Hollman slots to the 8 for Youlley. Toure for Alou. Segecic for Brook. Italiano for Talbot

                       Beach
Italiano.        Girdwood-Reich.       Natta.          Farrell
                           Teague
                  Hollman           Jelacic
Segecic                    Toure                Milanovic

I think this is the start of a much stronger core. 

its in one way such an improvement over being in oceania. On the other hand, the more regular fixtures aren't good for converting new fans to the game because its just so awful to watch a game against middle eastern teams. If your first game you watched was the olyroos or socceroos against a mid ranked middle eastern team it would confrim every negative stereotype about the game and i doubt you would come back

Talbot has always been poor. No ideas why he is out there.

I doubt it but I know that Irankunda's presence would be massive. He'd be our best player and probably our most usage in attack, dare I say our only attack at times. 
Would love a Bos on the left and a calm Robbo and Nieuwenhof in the middle too. Hell, I'll take a silky Volpato backed up by a unstoppable Circati and Triantis brick wall. 

I can only dream. lol

How does Talbot even make the squad, let alone get the captain's armband?!!!! Italiano needs to start next game. 

Middle eastern teams always play this way, they play with alot of passion and physicality and have the odd skilful play in them too, not easy to play them if your not in rhythm they can take advantage of you like we saw in the Asian Cup where they Jordan beat South Korea. 

It will be interesting how Indonesia and Qatar will play, especially the former who have a few dutch players with Indonesian roots in their team.

one warning sign from history

our olyroos from 2000 had bresciano, lucas neil, vince grella, mark viduka, josip skoko, lazaridis (last 3 overage) and a bunch of other great players, would challenge our senior team today, but didn't win a single game even losing to hondurus

Can't take anything for granted and need to give your all every game

I wonder how these guys careers would fare in the modern era since the game has improved so much since imo. I don’t believe Lucas Neill would make the EPL today 

indonesia v qatar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h26sHiVrndc
hoping for a draw?

Preferably. But I'm very interested in Group B. Playing South Korea should be the aim. 

Last u23 Asian Cup we had Piscapo pulling the strings & Daggers scoring the goals. From memory Dylan Ryan was probably our best player & looked like he was going to be a Socceroo. Somehow we qualified. Was Souttar there or was he only brought in when we made the Olympics?

The players are so much more energetic in this game

Players working hard off the ball in and out of the position, teams never static

Both these teams taking it seriously. What in the world happened to us? All the lead up games we worked so much harder

Only at the olympics. I have our old team in the olyroos thread. That team was miles behind this one on paper by any metric. But arnold was the coach who is a great man manager. Hope vidmar is too 

Last u23 Asian Cup was in 2022 and none of those players played.

I remember somebody saying that if they qualify that we shouldn't really bring other players into the Olympic squad and keep it mainly this team but hopefully this is confirmation that isn't going to work and we need to bring our best. Yesterday, people were saying Farrell is just as good as Bos which is a wild take. Indiscriminately bring the best players available and maybe just an overage goalkeeper and/or RB. Only have 18 players as well so only a handful from this team would make the squad. It's unfortunate but if we want to compete at the Olympics will need to level it up again and we can't be having this random poor performances and the constant giving the ball away every few touches. But this tournament is definitely a good indicator to discriminate between the rest of the players that we can choose from and have a much stronger idea. 

For example, I think Botic will get in if he has recovered and I think Toure/Alou is a real competition for that final spot. 

Can only bring 18 players, the usual pattern is 

2 goalkeepers
6 defenders
5 midfielders
5 attackers

Best to bring versatile defenders who can play multiple positions as we can't have two per position. 

Farrel was poor today but has had some big games for club and country

Would be better when facing a team that likes to show initiative. Against the jordans of the world i would definitely like bos at lb. Sadly not available