Geria has been playing very well recently and possibly merits selection but Rogic cannot be left out of the starting 11 on current form.

ATM I'm having a second look at the Bangla game away. Given the calibre of the opponents, it is not worth doing stats.

However, they've been a lot more aggressive and have come hard at our players at home. To the extent the Socceroos could've done with Milligan's physicality to rough them up in their defensive third. He was rested.

Cahill's finishing was sublime against Bangla.=d>

The Socceroos now struggle to play as well on rough pitches.

I agree, he has been a shadow of himself out wide. One of the games he was moved back centrally and started to play well.

It probably has not helped his club games when he leaves the team only to play badly because he has been played out of position.

Ange's selection of Luongo has been one of worst if not the worst thing Ange has done.

just to put it out there, based on his comeback form. should Ange select the Slippery Fish (Henrique) in the up coming squads... now that he is an Aussie he surely must be one of the inform strikers along with McLaren & Juric (even Scott mac had bagged a few recently) and with Jmac in the Ollyroos at the moment why not?

Geria has been impressive recently.=d>

One of the few young players to benefit at MV.

Muscat has relied on 6 imports as the basis for his team being 5th on the ladder.:?

Muscat might have to look at Murnane, Pain, Galloway,Mahazi, playing more regularly. Arnie would've dropped some of the imports by now and played young players instead.

City, Roar, and SFC are doing wonders for the development of young players compared to Victory ATM - Blackwood, Hoole, O'Neill, Gersbach, plus McLaren, Borrello, plus Mooy, Retre, Chapman, Mauk, Garrucio, Clisby, Melling. All these guys have impressed in the HAL.

ATM City, Roar and SFC are higher up the HAL ladder too, with them having major input from young players. Most of these guys augur well for the future of the Socceroos. Take a bow Arnie, JVS and the Aloisi brothers.




Edited by Decentric: 4/1/2016 01:53:59 PM

Edited by Decentric: 4/1/2016 01:56:48 PM

Henrique has only been coming off the bench.

Macca is too old and has already failed. There are better, younger options.

a substitute is a specialist position and along with archie he is one of the only players that is effective in that position

It was one of these two games when he came off the bench with Smith and Leckie. They nearly won the game because of their incredible, aggressive, collective squeezing intensity high up the pitch.

Ibini was a beast. He really roughed up a couple of opposition defenders who had been bullying Kruse.=d>



Edited by Decentric: 4/1/2016 02:16:02 PM

Could Sainsbury play RB? If he could it would certainly help things as Wright and Spiranovic could be the CBs with back up from either Wilkinson or one of the young CBs (Good if fit).

Williams would be great, but I would be very worried about him breaking down again in the first 5 minutes of a critical game.

Macca is only 32 isn't he, same vintage as Jedi Milligan and Mackay.. how old is Cahill again? how old was Breciano when he made a very successful comeback to the roos?

as for Henrique , yes he is coming off the bench but he has always been a impact player off the bench. if he were an Aussie when he first played for the roar 6 years ago he would have been capped many times over by now.

Yeah, i think Henrique is a great option for Australia.

Macca's skills was shown to be inadequate. For a small player, he cannot beat players 1v1 by evading them.

In 1v1 heading duels, he was too short to be effective.

Macca struggled to shield and hold the ball up, like Fornaroli does so effectively. He was too easily pushed off the ball.

Macca also panicked in front of goal, missing too many chances over 25 games to never score.

If he was played at number 10 for the Socceroos, the younger guys, Mooy, Luongo, Rogic, Troisi, are far better in the role at much earlier stages in their careers.

The only players similar to Macca's age for the Socceroos, Cahill, McKay, Jedi and Milligan, have already been far more successful than Macca was. They are successful, experienced international players who provide leadership.

I am calling out Decentric for over use of the =d> smiley ;)

point taken on Scotty Mac.

I cringe every time I see someone propose this.

Sainsbury is our best CB. He's the Zwaanswijk of the Socceroos, creating and dictating play from a deep-lying central position (see assist of Luongo's goal in Asian Cup final for example).

Removing our best players from their best positions is a pet hate of mine. Like when people call for Jedinak to play CB as "he has all the qualities on paper". No. Just no. He's our best DM and needs to play where he's comfortable for the team to succeed (See Matt McKay at LB under Holger).

exactly the guy has better ball control than half the forwards, he very clam on the ball looks like he has all the time in the world as well his pin point passing has created goals for us numerous times.

Keen for king kenny to make his debut.

also sainsbury has been pretty hostile towards any moves to have him on as RB. he turned down a couple contracts on that basis before moving to zwolle - iirc.

Many Euroroos in England are playing limited minutes or sitting on benches.

Jedi, Wright, Luongo and Davidson are struggling for selection, not to mention Oar.

Maybe the likes of English 'gaffers' whose main coaching strength is coaching players to 'win high balls and second balls' want these players 'to get stuck in' more than highly technical coaches like Ange.:lol:

Ange claims to only play players playing regularly. If he sticks so his guns (in the past in Davidson's and Jedi's cases he hasn't) he needs to select players playing more regularly.

Unfortunately, some young Aussie players value some of their English gaffers' opinions about football. They lose confidence when dropped.




Edited by Decentric: 5/1/2016 05:25:29 PM

More Anglo-bashing from the old pom...

You certainly like to stereotype English "gaffers" decentric[-x

Did you get taken down a peg or two by a pommy coach during your days as a teenage star in the Tasmanian 3rd division?:lol:

jedi and wright fit that model perfectly.

Would rather Jamie macLaren than Scot macdonald for that position, but not as a lone man, needs to work off a bigger man who can shield the ball, draw players, possibly Juric, see what he's learned

I'm suggesting that Aussie fans need to evaluate English football more objectively and selectively.

The relative milieus in England and Oz are decidedly different now from 15 years ago.

Which players playing football in England have been a massive boost to the national team over the last five years compared to 15 years ago?

In another discussion , Benjamin used some quotes from Spanish footballers indicating that playing in the EPL is counterproductive to being successful in international football.

Edited by Decentric: 5/1/2016 11:13:51 PM

If anything, Jedinak isn't getting picked because he fits that "win high balls and second balls" stereotype far too well.

When I watched Jedi play a full game for Palace a few weeks ago, I was impressed with his sustained concentration resulting in him maintaining good positioning with optimum distancing between him and players around him when the other team had the ball (Everton?).

However, I was unimpressed with the the style of football Palace played compared to their opponents.

the game against chelsea was disgraceful. the worst mix of 'hoof' and 'get it in the mixer' i have seen in a long while.

i know this has come up a lot.. but I want to look at where the 2006 team were playing when they hit the world cup. what level etc. and compare it to how our boys are going at the moment.

i think we will be looking at a few in the big 5 leagues come russia. imho - jedinak, sainsbury, rogic, ryan, leckie, kruse and smith- feel like a fairly certain thing to be plying their trades in the big 5. williams is one of the most gifted footballers i think we have but i dont know if he will be right up there. wherever he is playing, we will be lucky to have him in the squad for russia.

anyway - there are a lot of folk on here that know this better then me but im going to start with the 2006 team.

for the sake of simplicity - lets look at 3 categories - playing in a big 5 league (PL, BL etc) or champions league team , playing in a secondary (most of europe other) league, playing somewhere else.

1   GK   Mark Schwarzer   6 October 1972 (aged 33)    37   England Middlesbrough
2   DF   Lucas Neill    9 March 1978 (aged 28)    25   England Blackburn Rovers
3   DF   Craig Moore    12 December 1975 (aged 30)   33   England Newcastle United
4   MF   Tim Cahill    6 December 1979 (aged 26)   16   England Everton
5   MF   Jason Čulina    5 August 1980 (aged 25)   13   Netherlands PSV Eindhoven
6   DF   Tony Popovic    4 July 1973 (aged 32)   56   England Crystal Palace [56]
7   DF   Brett Emerton    22 February 1979 (aged 27)   48   England Blackburn Rovers
8   MF   Josip Skoko    10 December 1975 (aged 30)   46   England Wigan Athletic [57]
9   FW   Mark Viduka (c)    9 October 1975 (aged 30)   33   England Middlesbrough
10   FW   Harry Kewell    22 September 1978 (aged 27)   20   England Liverpool
11   DF   Stan Lazaridis    16 August 1972 (aged 33)   59   England Birmingham City [58]
12   GK   Ante Čović    13 June 1975 (aged 30)   1   Sweden Hammarby
13   MF   Vincenzo Grella    5 October 1979 (aged 26)   17   Italy Parma
14   MF   Scott Chipperfield    30 December 1975 (aged 30)   46   Switzerland Basel
15   FW   John Aloisi    5 February 1976 (aged 30)   41   Spain Alavés
16   DF   Michael Beauchamp    8 March 1981 (aged 25)   2   Australia Central Coast Mariners [59]
17   FW   Archie Thompson    23 October 1978 (aged 27)   20   Australia Melbourne Victory [60]
18   GK   Željko Kalac    16 December 1972 (aged 33)   52   Italy Milan
19   FW   Joshua Kennedy    20 August 1982 (aged 23)   1   Germany Dynamo Dresden [61]
20   DF   Luke Wilkshire    2 October 1981 (aged 24)   8   England Bristol City
21   MF   Mile Sterjovski    27 May 1979 (aged 27)   22   Switzerland Basel
22   DF   Mark Milligan    4 August 1985 (aged 20)   1   Australia Sydney FC
23   MF   Mark Bresciano    11 February 1980 (aged 26)   24   Italy Parma

that's

10 in top flight + culina at PSV which is worthy of top flight

5 in a second level league + skoko was at wigan in the PL but couldnt get minutes and went to the championship

5 in other
and kalac warming the pine


[size=6]the team now [/size] - who do you think will be in the big 5 or a champions league level team for russia?

imho
Level 1
Jedinak (PL)
leckie
kruse
ryan
rogic
sainsbury
smith


williams should be but he might have snapped by then...
luongo should if he gets it together


level 2
juric
oar
mooy
irvine
antonis
bulut
ikon



Edited by inala brah: 11/1/2016 01:16:50 AM

Edited by inala brah: 11/1/2016 11:32:26 AM

Edited by inala brah: 10/1/2016 08:35:44 PM

I'm guessing almost everyone on that 2006 had a euro/uk passport of some kind. We may never have a team with that again. Some of our kids in the future will still obtain euro passports but Aussie kids from UK, Africian, Middle Eastern & just about every other type of ancestry will not.
Our best hope moving forward will be to keep improving our own league, which is achievable. Secondly for those Aussie kids who will be non eu we need the Socceroos in the top 50 and the player reaching that 75% of games within the last 2 years so they have a chance at getting an English visa if that's where they want to play. Thirdly if the Socceroos are strong and our own league quality we will improve our chances of exporting players to Bundesliga etc like the shite load of non euro Sth Koreans & Japanese over there.

What will happen is players will be paid too much in Australia, so there will be no ambition to go overseas to a better league on less money. It's much easier to go from Denmark to Germany than Australia to Germany.