Not sure why anyone see's winning the Asian Cup, at home, against very average nations, as such an achievement.  Maybe because the results leading in were so bad.

Australia is stuck in middle ground.
They have the AFC  qualification path that is a doddle but the squad is unlikely to see even a point once it gets there.


Spare a thought for these 4 fighting for 1.5 spots

Australia 4th in that group ? 3rd possibly._.

That's the problem, rinse and repeat every four years. 

Yes but you can deviate from quality if you bring players in that match the system a team of 11 playing this style we will win. 5 or 6 guys who have the touch of a donkey, can't pass or beat a player will get found out in the system and get punished. We need players with good first touch, work hard and can pass the ball quickly thats it.

I'm just thinking of the away games in this WC campaign.



Australia was poor against Jordan and Krygystan.  Against Jordan they had similar stats in both games,  away and home, but thrashed them at home. Krygystan were the better team and  deserved to win.

Australia were quite good against minnows, Banga and Tajikstan, away.

They were decent against UAE,  away, but Cahill's goal should should have been  deemed  a foul.

The Saudi performance  was quite good, away,  but lack of concentration  in conceding a late goal derailed Australia's current campaign.

The Thailand performance, away, was atrocious.



All in all, Pim's Socceroos played better away in his 2010 WC campaign  than Ange's team to date.

Pims 2010 team was significantly stronger as it still had the back end of the golden generation, and people don't appreciate how many times schwarzer was standing on his head bailing us out back then.

Our run of home games next year will be telling. If we screw those up I'll change my tune but I'm confident we will come home strong.

It could be worse, klinsman has basically just played the yanks out of contention 2 games in...getting smacked 4-0 at Costa Rica.

With Australia's men's national teams failing at all levels since the introduction of the A League it was only a matter of time before it caught up to the Socceroos

You cant seriously think a comp with 9 Aussie teams, a $2.5m salary cap, and only running for half of the year is a good player development platform

The NSL may have been ordinary but 20 years ago players weren't leaving to sit on the bench in Asian clubs. Only the cream of the crop left

Now we see a lot of players come back after 1-2 years

Its great that we have been able to consolidate support to boost our metrics but football itself has failed. Once we decide on a viable competition instead of a commercial one then things will change

the comment about the usa is an important one. They have a very good kid in pulicic but its getting tougher for nations to compete. Minnows are getting better, opportunities at big 5 clubs are getting harder and top nations are getting stronger.

I think its getting harder to get better though every now and then a country will have a golden generation.

But to not rely on luck and be able to compete with the big boys think about what we need

2 tiers of professional football playing 9 months a year all with academies. Even then I suspect 20-30 countries would still be ahead of us.

As second and third world countries become more wealthy,their football teams will be better resourced and get better results.It will get more and more difficult for teams to get to the World Cup,especially for for us.All the asian teams will improve and as we already know,winning away is very difficult.
We desperately need many more top tier teams.The player pool from which to draw upon is ridiculously small.While Gallop and co wax lyrical about sustainability for a ten team competition with 5 visa players and one team chocked with Kiwis,our national teams are paper thin on what we can only seriously call second rate talent.
FFA can carryon about HAL teams playing in large loss making stadiums and sucking licence fees out of clubs to add to the entry costs and all the while viable clubs play amateur football with most of our young talent.This is what happens when you have economic rationalists in charge ,without an eye on the actual game.This could have been sorted out before ten years expired.
Allow teams to play in smaller stadiums and take big games to large stadiums.Stop ripping revenue streams from the clubs.Remove salary floor.
Here we sit hoping that in two years another couple of teams probably with six visa players can come in.Which in the scheme of things is bugger all.
In the meantime what happens to our youth players and our national teams.We have a curriculum and the four lane highway which trains players and then bottlenecks to one lane and a sidestreet of amateur football.

Perfect analogy!!

Looking at that list of teams Ange has beaten/lost to, every Socceroo side in the last 25 years could've pulled off the same or a better record.

Even Farina's teams circa 2004 and the losses to Turkey or Holger's 6-0 teams could've done that.

This is the worst side of the last 25 years, we need to accept that. Those teams would have been steam rolling through asian qualifying with their eyes closed. Only have to look at the numerous confederations cup tournaments where we pumched well above our weight.

I think we lack a really class player like Cahill and Schwarzer, those two alone saved us so many times. This current team i feel has a number of good players, but no leader to win the game on his own and take the pressure off our not so great players.

But even with this, our squad is good enough to finish 2nd in our group any day.

Exactly. There's also a lack of blokes who are just gutsy as hell (even if not the most technically gifted). Cahill's not the most technically gifted (except in the air and with his strike). But, not only does he understand the small things from having grown up fighting it out in England, he just doesn't give in. He wants to win and he meets the challenge.

There's a sort of, I dunno, tepidness about too many of them at the minute.

I know what you mean, we were getting out hustled by Thailand it was inexcusable, no one was willing to go on a run, take the game on, put some pressure on or win the second ball. Then you have the players when they lose the ball immediately stop running, that is just not acceptable.

Agree with these posts. I also think that the biggest loss over the past 5 years has been McKay. He never gave up. He ran from box to box. He tackled, passed and intercepted at vital moments in games that kept us in them. The only player with the same skill set is Milligan, and I can't see why he's not played in that role. The added advantage of Milligan is he has a far better shot and eye for goal when in advanced positions.

Someone above remarked on the difference that Schwarzer made to the GG. He saved our bacon so many times. An example, the Bahrain game when Bresciano scored the added time winner, Schwarzer made several saves to keep it nil all beforehand. Having a superior shot stopper is the first priority of teams. Just look at the stats for Brisbane this year. 9 Shots on target against, 7 goals against. Same story with Ryan against Thailand.

dead last, might be able to beat luxemburg

No need to over exaggerate we will finish well above Luxembourg and Belarus, we would probably finish 3rd in that group, Bulgaria and Sweden not as strong as they once were especially now that Zlatan retired.

I actually think Ricki Herbet would be a great coach for the Socceroos, undefeated in the world cup.

Shit multi.

I'm guessing you never heard of BATE Borisov....they did beat Roma and drew with Leverkusen last year in the UCL. Most of their team is in the Belarus national team.

Just can't see us beating those smaller euro teams.

So much #aussiespirit in this thread

Qualification would be so much easier if these minnows would just realise that they can't outspirit us - we are inherently more spirited and care much more about our jersey. There just is no comparison. How is it even possible we can be out-hustled? Everyone around the world knows that no one hustles better than Aussies, especially Aussies with lots of Aussie spirit.

How is it possible the Thais could outrun us? Their Thai-spirit and Thai-hustle is obviously no match to our Aussie-spirit and Aussie-hustle and any objective onlooker could see that. After all, why would it be on the spirit of our level? We care more. Especially at their home ground too! I can scarcely comprehend it.

What Ange really needs to do is instill more spirit. Aussie spirit levels that have never been seen before. We need to be instilled with the greatness of the ANZAC spirit and the Aussie battler spirit. We need to hustle more, and outrun the normal-runners with lots of spirit, effort and determination. Especially Aussie grit and determination and effort, with lots of spirit. 

Pull your heads out.

You know, before that Thai game I sort of would have been on board with this post.  The self idolising myth making around 'aussie spirit' is very on the nose.
But after that performance...
Any nation would have been embarrassed by that level of effort and drive.  Even if you have no preconceptions about the national team, that effort was so unbelievably poor that the 'where the hell was their spirit and determination?' questions stop being blinkered nationalism and actually become valid questions and criticisms.  There genuinely are players and teams that are better or worse at putting in a real fight in matches and against Thailand we were terrible at it.  Not entirely unfair for people to point it out.

No, but Ange is a shit coach, deal with it. 

I just think it gets way overused - it's as if players from other countries for some reason don't have the same kind of work ethic or "spirit" that Aussies do. It's actually embarrassing to read considering our country is 100 years old and some of these cultures/countries have been around for thousands of years with people in the million having died for them. But nah, dat Aussie spirit, it is stronger! For some reason, we have more grit, determintation and spirit.

Who knows why the fuck why people think that - other than you know, the fact that they probably don't possess a passport and think that Trump memes are ~~kewl

Of course it is overused and ludicrous assumption by Aussies. Just like their 'mateship' bs - as if people from other nations don't understand the concept of friendship. 

But seriously, where has 'Aussie fighting spirit' been used in this thread? I must've missed it. 

LOL!

True though, Draups.

Good to see some satire.

they seemed pretty gassed after 30 mins, did we work em too hard during the week?

That is a very valid question Jas88. The complete lack of tracking back or fight shown by Mooy was alarming.

drawing with Thailand and now we can add Iraq to that list...