“The vision for Australian football...

TheSocceroos are a regular participant in and have won the AFF Suzuki Cup....”
https://www.ffa.com.au/news/ffa-release-xi-principles-discussion-paper-targeting-future-football

Fuck yeah, thanks for spotting that, that's very encouraging.

“

Which teams will play at the AFF Suzuki Cup?

Nine teams will automatically qualify for the finals, while the tenth spot will go to the qualification play-off winner between the two lowest ranked AFF teams; Brunei and East Timor.

Australia, who is also an AFF nation, at least nominally, is expected to be absent again from the competition, although there has been renewed interest in taking part in the competition due to the success of the 2018 edition's format change....”

https://au.sports.yahoo.com/aff-suzuki-cup-draw-055108669.html

We should sent our reserve Olyroo's squad, it's all a tournament of that scale deserves. 

Hopefully the majority Australian football people have a less disrespectful or naive opinion, especially after the last Asian Cup.

The 2020 edition is very late in the year, 23 November – 31 December, so considering the very good response to Coronavirus in Southeast Asia (other than Indonesia and the Phillippines, who may have to give up home games), this is shaping up to be the first international football tournament unaffected by Covid.

I had thought the dates going over the Christmas period could be problematic if the Socceroos were involved (assuming we reach the final), but if the games were reasonably scheduled it could actually be an excuse for the overseas players to have Christmas Day at home, which might actually be better. The last couple of editions all finished before Christmas though, so if we joined I'm sure that could be negotiated, and then they can have the time off after the tournament.

We need more international games not less, but yeah a rematch against Laos would be good since they smashed us a few years back.

This thread shows I used to feel the same way. But now I think we should send the strongest possible squad.

Thailand and Vietnam will get stronger in time. The other thing is we can really contribute to AFF is we give teams some whippings. They will have to improve their game. It could/should be our duty to help make AFF as strong as possible as we are a member. We should help them where we can. 

We should be helping AFF improve so they can be stronger in Asian Cup and WCQ. Not trying to keep them weak. A stronger AFF is better for us and AFC.

This year is a write off really given the complexity of border controls in place and required quarantine.

Wake me up when this mess is over and a vaccine is available for us to move on. 

Couldn't agree more. Hopefully the other AFF members also see that we'd all be stronger together.

I would certainly rate our chances, but the days of expecting our full strength Socceroos to walk this comp are over, although it's hard to establish a precedent as Australia and Vietnam have never even played each other a men's senior level, a situation I consider to be unacceptable (even though they regularly hand our arse to us at youth level).

I just want to see us participate in a well supported competition in our region, against countries that Australians recognise and have been to or have ties to, instead of your Omans and Bahrains we invariably get matched with in AFC competitions. Considering the home games format, I have every reason to believe that this could be more appealing to the Australian public than the Asian Cup.

I'm sure they do. I'm all for Australia participating in quality tournaments but this one is essentially Oceania quality participants competing & therefore does not rate our strongest squad. 

Hardly. Apart from the useless teams like Timor-Leste or Brunei (who we would likely replace anyway), the AFF is still miles better than Oceania. If we were still stuck in the OFC, we'd be clamouring to participate in this as the likes of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam are still miles better than the Solomon Islands and Fiji.

Debating whether the tournament merits sending the strongest squad is besides the point anyway considering the timing. It's important for us politically to participate in this tournament and sending an Asia-Roos or A-League+ squad would be more than sufficient.

Recent results against the better AFF teams would prove otherwise.

The 2-2 away draw with Thailand thanks to two soft penalties and being unable to do any better than a 2-1 win at home when we were desperately seeking a better GD to avoid playoffs in the last WCQs come to mind, both of these were very much first choice squads trying their hardest. Not much of an improvement on our 0-1 away and 2-1 home results against the same opposition in the 2014 WCQs, either. 

We last played Indonesia in the 2011 Asian Cup qualifiers, 0-0 away and 1-0 at home. The last game we played against Singapore, a friendly back in 2008, was a 0-0 draw.

In fairness, we did beat Malaysia 5-0 the last time we played them in a home friendly in 2011, but you have to go all the way back to 1992 for the second most recent match (which they won 1-0). In fact, we've never even played arguably the best AFF team Vietnam at all at men's senior level, which is reason enough alone to join, in my opinion.

2020 edition postponed to 2021. https://www.aseanfootball.org/v3/postponement-is-a-benefit-to-us-cooper/

same for the ASEAN Club Championship

Construction of the 82k seat rectangular Jakarta International Stadium is still coming along nicely despite covid, due to be finished late next year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYHskLB_kHg

Away days there with the Socceroos would be absolutely mad:

Are they improving, or are we getting worse?

Perhaps a bit of both, but they definitely are investing in their football and getting returns from it. Once the ASEAN economy grows and their game develops further we'll be sorry if we locked ourselves out.

Talked about on the podcast I posted in xi thread- not so much the tournament but Asean. Can’t remember which minute.

But anyway, they bring up lack of +1 rule. Money for ASEAN players wages are high and scouting is expensive. Fine. Also Japans engagement with Thailand and plan for Vietnam.

Lets reverse things now. Imagine we play this Cup. It will be AL and Asian based Socceroos. AL players will get bought by ASEAN clubs hopefully as their football economy grows. If AL standard drops due to players looking to increase their wages the cup is a very good shopfront for players/clubs.

It’s no problem for me if eg Thai and Vietnamese leagues are better quality than AL as long as our group of players around the world are even better. Whether playing there or elsewhere.

“Australia should also mourn major ASEAN figure Alfred Riedl

Updated 5 hours agoPerhaps not headlines news but you would know about it. It would surely also be mentioned in Australia too.Yet the death of Alfred Riedl went largely unmentioned down under.A hero of the country’s immediate and giant neighbour Indonesia and well-loved in Southeast Asia’s number one nation Vietnam, the Austrian is a major figure in ASEAN football and there was genuine sadness around the region at the news he passed away at the age of 70.Australia may not be a Southeast Asian nation off the pitch but on it, they are a member of the ASEAN Football Federation.He should be mourned down under too, but there don’t seem to be many column inches devoted to the well-travelled European.Some of that is down to Asia itself. The continent has never been great at telling its own football stories and ensuring that major figures get the recognition they deserve, but Riedl was different - stories followed him around.Stories such as: while he was in charge of Vietnam in 2007, the former Austrian head coach needed a kidney transplant. More than 50 fans in the Southeast Asian nation stepped forward to offer one of their organs.Riedl told me later that he couldn’t believe such generosity -  but others could.It was his third stint in charge of the Golden Stars. He had led Vietnam to the final of the 1998 AFF Championships, then the country’s best showing at the biennial regional event.There they lost 1-0 to Singapore in the final thanks to a ‘Shoulder of God’ goal from Sasi Kumar who recently tried to get Reidl on his radio show but was told that his health would not allow it.By 2007, Vietnam were preparing for the Asian Cup as one of four Southeast Asian co-hosts. It was a big deal as the country had never appeared at the competition as a unified entity before with South Vietnam’s three losses in the 1960 Asian Cup the most recent participation.Yet Riedl had the transplant in March, just four months before the tournament kicked-off. The operation, made possible by a kidney donated from a Vietnamese fan, was a success.Vietnam managed to get out of their group and were defeated by eventual champions Iraq at the quarter-final stageIt was a major success and helped pave some of the way for the country’s rise to become the number one team in Southeast Asia.Years later, as head coach of Indonesia, he would be reunited with his Vietnamese life-saver on live television. The two became firm friends and kept in touch ever since.Life as Indonesian head coach is tough but Riedl handled it better than most despite being caught up in a barely believable power struggle during his first tenure that saw the country have, for a time, two federations, two leagues and two national teams.He returned in 2016 to lead the Merah Putih to the AFF Championships once more. This was a hard job at the best of times but almost impossible this time as the country was just coming off a one-year FIFA ban that had stopped football in the country.Despite little preparation and only being able to select no more than two players from each club, Riedl led the team to the final, playing some excellent football along the way, where they gave a strong Thailand a very tough test. It was a fine achievement.Honest and straight-talking, yet friendly and open, Riedl was a pleasure to deal with and interview. His players loved him too as did the fans. There were no mind games before matches and no excuses afterwards.He genuinely cared about trying to improve the football scene where he worked spending time with players on and off the training pitch to give them the help they needed.He used to ask journalists to come up with better questions so they could write better articles and would also plead with fans - especially in Vietnam - not to celebrate victories on their motorbikes as this often led to fatalities.Riedl was also an advocate of Australia in Southeast Asia, feeling that there was an important role for the country to play in the region.Not many foreign coaches have been as well-loved in Southeast Asia as Alfred Riedl and that is testament to the man and the manager.As an ASEAN football member, Australia should mourn him too.”

https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/australia-should-also-mourn-major-asean-figure-alfred-riedl

yes not be involved we miss out on fan, player and manger personalities and characters

Sounds like they really loved the guy, shows how much passion there is for the game in the region.

Still part of the FFA XI Principles:



https://www.ffa.com.au/sites/ffa/files/2020-10/FFA_X11_Principles_Final_Edition.pdf

If we ever get back to number 1 I don’t think we can retain it for 5 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5hWWe-ts2s

Yeah my eyes lit up reading that as well. Also interesting to see on the same page some interest in a "Regional club competitions in Asia." 

Replacing the dogs breakfast that is the AFC Cup with regional federation tournaments like a ASEAN Cup would be pretty damn interesting.  

It would be great for regional engagement to have annual club and big event every 2 years. I’d even be happy with a club comp every 2 years also so it alternates and has the 2 winners from each country.

Would definitely put our players on a new stage and develop healthy rivalry.