I disagree that Ange intended Kruse and Leckie to play as wide attacking players, they were intended to play a dual attacking midfielders in the formation he has used previously. Yes they were wide at times, but so was Kruse a lot of the time against Japan when he was playing as the lone striker. They are naturally wide players so end up wide quite a lot of the time no matter where they play. Ange as played Kruse as a central attacking midfielder before, this time he spent much more time trying to get in behind, al most as a second striker, which was different than previously when he dropped back into midfield a lot more. Leckie had a lot of the ball centrally as well. 

I hope rogic gets back his ability to beat players with his back turned (and that celtic hasn't ruined him)
mind you in the past rogic's technique has dropped substantially if he is carrying a niggle

Kruse and holman were both rated very highly by european coaches yet struggled to win the support of oz fans. Both are excellent off the ball. It makes me think that oz fans need to be educated more about off the ball skills

I would rate juric's "other attributes" as the highest by far of any of them followed by ruka. On finishing taggart and maclaren are by far the best (santalab isnt bad either)
be interested in others opinions on this. Juric of course is the only one that has proved himself overseas

This really helped Juric as well.
Having two mobile attackers looking to get behind pulling the defence around and sometimes going central allowed Juric to make better angled runs and pull wide into space if it was on.
Once Tomi had to play with Rogic and Mass he was alone in leading the line and Syria's defence could maintain it's shape.

that depends what you mean by "proved himself". He's scored at a pretty poor rate for average teams in poor european leagues. 

In my mind the ones who have proven themselves are taggart and maclaren at a-league level by winning the golden boot. That is proof. I would say santalab too in the last couple of years has proven himself in the a-league with a lot of goals. juric has never come close to anything like that.

In fact has he even ever remained a starting player for a season? He wasn't in Australia, he wasn't in netherlands, maybe he is becoming one now? But far from proven. 

Juric was not on the field with both Rogic and Luongo, Rogic replaced him and Rukavytsya played up front. Still when Leckie went to RWB and Kruse came off it was a front three of Luongo, Rukavytsya and Juric which is just a mess. Luongo is not a wide player, he is not a player to get in behind regularly, he is not a player to bring energy and run to the attack and he did nothing. Rukavytsya seemed very lost, perhaps he was not sure what he was supposed to do. There was one chance late, when Rukavytsya was up front where the Socceroos broke and Rukavytsya was free on the left but the ball never went to him. That was the chance he could have done something, perhaps scored.

I just don't think Rogic is playing against good enough opposition, he needs to move on next season to a more competitive league.

Looking at Soccerway this season Juric has scored for Luzern every 138 min played.
From the start of our second faze qualifying + Confeds he has scored every 164 min played.

For Luzern who are average in the Swiss league and usually have less then 50% possession  he often scores with a quick ball into the box on the break
giving him something to attack.
He's doing ok regardless of this footballing limitations and his assets that he does posses seem to be nullified with Anges tactics
Even with Rogic at Celtic they shift the ball with speed out to their wingers and this allows Rogic those extra seconds and room to receive in space.
With Australia we often look to have only one player making a run at a time and it gets too congested.

There was one incident i remember where Leckie received the ball out wide late in the game with acres in front and instead of running into it he checked back and we lost the ball. He looks unsure of what to do sometimes at wing back.
At Luzern they would have likely swung it in early and i can see Juric getting frustrated with the fucking around be done when he's making space ready for a ball in that never comes.

Unfortunately I feel Rogic has changed a lot as a player. I feel his first touch has become a lot worse, his passing is worse, he does not control the ball under pressure as well as previously and he has become a more one dimensional player who tries to score goals and does little else. This might be what Celtic want him to be, but it does not help him fit into the Socceroos. He might score the occasional goal, which is excellent, but if he does little else then what is point of having him in the team. 
A change of club, a new challenge would help him a lot, better regular opposition would be great as well.

Is it just me or does he also not combine with people like he used to? Instead of linking with others he tries to do too much himself?

imo also not good enough defensively for Australia unfortunately. 

 Most players rotate, fill in and change positions in midfield and advanced positions.

Many crosses came from  Kruse and Leckie, which indicates at the time, they were playing wide.

Sometimes when Ange has used a player like Kruse or Leckie, as a central striker, if accompanied by Burns or Troisi, they've rotated a front three which makes it harder for the opposition defence in terms of marking. They have to revert to zonal marking as opposed to man marking.

His tackling has also improved.

Recently on one occasion Rogic executed a superb sliding in tackle  with his his right, non-preferred foot for the Socceroos. Many players tackle off the wrong foot, particularly on their non-preferred side.

Maybe his concentration can lapse by effectively playing for such a dominant team in the Scottish League against moderate opposition and get away with it?

In the HAL he was often double teamed and opposition teams had specific game plans to nullify his effectiveness. Our Asian opponents are also doing their homework to negate him. The pressure he is under i Asian internationals  might be much greater than his club football ATM.

Often European teams tend to be more open in midfield than Asian teams playing international football. Pim' s teams often beat teams like Ireland, who came at Australia. We had and have more space in central midfield than with the better Asian teams.

By playing partial presses and half presses, as teams often do in Asia against us, it is more difficult to break down defences. Fast ball moment and circulation  is more difficult in the attacking third.

Against a few European teams and recently against Chile, they play higher defensive  lines against us in full presses. This means Australia has the opportunity to  launch accelerated attacks on the break with opposition CBs playing further away from their goal.

if he can just get his take ons and through balls back to where they were but every other part of his game be the same level boy he could be a player

a) it doesn't matter what foot you tackle with, what matters is the effectiveness and judgement. i mean the foot you tackle with is the foot thats there at the time right? you have a certain amount of strides to get there and you tackle with the next foot. If you're going for a tackle and failing its because your judgement is off. 
b) the actual tackling is a very small part of defensive ability for a midfielder, its just the icing on top.

The biggest things defensively for a midfielder are:
1. positioning, usually just simply knowing which player you need to mark and how close are you to the man you need to mark. but also other stuff like how aware you are at cutting out "passing lanes" and how well you use your defensive "shadow" 
2. how fast (consistently) you shut down the player you are supposed to be marking. 

rogic sucks at defending because he's slow and lazy. he's hardly ever close enough to who he's marking and he's very slow to put them under pressure, just jogs up to them.

i'm not sure I agree with the post but i did want to chirp in and on the positioning point.

Why is this generation so bad at positioning? Apart from Jedi and Ryan the team is hopeless at positioning. Below conference level. This is an even bigger weakness than finishing

Perhaps I'm used to german/english style positioning and the criteria is different. But it looks pretty bad

In what way are they bad at positioning grazor?

I've never coached so my views may be lay men but when I look at positioning I look at the following

1. is the off side trap straight? (almost never is for us)
2. how quickly does a back four form in defence when transitioning from attack to defence? (this is ok)
3. how quickly does the second line of defence form to defend against cutbacks or long shots (this is particularly bad for us)
4. How quickly does the shape adjust to a player being pulled out of position. For example if a midfielder is tracking a run into the box does someone quickly mark the zone left unoccupied? (This was highlighted by an oz commentator at a confed cup game which was nice to hear) If a player is beaten and another player has to help him out is the new space created by the assistence quickly closed?
5. How quickly do the players (if ever) get into the optimal veritcal and horizontal spacing when defending deep (or diagonal lines when defending from the front)
6. how straight are your vertical lines. When defending deep its optimal to play a block of 8 but if you are playing a block of 6 your 2 mids need to have straight lines forming a square with the cbs. The square can move side to side as the opposition try and probe.  The players need to look as though they have ropes connecting them. WSW were great at this. In the GF vs roar la rocca moved to defence and mooy had to move to 6 and while he was good at generating turnovers the vertical lines were messy and brisbane could finally penetrate
7. when defending deep how well is the positions marked 0 covered
---x-x-x-x---
---0-x-x-0---
there aren't many sides in asia that can punish sloppiness in this area mind you. 
8. when in the middle third are players efficiently swarmed using a shrinking triangle formation or is it just helter skelter? When a player is swarmed how are other players adapting to the space they leave?
9. In the middle third does the (10m either side of half way) does the triangle keep is shape and slide/rotate as appropriate?

In all my time watching the a league only wsw have been good at this and then only for a few seasons. They are ok now as were AU that year they won the gf a couple of years ago

I'm going to post comments about the last games against Syria in this thread. Most of the focus seems to be on the next game against Honduras in the other threads.

I had a second look at the game against Syria in Sydney.

In that game I've never been as tense watching it live. The same with my viewing mates. The game seemed terrible and a shocking performance by the Socceroos in the heat of the moment and stress of watching it live. Time dragged. I felt like I'd watched the game for hours and hours.

Watching the replay, dispassionately, already knowing the result, I had a completely different perspective on the game. Apart from Milligan's early mistake that led to the early Syrian goal, Australia really dominated. There were so many shots from Rogic, Leckie and Troisi that forced desperate and brilliant saves from the Syrian keeper, that a custodian of lower calibre could've conceded. There was also a plethora of near misses.  

Also, the game flew by. Watching it seemed to take up a very short time. Whereas live all I could see were negatives in the Socceroos' performance, I saw so many positives in the  replay.

Maybe Troisi had a game worse than usual by his standards, Milligan made a horrendous mistake that was punished, Rogic didn't  beat players until the second half, but most players did a reasonable job individually and collectively.

Jurman may have been an inspired selection by Ange. I never thought he would have been as effective as he has been against Syria. Credit to Ange for selecting him.

The shot ledger for near misses and desperate saves from keepers of both teams could've read something like 15 for the Socceroos and 3 for Syria.

The red card was a culmination of Syria being starved of the ball for sustained periods, forcing extraordinary levels of concentration and discipline . They had to concentrate so hard, for so long, and were exhausted from having so much play without the ball - about 20% possession.

In the past, when we played South American teams, former Socceroos, like Alistair Edwards, have stated how tough it was to be without the ball for such long periods  after losing it. It would often take 5 minutes to regain the ball. That is why there has been a revamped National Curriculum.

In the Sydney game, Ange's voodoo 3-4-2-1, worked quite well. The players are getting used to it. His folly was not playing variations of 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1, 4-3-2-1 when we were away in various phases of  games. Ange has also made some perplexing selections with Mooy, Spira, Smith, Behich, Gersbach.

Again I urge people reading this to have a look at a replay.

The Syrian free kick that hit the post, was nothing different from so many Socceroo close to scoring attempts on goal over the campaign. It may have been a case that Australia has also been extraordinarily unlucky, apart from  the ref making critical decisions in  our favour against Thailand. A number of  Asian keepers must have had the games of their lives against us as well.

I enjoy this particular point, for a team to be without the ball for so long requires an elevated amount of alertness & physical activity is very draining on the mind & the body & frustration at such a state of affairs.  More challenges increases the odds of cardable fouls being handed out which is why I like Ange's focus on the possession game despite ignorant pundits considering it to be "boring" 

So I'm confused by your comments on human. Did you mean inspired or uninspired

*Jurman

I think he meant "an inspired" rather than "uninspired".

Thanks.

I've corrected it.

Jurman was an astute and inspired selection.

Exactly.

Poor proof reading on my part. As I've increased my typing speed I make a lot of mistakes.

The really admirable thing about Syria's game is that they were able to concentrate effectively for  such long periods as a team unit, holding their defensive shape in BPO, whilst Australia dominated possession.

This isn't just Ange's mantra. The entire National Curriculum is predicated on playing possession football, because it was so difficult for Aussie players to play for such long periods in games without the ball prior to 2005.

The Syria/Australia game in Sydney was similar to many UEFA CL games in the past where I've seen  Barca dominate opponents, but couldn't score. The opponents often held brilliant defensive shape in 5-4-1 and 4-5-1 in BPO.

What Barca have added and changed in their repertoire is trying to draw other teams into playing higher defensive  lines, so they can launch the same  decisive accelerated attacks that Atletico and Real inflicted on them. They often missed a target man,  good in the air, to score from  aerial crosses.

The stats always show the team with less possession has to run more than the team who dominates possession. These have been presented in heaps of FFA conferences I've attended through evidence based research.

I thought we played a slightly different formation, the way we lined up with played a 3-1-5-1(3-1-3-3 in attack) with Milligan as the No.4 or just the holding player and Mooy, Rogic and Troisi higher up, this also allowed the likes of Leckie and Kruse to push more forward.
I notice alot of how many times Kruse was so high up a number of times he got caught offside. 

---------Milligan----------

Mooy------------Troisi------

-----------Rogic------------

This also enabled the CBs in Degenek and Jurman to push forward in bringing the ball out of defence.

We played alot more fluidly than we have in a quite a long time, was this a plan from a Ange along or was just a one off due to the opponent and match scenario? Who knows but i enjoyed how we played.

I'd have to have a look again, but the Socceroos may have played closer to a flat midfield 3-4-3, if Kruse and Leckie played higher and wider. 

Or  was it a 3-4-3 with the  1:3 midfield, or diamond  midfield  combo? 

These are classic, tried and proven formations that have worked effectively in football scenarios for some time.

With the gift of hindsight and watching the replay with no scoreboard stress, I enjoyed the game immensely.

 In the replay I focused a lot more on how hard Syria had to work in BPO because they were so starved of the ball. Then they  were forced to take risks when they had it, before they quickly lost it again.

Australia played something like a record 800 odd passes over the 120 minutes, which extrapolates to over 600 passes in 90 min. Only teams like Spain, Barca and Bayern achieve these sorts of figures. 

I think the Syrian team should get a lot of credit for their defensive alignment throughout the game. They made it very difficult for us to penetrate and create chances. That we did get so many reasonable shots on target showed we played a pretty effective game. Their keeper also had a blinder. Even the second goal we scored he almost kept out!