I'll be the first one to admit it - I was wrong about Arzani's inclusion in the squad.

I genuinely thought he was too raw and hadn't done quite enough with City to justify his inclusion. However, clearly Bert saw a LOT more in camp with him, and even though it was only a couple of friendlies, he showed so much in about 20 minutes of game time for the Socceroos. It's been a while since I've been so confident in a player going past their defender that isn't simply 'hoof it long and outrun them'. Genuine close ball control and a healthy dose of 'shoot farken' attitude. Yes, we can debate all day that the keeper should've done better with his goal but at the end of it all, Arzani was doing what the others weren't and that was getting shots on target. That skill alone will be enough to snag us a few points.

I am genuinely excited to see how far this young man can go for club and country.

We've arrived in Russia. Chartered a Bucharest air plane. We fly from Australia with Qantas every other time. Qantas appears to be a sponsor but not as active with the Socceroos anymore. 

A borrello and Arzani forward-line is extremely enticing. Would've been so good to see Borrello in this environment, I reckon he would thrive.

Wilkinson is only a tad older then Milligan and younger than a lot of others in the squad.

hope chapman gets a run in the asian cup, been in the u23 setup, playing at a pretty high level now consistently... surely the ideal replacement for milligan...can play cdm too. 

Voodoo or hoodoo?

Anyhow, Ange's tactics didn't work that well in Brazil. They were all right. But they always unveiled a weakness which was too easy for any opposition to exploit. As for the Asian Cup (on home soil)... take that with a grain of salt.

What Ange initially was trying to do, in the style of Barcelona, was to play 4-3-3 with attacking wingbacks and an offensive midfield triangle. It was a terrible idea which meant, when we lost possession and the wingbacks were out of position, we'd end up with two fairly slow central defenders trying to defend the width of the pitch. Not good. You literally have to be Barcelona to play that way with sustained success. And Ange was trying that with the stocks available to him. No wonder he was so reliant on Brad Smith (which was always far from ideal). The only chance the formation has is with fullbacks who can cover a hundred in about ten seconds.

It became obvious during the last World Cup that the application of that formation would not work.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, top club sides (with far better footballers than ours) were having a conundrum. Do we want to exploit the width of the pitch with our fullbacks? Yep, they did. But can we afford to do this with a back four? No, because we're too vulnerable to pacy counter-attacks. To address that, instead of having two central defenders, they tried having 3 central defenders and then a similar set-up with the wingbacks as before. And this worked.

Hence I said Ange can't keep on having us play this way, never mind winning the Asian Cup on home soil and losing to South Korea in the process.

Either Ange can have a flat-ish back four or he can have three central defenders and aggressive wingbacks (who still drop back). If Ange had done this, he would have had a bit more success. And he sort of did cotton on to what other sides were doing.

But he was still overzealous in his attacking propensity. The idea is to have three central defenders and attacking wingbacks who drop back. He went for what was basically a back three.

I should also add that Ange's tactics worked well for Australia in the 2014 WC, Asian Cup, and most of the home WCQs at home until late in the campaign.


The 4-2-3-1/ 4-3-3 defensive midfield triangle, then the 4-3-3 attacking midfield triangle, formations  worked well, certainly at home, and for  a few games in the second stage of WCQs.

Then when he tried a 4-4-2, where the team struggled for game or two, then the voodoo 3-4-2-1, that was far less familiar than the regular 3-4-3 midfield diamond or 3-4-3 flat midfield, Australia become very predicable and easy to formulate a game plan against.


In hindsight I'm glad Ange walked. He wasn't prepared to deviate from one game plan. Instead of adopting a few game plans to apply in  the one game, like the former familiar 4-2-3-1 and variations of the 4-3-3, Ange became inexplicably dogmatic.

Arnie needs to ditch any player that is not going to the next WC.If he keeps playing jedinak and Milligan etc, ill be pissed.

For me the formation wasn't necessarily the issue. The issue as i saw it was that Ange got his selections wrong for the style of football he wanted to play. He need not only athletic players but players who were technically very good. As it stands with Australian players you tend to get on or the other not both.

We spent far too much time playing in front of the opposition defence with slow transition while continuing to select the likes of leckie and Kruse. You could argue Kruse was suitable as his technique is ok however he is best used playing in behind an opposition defence.

Realistically when ange panicked and went to 3 at the back he still wanted to play possession as the be all and end all of his style rather than play genuine counter attacking football which as i alluded to above left us looking at a brick wall with very little chance to cut through with numbers committed forward bashing on the wall it left us wide open to be countered ourselves.

I think more than his selections, it was just that we don't have those kind of players available at all. We have technical, and we have athletic but no one really with both - Arzani will hopefully be the change to that in the future. Luongo is also both but Ange didn't use him properly ( i think i recall him playing as a sort of right mid/winger in a 442 formation at some point???? baffling) and it doesn't look like Bert really wants him as a permanent fixture either.
Anyway, I have far more faith that BVM will play to the strengths of the squad (in terms of both selections AND formation) rather than stick to a philosophy. I think regardless of how we go this world cup we have a coach that is giving us the best chance of success.

Out with...Jones, Vukovic, Milligan, Jurman, Degenek, Risdon, Meredith, Jedinak, Kruse, CahillIf I were to choose today for the next WC cycle.Keep + New ins...GK (3)Ryan(Birighitti)(Thomas)DF (7)Sainsbury(C)(Susnajr)(Chapman)(Deng)(Atkinson)Behich(Gersbach)MF (7)(Dougall)(O'Neill)LuongoMooyIrvineRogicPetratosFW (6)LeckieArzani(Borello)NabboutMaclarenJuric------------------------Ryan-----------------------------------Sainsbury-------Susnajr-------------Deng---------------------------------------Behich---------------Mooy-------Luongo---------------Leckie---------------Irvine---------------Arzani------------------------Juric----------------------------------------------Birighitti--------------------------------Chapman-----------?------------------Atkinson------------------------------Gersbach--------------Dougall--------Oneill---------------Nabbout------------Rogic--------------Borello---------------------Maclaren---------------------ThomasPetratosAlso test a bunch of new players in friendlies.

We spent far too much time playing in front of the opposition defence with slow transition while continuing to select the likes of leckie and Kruse. You could argue Kruse was suitable as his technique is ok however he is best used playing in behind an opposition defence.

Realistically when ange panicked and went to 3 at the back he still wanted to play possession as the be all and end all of his style rather than play genuine counter attacking football which as i alluded to above left us looking at a brick wall with very little chance to cut through with numbers committed forward bashing on the wall it left us wide open to be countered ourselves.

I think it would be a smart move by Arnie to have significant change over prior to the Asia cup in order to reduce performance expectations. Sains will be wearing the captain's armband and help set the table at the family Christmas dinner.

I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by 'transition' in this context, NS?

The transition, defensive or attacking, is the instant one team loses or wins the ball ball moving to  Ball Possession  Opposition or Ball Possession. These are known as the four main moments, or phases of the game.

The context you've used it in,  seems more like 'build up' is the correct term. As though you mean the build up was too slow.

Agree about Kruse's best utilisation.

I think we have only 5 players that definitely won't be there next world cup: kruse, milligan, jedi, jurman and cahill. All of them still have a chance and we don't have a heavy conentration of 28+ year olds so I think we are fine doing a minor regeneration unlike a major one that was needed in 2011

You can call it what you like but what i am saying is that under ange when we regained possession we were too slow to get the ball forward in BP and use the advantage of the pace we had on either wing to exploit the opposition team 

hopefully during the next cycle we can start to build a squad around Pasquali, Arzani, Chapman, Gersbach, Atkinson. Theohaurus... if they kick all on..