We have trouble containing 34 year old syrians, I can't imagine how we would contain Pulisic 

Welcome to the forum, Pasquali.

One thing Ange did that was good for the team was dropping Rogic. In terms of balance the team functioned better. For some reason, Rogic's recent games of the Socceroos have been well below his best. It might be a function of playing against weak teams week in and week out with a very strong club team.

Another positive was that by using Behich and Risdon they had specialist full backs who were able to cover the attacking wide players in front of them, Leckie and Kruse.

Kruse and Leckie both created a  fair amount of movement off the ball, with effective timing and good angles, even if their finishing was poor on a number of occasions. Ange can't be held accountable for their profligacy in front of goal, apart from  the fact they have poor goal output per games played. 

Australia struggled from the moment Risdon went off as he wasn't match fit. He had a reasonable game, but the pressure increased on the back three when he went off and Leckie played further back. Risdon surprised me and played better than I thought he would.

Behich was far better than Smith with the ball at his feet too.

Syria often picked up the ball in wide areas, between the lines, in between the Oz wide CBs and the wing backs, particularly late in the game. Reverting to a back four would've negated this.

Well I wouldn't mind the US as first of all it'd be a massive game, secondly the away trip will not be intimidating or disadvantage us in the slightest, defensively they are poor and in general out of form like us and lastly won't park the bus. They suit how we play football, we would struggle massively away at Honduras and Panama if our away Asian form is anything to go by.

playing and beating the usa would be the ideal. They have a genuine star and interest from the generic sports fan and could increase interest for the roos

personally I'd prefer one of the teams...

Risdon off was the beginning of the end. Removed 2 players doing well in their positions. As if Ange was trying to sabotage us. For the amazing impact of ruka. Kruse off was game over. mooy barely made a forward pass after he went off. we just got stuck in our defensive third. 

Ange managed to put out a functional team for once. But obviously had no idea WHY it was working and ruined it all with his dumb subs. 

can anyone find USA v Panama on any of the Foxtel channels?

If you are a Foxtel customer then follow the links from within your Foxtel account to ESPNWatch and you can stream it live.
I think it also works for Fetch customers.

Yeah I linked it before but http://www.espn.com/watch?country=au
Pity about the american commentators :laugh:

1;0 USA. Pulisic early goal. 

2-0 now, Altidore with the 2nd

3-0 USA, 4th place almost certain to be Panama or Honduras now.

Finally some good news (they're getting rare nowadays). Hoping Honduras wins theirs.

thing about the USA is that you're not just playing them on the pitch, you're also up against all the commercial interests thats in them attending the world cup. 

4-0 now to the yanks.

Get the Job done on Tuesday and we are a big chance now that the yanks are going direct. Panama and Honduras are dreadful away from home.

nvm

4-0 

Anyone who knows CONCACAF have an opinion on who is a better potential opponent for us - Panama or Honduras?

Really interesting to hear the American commentator talk about CONCACAF being the easiest qualifying path. Mentioned South America, Europe and even Asia.

Us or Syria?

the difficulty of a qualification route is measured by how hard it is to beat the team that just misses out
concacaf is probably the easiest and oceania is probably the hardest

Hence the use of the word 'potential' before the word opponent....

We don't want to be playing in Honduras. It's basically the most dangerous non African/War zone country in the world. Utterly intimidating place to be in. People thought a few drums and whistles outside our hotel room in Uruguay was something................................. get ready

Oceania is the hardest??? 
Argentina might disagree 

No worries, Australia will just set up shop away then bring it at home. 





...Oh that's right we have a completely incompetent, inflexible manager. 

Gotchu fam.

First, a little about the region.

North America (minus Canada) is king, and Costa Rica is pretty strong. The Caribbean is 90 percent minnows playing on swampy, pitted cricket fields. And Central America is home to the middling sides in the region.

The Central American teams break down into 3 tiers. You have Costa Rica at the top, obviously, with good athleticism, excellent technical ability, and a great GK. At the bottom, you've got Nicaragua (more of a baseball nation) Guatemala (always a bridesmaid, never good enough to be a threat in the Hex) and El Salvador (see Guatemala, but fewer long-balls, and dirtier fouls).

Honduras and Panama are right smack dab in the middle. Neither good enough to challenge the top 3 of the US/Mexico/CR, but better than the obligatory Caribbean team (Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago).

Atmosphere: From both, expect raucous crowds before (national holidays will be called, fans will make noise/set off fireworks all night outside of your hotel room) and during the game (you may deal with batteries, bottles of water/piss, etc).

Honduras Style of Play: Fast, physical, dirty. Their spine is made up of Maynor Figueroa, Boniek Garcia, Alberth Elis, and Romell Quioto. All play in the Texas heat, 3 of them for the Houston Dynamo, and they're the bell-weather for the team. In particular, Elis and Quioto will give the most trouble. Really good wingers, fast and physical. As an Earthquakes fan, they've torn my team up, and if you let Honduras absorb pressure and get either guy one into a 1-on-1 matchup on the outside, game over. They will get off a decent cross or shot, almost guaranteed. That is their main attacking threat, although Lozano is decent. On set-pieces, I think Honduras' main competence is on corners. Boniek can serve in good ones. Nobody that I've seen can really hit good dead balls otherwise.

They have two main weaknesses. First, they struggle to chase games. Pinto (who led Costa Rica in the 2014 World Cup, FYI) loves a 5-man backline, his teams have always been defense-first, and they've always struggled when going down a goal. This happened with Costa Rica, Columbia, Costa Rica (again), and Honduras is no exception. Second, they struggle away from home. When it's not 1:00 PM, 95 degrees/80 percent humidity, in San Pedro Sula, suddenly Honduras doesn't do so well, so if you can get a point away, you're pretty set at home.

Panama Style of Play: Technical, physical, playing through the central midfield. Panama likes to play through Godoy, Cooper, and Quintero. When Godoy is on, he's an extremely good destroyer who plays both sides of the ball, setting up and stopping attacks. Cooper and Quintero will be the main outlets for Panamanians under pressure. Cooper's good with the ball at his feet, and Quintero's basically a winger who can cut inside really well. Torres and Baloy are really big, bruising CB's, but they're often in card trouble. On set pieces, Gaby Torres serves a mean cross, and Blas Perez is an old target forward with a ton of goals and experience that can get on the end of some of those balls.

Panama's IMO an overall more balanced team. Their main weakness seems to be mental fortitude. They seem to choke during big games, and the Hondurans don't, which is why Honduras has WC appearances, and Panama does not. In the last cycle, we knocked them out in Estadio Rommell with a B-team, and of course last night they waltzed into a 4-0 buzz-saw (a scoreline that flattered Panama) instead of bunkering for a point.

If you thought the penalty was questionable last night, prepare yourselves for more of the same. The phrase "Solo en CONCACAF" gets thrown around a lot, because the CONCACAF refs let guys get away with murder. The Panamanians will ticky-tack foul you all game, but the Hondurans will just straight up kick the snot out of you, so if the Socceroos aren't mentally prepared for that, they will be in for a rough time.

I always like watching the Socceroos play, maybe because they seem so stylistically-similar to the US, and are also usually underdogs, so I hope you get through to the WC. Hope this helps, good luck in the next leg with Syria and beyond (unless you play us :b ).

Oceania is probably going to have to go through Argentina. so yeah, it's pretty bloody hard.

P.S. As for which one is better for Austrailia to play, I can't speak too much on. I've maybe seen 10 Socceroo games in the last 4-5 years, so I don't have a depth of knowledge to draw from. Speedy, stay-at-home fullbacks would help in either case because both Panama and Honduras would like a midfield slugfest that allows them to counter-attack with speed on the flanks. Back 3/5's have given both teams trouble (Mexico and Costa Rica have broken out those formations against both teams), because neither is quite technical enough for the short-passing game in the final third to break down concentrated defenses. Though, if I had to bet on a team being able to do that, I'd put money on Panama rather than Honduras, because their midfielders are better at combination play than 1-on-1 (Honduras' wingers being good at 1-on-1's and less effective passers).

Thanks for the great insight and welcome to the forum!

my point precisely
they also have to face a tough team in oceania without any match hardening

Fantastic post, thanks for your insight!