I'm excited to see Leckie playing for us in a counter attacking style. He's improved massively at club level since 2014 but Ange's style didn't really suit him. He could cause some real problems for any of our 3 group opponents.

Positive vibes :)

I'd be happy to see us get some results. Should definitely do better than 2014 when it comes to points and goal difference.

Some of our players should score a good deal provided they have a good World Cup.

PR wise, it's probably the best broadcasting time we can ever get. I hope there is a bit of a positive injection to grassroots and the HAL afterwards.

No negatives waves lets just think positive...

From Kelly's Heroes..

Great thread. I'm going to have a lot of fun tro... contributing to the positive aspects of our 10 day stay in Russia

Really looking forward to it. The first week is especially enjoyable with all the colour and every team with a chance at making a good start.

Aside from Australia I'm particularly looking forward to Japan vs Colombia and Argentina vs Iceland. The first week is full of gems. A few groups have 1 massive side and 3 pretty good ones. Sweden South Korea will be good to see who can get all 3 points after Germany should dispose of Mexico.

Germany always come flying out of the blocks and almost never win group stage match 2. I think only Euro 2012 is the time they won match two. OK 2006 they scored with the last kick vs Poland then didn't win against Croatia, Serbia, Ghana and Poland.

Iran vs Morocco will be quite interesting. One team must win in the hope they can then upset Portugal or Spain. I'll tip Morocco and then imagine if Spain and Portugal ends a draw? They'll really feel ahead and will go all out.

I don't really expect Costa Rica to surprise again but good luck to them. Poland and Sweden are generally tournament flops and hopefully we'll see a bit more this time.

Panama are the fairytale team. All the best for them. Iceland will be a real novelty and that group is insanely good. 

I wonder if Belgium will win well this time? They needed a while to seal games in 2014. 

After I heard someone say that France usually has poor first games I looked up the figures and it seems to be true.
2014 Beat Honduras 3-0
2010 Draw 0-0 Uruguay
2006 Draw 0-0 Switzerland
2002 Lost 0-1 Senegal
1998 Beat South Africa 3-0
1994 Didn't qualify
1990 Didn't qualify
1986 Beat Canada 1-0
1982 Lost 1-3 England

Thats pretty dire reading for a team of Frances quality.  The only teams they beat in the first match were Honduras, South Africa and Canada.  All minnows.  Drew with Uruguay and Switzerland, Lost to Senegal and England.

Its not exactly proof, but its enough for me to imagine we might genuinely have a shot at a shock draw or something first game.

so you going to the last two weeks then ... when we lift the trophy ... :):D:P

I agree with all that. We may be a little weak up front but at least Tomi Juric appears to be a really good bloke. I'm sure he'll do very well and enjoy himself at the world cup, too.

while we are weak up front we could have been a lot weaker

in a generation where so many players chased cash in low quality asian leagues Juric turned down offers to pursue a career in europe. It means we at least have a decent option up front apart from an aging cahill

If he scores at the world cup that'll be worth more than all the money he turned down and something no one can take away the rest of his life. Also well deserved given the hard choices he made. I hope people pick up on that

Spot on grazor, he turned down a multi million dollar contract in China after the ACL triumph. Also a geniunely nice guy. He along with, brad smith and the arrogant, self serving Tim Cahill were the last to leave the fans at the open training session in Melbourne at Lakeside and were so patient and generous with their time posing for photos and chatting to us all.

I was in no way having a go at Tomi, I'm a massive fan. He's just the sort of player I like and when something does come off for him, I agree, it's worth more than it may be worth for another player.
Same situation when Bruce was at AU. Always backed him and that spell where it all came good for him in 2016 was gold.

My all time favorite movie, can tell you how many times I've watched it.  

Good idea for a thread.

Peru will be like a fish out of water playing in Northern Europe. Massive culture shock for most of the team.

Kruse is in the best form he has been in since his injury in 2014.

There isn’t enough recognition that BVM is n outstanding coach who has been to a WC FINAL !!!!!!!

Apart from France our group is reasonable. Ange’s Roos from last WC would certainly have been able to get out of the group. We would never have been scared of Denmark in previous years.

Luongo, Rogic and Sainsbury are very, very good players.

While I don't think it's likely we'll get a result against France, there is definitely a chance of it. On paper they have probably the best squad at the tournament, but as teams go I wouldn't put them in the top three. I don't know if this counts as 'negativity' but I'm not positive about their chance of winning the whole thing. 

There is a very strong possibility of them completely underestimating us. Not the coach so much, but the players. It'll be dependent on their fuck ups, but if things don't go the way they envisage, I can see them losing their discipline. At that point we need to take our chances.


Denmark and Peru are definitely getable. Bert needs to make sure the players know that to do something special here, it's compulsory for them to want it more than every player they play against.

You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xJlyxygLh4

This is the theme tune of this thread

https://youtu.be/5OFIw6AKK58
Not WC related

Wasnt sure where to post this, but worth a watch!

This is the fifth tier of English Football. The passion here is on another level!!

Damn lads this thread is getting my hyped! Bring on the cup already!!

Participation trophy? ;)

i think we need to be realistic about our squad. and i dont think doing that is being negative. in fact i think it's hopeful. because on paper we should be leaving that group on the bottom. any better is a job well done.

if we had denmarks squad we would be expecting a quarter final

if we get one win or 2 draws out of this group i think we have outdone ourselves.  if we get through the group BVM should be given god status.

I agree with much of that. Particularly the bit about the strength of Denmark's squad.

Where I think we gain a bit of an upper hand is the element of surprise. Although we have an experienced squad, there can be some footballers in our squad about whom the Danes know very little who could have an impact. Bert van Marwijk is very intelligent. He's tactically very bright, I think. And he'll surely know more about the France and Denmark than they know about how we'll set-up.

There's a real advantage to focusing almost entirely on defence and counter-attack against France. Not only does it probably give us our best hope. And if we have a narrow loss or (better yet) a draw, then that would be brilliant. But let's say they set-up very defensively against France, and just try to counter-attack on the wings with Mathew Leckie and Nikita Rukyavytsa. Tomi Juric to start and to hold up play. Maybe Timmy off the bench for ten to twenty minutes. There's talk of France's fullbacks being one of their few weaknesses, so I reckon that's the best way of doing things.

But the advantage of this is how Denmark digests this. If they watch Australia play like that against France, we can really try to wrong-foot them in game 2. They'll be expecting more of the same, I reckon. And sure, play a very defensively sound game against the Danes, too.

But in that match, if Daniel Arzani starts on one of the wings, all of a sudden we've tweaked things just a bit. Maybe Tom Rogic to come on at the hour mark. This means that not only are we playing strong defensively, we've just mixed things up a little bit more than the Danes would have liked. They surely won't be expecting much in the way of proactive football if we play a very defensive game against the French. All of a sudden, there are extra attacking weapons in play. We can hope to attack them through the middle, as well as from the wings.

On the topic of enjoying the world cup without stressing about Australia, can we have some fun relaxed match threads for all the other games in the tournament just so we can sit back and enjoy the world cup regardless of how we perform? I know a match thread like Russia vs Saudi Arabia would have little to do with Australian football per se (although I guess it could be to see how AFC nations/those we have played in the last 12 months do this time around) but it would be nice to discuss this tournament more broadly in the active part of this forum instead of the graveyard that is the world football section. And with this forum in particular seeing more traffic during the world cup time (and especially moreso since all of the Australian matches are on at decent times and will be followed by other matches later on) it would be nice to have some reprieve from how Australia is doing so that we can all kick back and tear into some other countries next month lol.

Think of the first weekend in particular: we can laugh at the shitshow of Russia vs Saudi Arabia as the tournament opener on Friday morning, then watch Egypt vs Uruguay on Friday night, then see how our AFC competitors Iran do against Morocco, then discuss Spain vs Portugal on Saturday morning to distract ourselves from the upcoming game against France that night. Then after the France game we can have seperate (and largely drunk, I imagine) match threads for Argentina vs Iceland, Peru vs Denmark (this one actually relevant), and Croatia vs Nigeria. A big night of football immediately after our biggest game and most of us will either be drunk with celebration if we get a result or wanting to forget about it if we get thrashed so it would be nice to load up a few match threads to just  “enjoy the world cup”, especially during the first two weeks.

No,  two draws in this group would be an abject failure. And how is your attitude anything but negative? You and others on here write Australia off completely for some reason (we're simply not that bad!), while vastly overrating Denmark, whose performances over the last few years really haven't been all that impressive. I think we have a good chance of advancing from the group, not because of the coach, but because I genuinely believe our players are good enough. OK, it might not work out, but I really don't get this constant advance negativity about our chances. It would be good to see some optimism for a change, rather than this steady stream of loser talk like "oh my god, if we draw against Denmark, it will be like beating Brazil!", or "we have to hope we only lose to France 3-0". Give me a fucking break! You're not being realistic. You're just being Debby fucking Downers....

Because Denmark and France are better than us which is why getting a result will be great against them.

Enjoyed that; thanks for posting. 

Let's talk ourselves up

Some of our players are probably better than we think

Kruse with no game time and one leg was still our best at getting assists. What's He going to be like after a full season playing?

Arzani didn't just dominate the a league, he dominated technically. In the past players who have dominated technically have had no trouble stepping up

Leckie has been scoring again this season after a couple of dour seasons. He is also one of the best defensive wingers in the game

Jedi looks rejuvenated 

Mooys defensive game has gone to another level

Rogic is looking for these days and has added defence to his game

Ryan has made some sublime stops in the ell

Sainsbury walks straight in as captain at a decent level

it always good to hear the players complaining about having never trained this hard in socceroos camp... its almost like we learn't nothing from Guus.

That training regime injured Harry Kewell & put him out of the Italy game where he would have been very handy.

In all honesty a ladybug would have injured Harry back then. Clearly he had issues with his body. 

I doubt we would have finished so strongly against Japan or Croatia without that extra fitness training.