More “has beens” telling us how great the Olden days were.

Yeah another rant from the good ol days. I don't agree with him  that Peru outsmarted us , they just capitalised on their chances better than us otherwise we pretty much dominated them.

I don't know what match he was watching

The match the socceroos lost

yes the very same LOL

They were so good, that they couldn't qualify for a World Cup for 32 years!

They were so good they were knocked out by the likes  of veritable powerhouses Israel, Iran (twice) and New  Zealand.

The way some of the GG and their predecessors talk, like Rale, Les Scheinflug and Raul Blanco, plus Bulldog Slater, Bozza and Ned Zelic,  it as though we qualified for every World Cup and made the knock out rounds.

I don't think the lack of young player development is isolated to just football. The same can be said about many other sports in Australia.  Australians used to be next to unbeatable at International Cricket, not so much now. Australians used to dominate in the pool at the Olympics, not so much now. Even at the AFL & NRL, the amount of genuine star players pales in comparison to past legends of the games. Sure, player development in Australian football is no where near up to scratch but I think there are also other cultural factors at play.

They definitely outsmarted us. They just sat back and took it easy, and then exploited the space in behind when our defence got stretched. We did not "dominate" by any means. They let us have the ball and were always very comfortable. It was a pretty miserable game for Australia actually. We didn't even get close. 

yeah in hindsight you are probably right, they probably seen how sh*t we were in front of goal and allowed us to have the ball knowing we wouldn't be a threat

Oh, we did waste our breath running at them a lot. 😋

LOL Yeah we beat them on km's ran for the match

You may have a point, except Australia  has probably improved in football.

AFL, and to a lesser extent, league, have little viable international competition to compare players of present and past.

In tennis we are a shadow of what we were too.

You are so negative about the national team in football, and in general, have you thought of joining Anarchy Forum?

Yep - why would we want to listen to anyone who had actual knowledge of the players of that generation...  Let's just dismiss what he's saying out of hand rather than address the fact that we actually had those players back then.

How can you compare Lucas Neil to Arzani? I honestly believe Arzani has the potential to play at a big club in the future such as dortmund or liverpool

No doubt there were technically-adept, creative players in Oz football back in that '80s era (Peter Katholos is another that comes to mind)...but again, it's made to sound like Socceroos and NSL sides of the era were chock-full w/such players when the bottom line is...they weren't💡

Let's not forget the clubs and NT of the day also consisted of Brit expats who may well have been good readers of play and had commitment/guts to spare...but would've had the finesse of an elephant in quicksand.

“The name on everyone’s lips is Arzani," he said.

"But we are not talking about Ned Zelic, Paul Okon, Stan Lazaridis, Scott Chipperfield, Lucas Neil and Tony Popovic."

Do you think any of these players had the dribbling and flair of Arzani? 

The 1998 and 2002 squads would have walked through the Asian qualification pathway.  The play-off 'loss' to Iran was a lottery, not helped by a mad-man.  
If those squads, and 90/94 had had the financial backing to actually get together and train/play, rather than training in separate camps and paying their own airfares, etc., I'm pretty sure they would have challenged also.

That's problem those in the past generation are removed from the coaching scene of today. Almost all of those critics are not doing any junior coaching today? 

It makes sense. These days kids won't get off their asses. They have xbox and internet all day.

Back in the day! All we had were parks and massive backyards to ammuse ourselves in. (oh how I miss those happy, healthy  days)

Stan the man used to fly down the left wing tormenting fullbacks back in the day. My favourite socceroo when I was a young bloke.

  

1998 missing out was particularly galling as that was a very good squad.  The loss to Iran wasn't even a loss.  Australia were the only undefeated team in qualification not to make France.

And +1 for the rest of your post.  

I was only 12 when he last played for australia. After watching some youtube footage he seems to be more of a leckie type of player than a kewell/arzani.

I was the most positive person here before the world cup! We had no injuries and most of the key players of this generation were at or near peak age. I really thought we were quite underrated and could do something, but BvM and Co. trod all over my dreams and crushed them. Now I feel stupid for having had faith in the first place. They let me down. I've got no more hope for the Socceroos :(. 

Also, why anarchy forum? I could be accused of many things, but being an anarchist definitely isn't one of them. 

So dribbling and flair are the only categories that count now?  The players listed - never mind Kewell, Viduka and Aloisi - had a range of abilities that made all of them as useful at international level as Arzani.  He's taking nothing away from Arzani - just being critical that the lad is the only one we have.

By 'anarchy' he means the forum 'football anarchy' which, after creating numerous multis, such as Colin Oscopy, he was banned from.  It's recently closed down I believe.

Many of them have been chased out because their methods don't match the FFA's guidelines...  As a result we have teachers who are good at following guidelines showing kids how to play like robots, whilst characters who could actually play the game sit in the pub and gripe.

Thats a disgrace if true. 

Don't worry he was massively overrated. I don't have anything against him, he was the best in that position at the time and a good bloke. But pretty much just kicked the ball and ran after it.