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

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.

“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? 

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.

  

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.

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. 

He and tiatto.  And Emerton. A joy to watch

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.

Rogic has this quality too.

He said "we used to have 20 Arzani's" not players that are just as good or better than Arzani. I wouldn't compare Cahill to Arzani as their skill sets are completely different. 

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? 

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. 

Not true.

Some of the older players acting as pundits on TV can't admit how the methods we used were responsible for us failing to qualify for WCs. Moreover, many of them display their lack of knowledge of contemporary football when they appear on TV. The counterparts who've pushed contemporary coach education have acquired  new knowledge about modern football tactics.

There is a dichotomy between those former player pundits on TV in Oz. Those who have undertaken FFA coach education demonstrate decidedly more knowledge than those who haven't. Furthermore, the player pundits who've retired recently  have considerably more knowledge than the player pundits who retired  10  - 15 years ago.  

It isn't simply a question of resources. Israel, New Zealand and Iran, probably had similar resources to us when they knocked us out of WCQ campaigns in the 32 years of failure. 

Oops, there it is again.

And, as usual you cannot refute, or deconstruct the positions I've advanced, because they are based on fundamentally sound football premises.

Benjamin, why don't you don the tracksuit, do some coaching badges and coach?

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

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. 

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.

Not close? Could have had 3 in the first 30minutes if we had a finisher

Well said.

Rationality in the sea of delusion.

Good recruit for you for Anarchy Football, Freaken.

LOL!

No sure what game you were watching. We comprehensively outplayed them but have no end product. Thats not being outsmarted. The one thing they did well was finish one chance and get 2 lucky deflections. 

I dont know what you are smoking we got wiped out by Peru the reason why it looked like we had more of the ball is because they were winning two nil and played defensive it is called game management. 

Though i dont agree with the whole 'we had all this talent now we dont' i do think the olden days did produce better players simply for the fact there was proper youth development with academies and a league with promotion and relegation. 

The FFA is better at running football as a business (sort of) but worse at running football as a quality product   

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.

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.

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.  

There's that dog whistle again.

dog whistle implies racism. Care to explain?

Racism? No.

Dog whistling is not limited to racism.

Dog whistling means giving a message which can only be heard by racists so you can plausible deny it. How does it make sense in this context?

It is the truth.

32 years of senior WC failure is  why a European powerhouse based NC was developed by FFA.

The tenets used for the NC were predicated on the national team weaknesses identified by FIFA Tech Depts at underage WCs and unsuccessful senior  WCQ campaigns.

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.

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.

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.

Fair comment.

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)

In 2006 the socceroos included Archie,Millsy ,Beauchamp and Wilkshere.
We had a few quality players,but the majority were average on the world stage.
They did not go into the World Cup as the golden generation..They were expected to lose.
Kewell was the only X Factor player.If we had not drawn against Croatia we would not have got out of the group phase and thus would have been no better than any other Socceroo team.
Really apart from having strikers who could score and Kewell ,we weren't that great.We just had more average players playing in overseas leagues.
The golden generation was really Kewell.Without him they weren't.

The closest and most accurate account of the situation lies here in Crims comments.

Further, the golden generation had far more more opportunity through overseas clubs.and federations having less restrictions importing foreign players at the time.

well I'd say kewell viduka and cahill were the golden gen so 3 players

unfortunately dukes didn't score frequently for the roos (but contributed in a lot of other ways)

And a very good supporting cast with good depth.

Would they have been called the golden generation had not done so well during the 2006 WC?

Viduka could not score a goal if his life depended on it in that world cup, not even one assist. Has never scored a goal against quality WC opposition either. Had to be given the captaincy to bribe him back to play in the Asian Cup qualifiers. Pfffft, that's loyalty for you. 

Mooy, Rogic, Sainsbury and Ryan would easily fitted in that so called golden generation group. Arzani will one day at least equal Kewell IMO.

Viduka's hold up play was phenomenal and you know why they did well in 06? Because they were a bloody good team, this place is ridiculous some times. 

Or had en easier group and the best coach in the world.

Viduka was overrated. A number 9 who can't score FFS.

Just had the Asian champions, former world cup winners and a good Croatian team. And put up a great fight against the eventual winners of the damn tournament

Group opposition FIFA rankings 2006 - 12, 15, 20  vs  2018 - 7, 11 , 12

Your right, Peru with that 12th ranking are clearly better than that Brazil team we faced. The rankings are definitive proof, thank you.

Even though FIFA rankings are dodgy, you've made a compelling point, Paul C.

What this amounts to in Australia is an inverse snobbery. There is an adulation by many - Eurosnobs - of any m national milieu in any country in Europe being decidedly superior to  everything outside - barring South America.

When objective football performance analysis criteria is applied, it shows that most European teams are plodders, and robots, who just make up the numbers in Euro Champs and World Cups.

Outside the teams representing big five European leagues, plus Portugal, Belgium and Croatia, the rest have no realistic chance of  winning any tournament. Credit to Greece for wining the Euro sin 2004, but it was fluke.

All these plodders are  characterised by, at their best or in their  Golden Generations,  tight, organised cohesive defences. Essentially, they play direct football, hoofing many long, high, straight balls up into the mixer, and rely on players much bigger on average than those in the  general population. I've seen them in WCQs, Euro Qualifiers, European Champs and World Cups.

Thankfully, FFA Tech Department has ignored all their national federations' football methodology.

The powerhouses in Europe are characterised  by:

* They can play out from the back under squeezing and pressing  pressure.

* They can build up steadily through the midfield.

* They can play slick football ( rapidfire passing) in tight triangles and diamonds, with players individually having fast handling speed.

* A greater percentage of their players use :

-the outside of the foot for passing, as well as the shoelace,

-players are pretty two footed and comfortable on both sides of the body,

- feature a number of players who are fast ball carriers,

- feature a number of players who use the outside of  both feet to beat players 1v1,

- feature a number of  players with fast handling speed.

*The powerhouses also reflect the average height of the general population, as they primarily rely on technique for success. Not have a football team that is much taller than the average height of the general population, because they see their advantage in contesting high balls and second balls, and, muscle on muscle contests, to compensate for their lack of technique on the ball. 



The fact that Russia and Sweden were knocked out in the quarters  is no coincidence. Their lack of technical quality, compared to the  powerhouses, eventually and inevitably caught up with them. They can only ever play a Reactive game against the powerhouses, because they don't have the technical quality to play Proactive  circulation football against them.  

They cannot dictate terms or/and have the majority of possession and territory. They can only 'nick' the odd result against powerhouses, by playing on the counter.

Few, if any, of the other teams outside the big Euro five leagues' international teams, plus the current Croatia, Portugal and Belgium, have any chance of winning big tournaments.

Yet blindly, and perplexingly, many in Australia think the European plodders and automatons  are better than the better African, Asian and North  American teams. They aren't.