do they feel the same about japan,korea ect? 

Probably not, because they are Asian.

We will win, but it won't be comfortable 2-1.

East v West thing imo.

We should split. East Asia + Oceania and then West Asia do their own thing.

Nope.

The Angeball mentality of "taking it to anyone" is still there in Arnold's comments.  Everyone at the WC lets us do that.  Even France.  We are so predictable and tactically naive its not funny.  

Syria will sit back and let us fart around with the ball but achieve not much.  If they get two chances in 90 minutes on the counter they will take at least one. 

OTOH an *early* goal by us and all bets are off.   Its a big "if" though.

I doubt it. We all know the tension is there. They most definitely didn't like us winning the Asian cup. Also remeber the Saudis doing warnups during the minute silence for the terrorist attack victims. Don't get me wrong I'm not a muslim hater. I believe there is a strong argument for some of the grievances they have against the West. It is a reality though and although I don't want to harp on about it we shouldn't pretend it isn't there. Our prosepcts in this tournament are still in our own hands anyway. Hopefully the boys can do the job and we never give Syria a sniff.

As if people in Japan have more to do with people in Saudi Arabia than they do with Australians.

we have gone from calling australia vs uruguay a big game to australia vs syria 

Such is the level of the players we have now.  People patting themselves on the back after defeating Palestine FFS. 

I know that we are lacking depth with the injuries to key players etc but I'm equally worried that Arnie is going to run the starting 11 into the ground well before the business end of the tournament. 7 games to win it - just like the world cup. 

For example, why bring Jurman along if he is going to put Milligan into CB to cover Sains?

How is Rogic going to get through 7 games? Surely Amini needs to play at some point.

the wingers and fullbacks wont go 7 games straight.

I know we need to do well against Syria but its hard to see the squad not succumbing to fatigue around the QF stage without reasonable rotation.

And worried over Syria. I believe Syria can hurt us real bad tonight.

We are a minnow now thanks to the HAL...

We don't have any depth, talent or the players.

‘The Muslim countries will plot to eliminate Australia because they hate us but are fine with Japan and South Korea’

Lmao what kind of ignorant conspiracy theorist bullshit is this 😂

Most of the Arab countries hate each other more than they hate ‘neutral’ East Asian teams. Remember when WSW won the ACL? The fans of every other Saudi club rejoiced and baked cakes with WSW logos. Clearly not very ‘anti-Australia’.

Miss me with that ignorant shit.

Can't wait for us to fail. Because that will naturally happen, even though our players produce every week around the globe.

Messi NT = Aussie NT

Most Asian nations are quite pissed we are in the confed dominating, they want us to go back.

At the time of the last Asian cup someone (Gallop maybe?...I can't remember) mentioned in the media that the likelihood of us hosting the AC again in the next 50 years is practically 0% due to the Arab countries not being happy.

Just get the job done today. 

Great assist by Antonis today. Hopefully Arnie won't make us regret he wasn't in the UAE to make it there tonight instead.

Only some of the Arabs. Kuwait of all countries seems particularly resentful. I get the impression that East Asians quite like us. 

That's the impression I get as well - East Asia (particularly the big three of Japan, Worst Korea and China) all recognise the strength we bring to the confederation, both on the field and off the field. Don't forget, us Aussies spend a lot of money on sport - some of that flows through to the AFC coffers. So the commercial benefits of having us in the confederation are also as important as providing a decent opponent on the pitch. SE Asia is also a booming football region, so honestly, we're very well situated geographically to take advantage of arguably the biggest seismic shift in world football - if we pull our heads out of arses that is.

Yeah that's probably true, Japan and Korea definitely like us for the rivalry and the strength we win. Plus we actually have decent relations with some Eastern Asian countries, the other side though. Not so much

It does look like South East Asia are starting to invest in football a bit more and are improving quite considerably. It is the most populated continent on the planet and if they ever sort their shit out things will definitely change in the football landscape.

of course the Arabs hate us.  We take one spot off them.  Not to worry.  Its only a matter of time before they catch up and overtake us.  Iran already has.  Saudi Arabia is already technically better than us, though not- yet- physically.

Yeah every time I've heard of whinging (other than shitposters on youtube streams) it always seems to come from Kuwait, but even then it's far between shouts, and obviously nothing official as they were happy to host us for a friendly recently.

I think they want us to invest more commercially (I remember during our AC or an ACL campaign, discussion about the lack of Australian sponsors) but definitely agree that East Asia welcome our inclusion for on pitch benefits.

And another assist for Troisi.

It's going to be an interesting clash with our poor youth showing but a couple of good players coming through and the rest of Asia developing good youth teams.

We know it doesn't always necessarily translate into decent national teams but I think the direction for Vietnam, Qatar, Uzbekistan, Thailand is positive. Then you have all these others waiting to dick us 1:0.

I take comfort in the decent number of young A League players with good technical ability. It's important they don't get bogged down in Europe. Gersbach had a top game against Cameroon but has lacked minutes since then. He among many others should see a solid future with a good national team manager. 

Now back to that never ending striker issue..... 

Here goes. The first guy is asked what is the Australian NT doing to study the Syrian team. He says the Australians have 32 coaching/ backing staff including 4 assistants. They make a joke about Andrew Nabbout being rejected by the Lebanese NT. 
From my understanding also is that the guy in the video believes the Socceroos have changed the way they play by 70% from the previous time they played each other under Ange, in a tactical way in attack and defence. He says the Socceroos play 4-1-4-1 in defence. The Socceroos long balls will kill the Syrians, the Australians are big and strong. He says from a young age we play Rugby and AFL 😂

Hey at least he's heard of AFL. Leckie played it as a kid to be fair, but I think that's it.

Thanks for the translation :)

Man... I think the music playing after goals. That sh*t sux. Watch it tonight.

Hopefully we score yeah

Line up due in around 45min to an hour. Kruse and Maclaren to start I reckon. I really hope Rogic is on the bench for this and can come if needed.