Whilst the football we played was ugly this tournament, I think if we get our strongest squad of 18 together for a quality camp beforehand who knows what we can achieve?

Atkinson is banned from national team duty till after the Olympics. He's going nowhere 

This.

We had composure at the start of the second half - made all the difference. Then we went to panicky shite for the rest of the game.

Where were their heads?

Despite some ugly performances think about how this achievement can give some belief in themselves and maybe a bit of consideration by club managers to get some more minutes.

Ryan, D'Agostino need to play immediately! Ryan should enquire about a loan to anywhere for the next 6 months. 

Oh, well there you go then. I thought all three would be back.  We need a better right back, Deng ordinary.

One of the most striking things I've noticed about our Australian national teams is that the players that have grown up playing their junior football here have so little"game sense" when compared to players who have grown up playing overseas. 

We might have physically good players, and even players that are technically good, and even players that understand what their role is in a tactical formation, but we have so few actually know what needs to be done at a particular stage of a match. Good players and good teams know how to manage a match.

The players who have had junior experience overseas seem to be more attuned to the actual state of the match and what needs to be done.

In this match, Genreau and Glover showed a bit of 'game sense'. Glover willingly took the yellow card for time wasting and took probably more than 30-40 seconds off the clock i the last few minutes, as well as taking his time with each goal kick.

Genreau was a terrier towards the end and tried to commit some tactical fouls to break up the play and slow the game down to waste time.

These sorts of skills are important parts of the game and we need our youth (and in fact all our players) to get better at them.

Only McGree escaped. 
Wales, Atkinson and Wilson will not be at the Olympics.

Perhaps your right back will be red card Rhyan since 3 overage players are allowed in the 18 man squad.
Most likely squad could be
GK Glover
RB Rhyan Grant
CB Harry Souttar and Dylan Ryan
LB Gersbach
MF Genreau, Baccus, McGree 
FW Arzani, Piscopo, Taggart
Reserves Tass M., Metcalfe (if fully fit), D'Agostino, Deng, Second Gk?, ?, ?

It's crazy how we switch on and off so easily I'm noticing it in pretty much every Joeys side all the way to the Socceroos we'll have a great spell or even half and then completely drop off. A good side will really put us to bed in those periods.

Another mediocre performance tonight but got the job done and we're going to Tokyo! Feel a bit bad for the Uzbeks but they'll only keep on getting better. 

Some prefer a change already yesterday.

But no Australian fan lost today.

Well done lads! But geez we make it hard for ourselves.

We couldn't keep the ball even with an extra player on the pitch, a lot of improvement is needed.

But the exciting bit is there is some good talent in this group so they continue to develop going into Tokyo.

Arnie knew the limitations before the start of the tournament, so he made them hard to beat with some luck along the way, so full props to him and players.

Geez how bloody crucial is that reserve league going to be in the next few years, I think the suits have underestimated the talent that is out there in Australian football to think the likes of D'Agostino only played a mere 14 minutes this season who scored a brilliant individual goal.

As for the team's development, its a perfect to blend in the Socceroos and Olyroos into one mega squad and use them both to go into Copa America and the Olympic Games.

Copa America should be fine but the problem is only 18 can be selected including 3 over age players so it only leaves it down to 15 of these players that could be selected so game time and form will be very important.

Anyway, that's for another time to discuss, I hope they enjoy the moment! 

Once again well done to Arnie and the players.

Blame that on the lack of game time and even conditioning, also don't underestimate how difficult the conditions were too.

But if we play like that against a semi decent side like South Korea, they will get badly punished.

Good call with Grant and Taggart, I'd take Maty Ryan as the third over age player. 

Best player: Piscopo
Best find: Ryan
Blew Tokyo ticket: Buhagiar
Biggest disappointment: Deng
Wildcard award: Genreau

Thanks to Connoe O'Toole and the reserve keepers for supporting the others and not seeing a minute.

Deng? He was superb all tournament apart from the last match 

And De silva

While he played well I think many expected him to rule this tournament. Was he slightly injured? 

https://youtu.be/vK0GgflZQig

Ryan was overwhelmed at the end. For him and a number of others this tournament is the most football they've played all season. I really wonder how they'd have fared coming in with full matches every week since last August.

Great we made it.
Ground out the result but we looked very beatable in this game and many others. Players desperately need both more time playing, and as a team together. Cant get the arniepraise as we hardly looked confident going forward and our defense was rarely composed. This tournament hasnt really answered any critics, not when your team is a goal and player up, but still look like you could lose it. Saying that though we had moments of good football but not consistency. Still lacking a dead ball specialist and slow transition. Wish we would prize getting a goal as much as keeping possession, but there were moments in which we did move forward especialy through ryan to attack the open space that were nice
In the last game. Bouman blew it and should have been subbed off after 20min. Piscopo had moments of real talent, deng a bit hit and miss but generally good, baccus was good, ryan was impressive as was glover. Dagostino needs to move clubs and play consistently maybe os

Congratulations to the team and Arnold. Well done!

Read on another forum a bug hit the team and Deng and Metcalfe copped it. 

Congratulations to the coaches and and team but we're going to be canon fodder at the Olympics. 

The match officials for #AFCU23 Final!

🇦🇺 Christopher Beath (R)
🇦🇺 Anton Shchetinin (AR)
🇦🇺 Ashley Beecham (AR)

Keep in mind we'll have the following to bolster the team...

Strain, Souttar, Timotheu, Kalik, Mcgree, Arzani, Iredale plus 3 overage players! 

These guys will seriously improve that side

Going back to the 2018 U19 AFC Championship, there is only 1 starter and 1 sub in in both line-ups that lost 1-3 to Saudi Arabia in the QF. The starter was Tass Mourdoukoutas and Ben Folami was a sub. There were a few bench players that were in both squads, one being Dylan Ryan, Ramy Najjarine, Connor Metcalfe. 
There has been a significant change to the squad as only one of the banned players was in the squad and that was Atkinson.

Still 0:0 in the final. But Nooooo goal! A happy no as it's South Korea who've taken the lead on 119!

South Korea win at the absolute death. 

Glad South Korea won, I was sure Beath would gift the Saudis another one.

Our only defeat was to the eventual champions. A fantastic result overall 👏 

So we qualified for the Olympics which is obviously great, but holy crap we were awful in this tournament. We were outplayed for the majority of every single match. Even against 10 men we capitulated. The first touch, vision and technique pf our players was worse than our opponents in every match. Our boys just can't compete on talent stakes. 
Our fitness was in general our strength, despite what the Korean coach says. We could overrun opponents at the death. But generally speaking we couldn't create opportunities and the players that made the goals were largely ineffective outside of that moment. 
All of our players need to be consistent first team regulars to play for the Olyroos. This has to be the goal for the next qualifying campaign. These aren't kids. These are adults. If you aren't regularly involved in a first team in your early 20s then you're setting yourself up to fail in your career. 

What i would give to see an Olyroos side playing confident attacking football and dominating their opponents. We were crap and was still able to finish 3rd, that says something about the quality in Asia. 

A lot of very negative comments in the aftermath of this tournament. I only watched highlights of each match so I'm not going to get into discussions about the quality of play and individual performances.

But a more optimistic viewpoint would be that despite not playing that well, we still ground out results and finished 3rd at a major tournament. I wish the Socceroos could do that sometimes!