2018 had France and Denmark came in as one of the best teams in Europe.  France won the whole damned thing..

Wasnt much difference down here mate. Monday morning at school was all the Greek, Italian and Yugo kids giving each other shit over the weekends results and the Skip kids yelling at us to get the f**ck off the footy oval so they could kick they egg ball around, you know a real man's game.. Then all of a sudden in 2005 these same Neanderthals are walking around with Melbourne Victorious tops and telling us it's  not called Soccer anymore and when they light flares and punch on.at the soccer it's not as bad as when the ethnics did it....  hahahah f*ck me no wonder the A league fans think we are bitter... wouldn't you be?

I think the old hatreds are starting to simmer down a little as both camps realise that we sort of need each other to have any hope of this bloody ridiculous game of ours having any hope in hell of being popular let alone Aussies ever being any good at it... live in hope.

To answer the kid who asked how long before a club stops being plastic.... I think a club should at least have the right to choose it's own name colours and identity and not have their whole persona and ip dictated to them by the FFA. A license to participate in a competition ,owned by some rich wanker, does not make a club, it makes a franchise...  The old Soccer clubs are just like the old milk bars and fish and chip shops in the burbs.. cast away in favour of another  shiny Westfield...  But a lot of these old traditional places are still thriving and a lot have gentrified and improved the way they do things and the clientele they target.  I hope the Westfield stores survive the coming changes as well.

 

People idolize the golden generation-watch the games carefully.  Down 0-1 against Japan till the 84 th minute.  Offside goal against Croatia. No chance of scoring against Italy.

Conveniently left we got smashed by Peru....

Come on bro ur trolling

This is basically what happened.  He was given a free reign to do whatever the hell he wanted.
So in the process, a 50 year old club (the Oceania club of the century) was not permitted to join (and the club that did end up coming in from Melbourne was part owned by the FFA for the whole of the first season).

It was over by then. 

Ah Lowy, the savior of Aussie Soccer.. hahahahahah  He so desperately wanted the other kids to play with him he almost drove poor Hakoa Club broke Spent the equivalent of millions for the time to forge a pretty solid squad and they got results too. But he just couldn't stand that the Greek, Italian and Cro clubs where pulling in crowds and making money and poor Sydney City was a bit like Tarneit Gypsies. He certainly got his revenge on the wogs in the end though didn't he?  

Honestly nothing i HATE more then 'IFS'

Sure IF Kewells goal was offside or Cahill didnt score.... 2006 might not be remembered the way it is 

OR we were unlucky to lose to Italy 'IF' there was no last min pen we could of beaten them, then would of beaten Ukraine in the next round and made the final four who knows what would of happened!!! 'IF'

'IF' Cristiano Ronaldo could of picked to play for Australia and football would be the biggest sport in this country - 'IFS' dont f**ken matter  it is about results 

That statement right there is why the AL is in the toilet becuz 'IF' it had P/R 'IF' the FFA took advantage of the fan fair wound WSW

'IF' the FFA didnt go to war with active support 


'IF' Kewell never got a red against Ghana .... 

Seriously 'IF' is NOT AN AGRUEMENT - 'IFS' are excuses or a clear indication you dont know what you are on about - thats not just in sport but in life

It was also over for Peru didnt stop them from smashing us....


You need to look at both sides of the coin bruv 

what it says is luck plays a bigger part in the results of this low scoring game than you think it, especially in tournaments. 

As was pointed out Verbeek in 2010 played 108 minutes out of 286 minutes with 10 men, with both Cahill and Kewell suspended.  Do you think the 2006 team gets 4 points and goes through doing that?

3 shots on target and 2 goals. ..

the problem with the ethnic clubs is that they saw themselves as de facto national teams

They even NAMED themselves as such. Melbourne/Sydney Croatia? Sth Melb Hellas. Preston Makedonia.  How is that in any shape or form inclusive?

Lowry intension were not all bad the AL has brought a friendly way for fans to engage with football i go to Victory games and 80% of the fans are wogs anyway.... 

But the league had no long term plan and it has got mega repetitive and boring to follow - due to previously mentioned reasons - the closed league system long term is clearly failing 

Lowy knew exactly what he was doing with the voluntary euthanasia of the ethnic clubs. Don't be fooled for a second mate. It was all intentional the slimy vindictive bastard. 

Could’ve been-ism doesn’t help us improve.

Most of us here aren’t from Algeria, the US or Costa Rica. Do we remember the Round of 16 in the 2014 World Cup?

The USMNT outplayed Belgium for much of that match. They only lost 2-1 a.e.t. But does the rest of the world think about how they nearly won and probably should have won?

Does the whole world keep going over how Algeria only lost 2-1 a.e.t to Germany? So they took the eventual champions within a whisker of a penalty shoot out.

Costa Rica lost to the Netherlands on penalties in the quarter final of the 2014 World Cup. Does that somehow alter the final score?

Fact is, Australia’s not the only low- to mid-ranking team to have played well against a football superpower nation. Nor is Australia the only nation which just fell short after having come close to beating them.

While it’s good to be proud of the performance, it’s not good to lament the score line and to call it robbery.

Yeah that's fair... I'll pay that. There where some pretty ugly times especially in the late 90s... Greaous fun though. Lol.  And also yes in a way I suppose there was a huge amount of Nationalism and I do get that a lot of non ethnics might have felt a little intimidated.
My serious question to you though is why do you think these clubs owe anything to you to be inclusive?  There is a lot of talk about clubs representing their community  and to some that means geographic. But you realise that the Greek community, the Croatian community etc etc are all just as valid in Australia. Some if these clubs bent over backwards with the limited resources they had to try and appeal to mainstream Australia. Some never bothered and probably never want to. If you don't like Greek food or Chinese food or Italian food then you either open your own restaurant or you eat at home..... This Aussie Xenophobia has to end sometime. Some of us are 4th generation Australians....

Enzo Bearzot

I agree that Pim Verbeek’s side, at least, in terms of group stage results, were comparable with Guus’ side.

I also agree with you that even Bert was staggered that Australia couldn’t score in open play. He was baffled by how poor we were in front on goal (but that’s not something that can be conveniently ignored in doing a comparison).

Your What Ifs are also very selective. What if Japan’s goal had been disallowed for the foul against Mark Schwarzer? What if Josip Simunic’s ‘rugby tackle’ of Mark Viduka inside the penalty
box had resulted in the penalty that ought to have been given? What if Guus had used his bench properly against Italy? Australia end up very close to a quarter-final berth against Ukraine.

At the end of the day, all that can be looked at are the final results and the quality on the park.

Results-wise: Socceroos of 2006 did substantially better than the Socceroos of 2018

Quality-wise: Both sets of Socceroos had similar quality defences. But the 2006 Socceroos were heaps better than the 2018 Socceroos in terms of midfield and in front of goal.

Could’ve been-ism doesn’t help us improve.

Most of us here aren’t from Algeria, the US or Costa Rica. Do we remember the Round of 16 in the 2014 World Cup?

The USMNT outplayed Belgium for much of that match. They only lost 2-1 a.e.t. But does the rest of the world think about how they nearly won and probably should have won?

Does the whole world keep going over how Algeria only lost 2-1 a.e.t to Germany? So they took the eventual champions within a whisker of a penalty shoot out.

Costa Rica lost to the Netherlands on penalties in the quarter final of the 2014 World Cup. Does that somehow alter the final score?

Fact is, Australia’s not the only low- to mid-ranking team to have played well against a football superpower nation. Nor is Australia the only nation which just fell short after having come close to beating them.

While it’s good to be proud of the performance, it’s not good to lament the score line and to call it robbery.

There was no foul on Schwarzer.  Coaching mistakes don't count.

As for results, Verbeek was getting them and he got crucified for being results-focused.  Postecoglou wanted to "take them on" and was applauded for.... not winning. i actually blame Postecoglou for not being more pragmatic.

 We could have actually beaten France, and Denmark, we had enough chances.  The point is, the difference in the general play between what happened in 2006 and 2018 was not as big as people imagine it. 

In the midfield Mooy, Jedinak and Rogic versus Culina, Bresc and Grella?  Flip of the coin really.

 In the end their inability to broaden their appeal beyond their nationalism was not financially viable.  Its nice romanticise about money not mattering, but it does.  If you don't have fans, you don't get ticket sales, sponsors TV deals.  If that's what you want then fine, back to the future, but won't last.

I dont doubt that rich people didnt get rich without being a c**t 

Look eventually a few of the old clubs will return to the top division either via a 2nd division or directly. A team like South Melbourne if you ask me would have more support then Western United maybe even City.... 

But it is the way that is done needs to be carefully executed the club needs to be open to all peoples and culture but is more then welcome to have a Greek flavor - ie Greek food etc 

But the clubs themselves cannot be 'Greek' or 'Croatian' or 'Italian' etc they need to be open to that - most of the old clubs cant wont give that up and i understand it is 50% pride and 50% tradition but the AL and the old NSL clubs need to meet in the middle if you ask me. Lowry refused to do this and it is why now he is gone many football fans he did more harm then good to the game. 
' 
regardless of all that my Biggest issue with Frank Lowry is he had little to no 'skin in the game' he promised the AL owners the league would be profitable and this amazing competition within 5 years but he HIMSELF never invested into the sport even though the man is a Billionaire (almost) for me i dont trust anyone selling a product they dont buy into themselves and then leaving his idiot of a son in charge was icing on the shit flavored cake 

i'd argue the 2006 squad was a 'NSL' developed team 

I'd also argue the last 2 world cup  where we basically had mostly AL developed players where terrible (we didnt win a game) 

But they shouldn't have too if they don't want to mate. That the  point. NCIP was vile. As long as a club is not breaking any Australian discrimination laws  and doesn't use any controversial or offensive imagery etc I believe they should brand themselves however their voting members decide. That's the beauty of club culture which I feel we are lacking. A club 
Ike Hume city has the Turkish flag as it's logo this year. I'm sure that if the voting members of the club wherent happy with this they would vote to change directions and go mainstream  .... it's up to them. Joe blogs down in Campbellfield who wants to follow a team in winter can either go and watch, or if he deisnt agree with the Turkish flavour he can go to another club.. I'm sure Hume would never turn away a paying customer. This cringy racism has to stop here mate. I can support Hellas Verona in Serie A but not South Melbourne Hellas? 

But they shouldn't have too if they don't want to mate. That the  point. NCIP was vile. As long as a club is not breaking any Australian discrimination laws  and doesn't use any controversial or offensive imagery etc I believe they should brand themselves however their voting members decide. That's the beauty of club culture which I feel we are lacking. A club 
Ike Hume city has the Turkish flag as it's logo this year. I'm sure that if the voting members of the club wherent happy with this they would vote to change directions and go mainstream  .... it's up to them. Joe blogs down in Campbellfield who wants to follow a team in winter can either go and watch, or if he deisnt agree with the Turkish flavour he can go to another club.. I'm sure Hume would never turn away a paying customer. This cringy racism has to stop here mate. I can support Hellas Verona in Serie A but not South Melbourne Hellas? 

What chances did we have against France and Denmark? Against the French we didn’t get a shot on target in open play. You can’t win a group stage match if you don’t get any shots away.

Every player that started against the eventual World Champions in 2018 WC developed their game to its highest level in the A-League before going overseas.  They lost 1-2.

 The best the 2006 Socceroos could do against the eventual 2006 Champions was 0-1 loss against 10 men

Both played against cheating World Cup Winners so this is a 100% like for like, scientifically-validate by me comparison.

A-league wins player development for Socceroos.