For more context, twice toure recieved the ball on the counter at half way, players tried to rugby tackle him, but he stayed on his feet rather than accept the foul. They then jockeyed him but he dribnled through two players and made it all the way to the pen box. His shots were blocked both times, but i dont know many aussie players who are dangerous in a 1v2 from half way!

Fotmob counted both as incomplete dribbled and took 0.4 points off his score haha

Very promising reading so basically he's got to be in a gold shirt this window. Really need to get using him.

Hearts got done 3-1 by Motherwell with Rowles at CB and Devlin bench 

yeah definitely needs to play for the roos! Yengi and duke probably start because of incumbancy, but reckon toure wins that shirt this year

toure also wearing the number 7 whereas the starter has a big number indicating maybe they plan for toure to start

Roma with a 2:1 home loss to Empoli. Pedestrian and negligence led to the goals the a late wake up but couldn't salvage a draw.

Hearts with a 3:1 loss.

Still no Garang Kuol news?

Toure is a don't count your chickens prospect imo. It's still very early days at Randers. He needs to find a run of consistent fitness and good form. The former has always been the biggest road block for Toure. He's always injured, he needs to demonstrate some resilience and good a long block of games. 

Cacace from new Zealand came off the bench for empoli

Izzo voted MOTM for Randers by fans 

Nestory killing it against the boys

We have a lot of good new players with NI as the jewel in the crown.

If we pick our best team and play a style that makes the best of Irankunda's talents I can see us getting into the top 20 (FIFA) and staying there.

Izzo double save:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/9vzSJg7CXU6YKJn3/?mibextid=oFDknk

Nicely done. Definitely sharpening up. 

Pretty sure Australia squad due middle of this week.
Big EFL cup session Tuesday night. 

Has anyone heard what's happening with Volpato? That's 2 weeks in a row where he hasn't made the team sheet & no info released. Don't know if there is any truth in this, but Ozhubfootball posted on Instagram last week that Parma were interested in signing him. 

Sorry, what? lol

Breakthrough at what level? And how does this correlate with become a PL/La Liga/Bundeliga player or a CL footballer? There's a massive difference between being a PL footballer and someone playing 2 CL qualifiers a year at Lugano.

23 to 24 years old is also ancient in most of the major competitions youth/reserve levels.

If you aren't a regular at the level, or been a regular at any senior level by that point, your papers are generally stamped for a reason and you will be a journeyman in B/C grade leagues.

I used the cut off of playing in at least the group stages of CL and playing a minimum of 25 games in all competitions. So Rogic despite playing for a good club like celtic only played 2 seasons of CL football
A break through year is playing at 25 games at at least 2nd tier in the big five (ligue 2, championship, seri b, laliga 2, buli 2) or the top tier of a 2nd tier euro country (switzerland, greece, scotland, portrugal, belgium, eredivisie etc).
Weirdly enough, at least amongst aussie players, it doesn't matter if you have a break through year at u24 or u20, your odds of breaking through at a higher level don't change much and its a coinflip. If you break through after u24 your odds nosedive, so there seems to be a cutoff. There is the occasional late bloomer, but the odds are against you. However, half of players who make the top and play at least 25 games, don't maintain it for more than a season or two. These odds haven't changed much in the last 35 years. 

So if you want a crystal ball about what the future looks like, take the number of aussie players who have broken through by u24 and divide by 4, that is a rough estimate of how many future socceroos who get sustained success at the top. That means, the way I count ages in my analysis, for those born 2001 this is their last year to break through in Europe

Is he still hoping to make Italian senior squad?? 

Rumour he is out of the squad last two matches because parma are set to sign him

Transfer window closes friday, so hoping hrustic and kuol get something sorted

Coman to Saudi. Nudges Irankunda along. 

League Cup action. No McGree, Glover bench. Peupion bench against Crawley.

No Bennie, RBR or Iredale . Elder, Souttar bench. 

Hopefully we at least get a peupion cameo

Peupion on

Gets an assist from a nice corner

Peupion assist for 3:0

Brighton just glued to the left side the whole time and poor peupion has barely touched the ball

Been wlrking hard in defence and tracking back well. He has made some good  runs but his teammates being jerks

irankunda carried off in a golf card after paulinha stepped hard on his foot. Turns out to not be any injury

I'm not a big one players moving to Europe to join academies. Some statistics from the premier league show that only like 3% of players who come through an academy ever play a single minute for their senior side. 

Something like only 1% of players in the academy system in England will make it to professional football in any capacity. Obviously it includes young kids and everything in between but the numbers are pretty sobering. 

I also agree that 23+ is ancient in terms of pro football. We view it differently in Australia (probably because of NRL and AFL only taking kids out of high school) but personally if you haven't broken through by 21 it's starts to get increasingly hard. 

So he's ok to play? I reckon, as he's still training with the top team, that he's half a chance to be on the bench this week. Not to mention, the Socceroos play in a week 

Phew.