Squad announcement live at 5pm AEST: https://youtu.be/ge7AaqmRULo

Can't really assess this until the game starts. If we knock them easily off the ball I'll feel good. They'll come out wildly no doubt. 

Very strong midfield.

Daniel ARZANI	Lommel SK, Belgium	6 (1)
Aziz BEHICH	Giresunspor, Turkey	41 (2)
Martin BOYLE	Hibernian FC, Scotland	7 (3)
Milos DEGENEK	Red Star Belgrade, Serbia	31 (1)
Kenneth DOUGALL	Blackpool FC, England	3 (0)
Mitchell DUKE	Fagiano Okayama, Japan	9 (4)
Callum ELDER	Hull City AFC, England	0 (0)
Denis GENREAU	Toulouse FC, France	1 (0)
Rhyan GRANT	Sydney FC, Australia	14 (0)
Ajdin HRUSTIC	Eintracht Frankfurt, Germany	7 (1)
Jackson IRVINE	FC St. Pauli, Germany	37 (6)
Paul IZZO (Gk)	Xanthi FC, Greece	0 (0)
James JEGGO	Aris Thessalonki, Greece	5 (0)
Awer MABIL	FC Midtjylland, Denmark	17 (4)
Ryan MCGOWAN	Kuwait SC, Kuwait	21 (0)
Riley MCGREE	Birmingham City FC, England	3 (0)`
Aaron MOOY	Shanghai Port FC, China	43 (6)
Tom ROGIC	Celtic FC, Scotland	47 (9)
Mathew RYAN (Gk)	Real Sociedad, Spain	61 (0)
Trent SAINSBURY	KV Kortrijk, Belgium	50 (3)
Brad SMITH	Seattle Sounders FC, United States of America	22 (0)
Harry SOUTTAR	Stoke City FC, England	5 (6)
Ryan STRAIN	Maccabi Haifa, Israel	0 (0)
Adam TAGGART	Cerezo Osaka, Japan	12 (6)
Lawrence THOMAS (Gk)	SønderjyskE Fodbold, Denmark	1 (0)
Danny Vukovic (Gk)	NEC Nijmegen, Netherlands	4 (0)
Bailey WRIGHT	Sunderland AFC, England	24 (1)

https://www.socceroos.com.au/news/september-squad-announcement

No Ruka 🙁

Pretty sure he's still clubless. At least we have a lot of options waiting around who didn't get picked. A lot of these squad members aren't going to play anyway. It's annoying that someone like McGree got a 2017 call up but still has so few caps.

Only got his first cap in June this year.

Admittedly we've been blessed in midfield but he is the one player I want to see more and more in the national team.

I agree.

Has to potential to get 50+ caps

Cheers Pala. I'll put the squad in position order to for easy reading. Can't stand the Roos and their alphabetical order.

Can't get over the 3 left backs and so many centre backs. Borrello has been out for a bit. We seem thin up top but those midfielders are also an attacking threat. Really won't care about two 1:0 wins at this stage. 

Ryan, Thomas, Vukovic, Izzo
Strain, Grant, Degenek, Souttar, Sainsbury, McGowan, Wright, Behich, Elder, Smith
Dougall, Genreau, Hrustic, Irvine, Jeggo, Mooy, Rogic, McGree
Arzani, Boyle, Duke, Mabil, Taggart

4 goalkeepers ??

Izzo just in case. I guess 4 will be cut for each game day.

Hmmm are we back 3ing vs China perhaps? Elder is a fantastic crosser. Wish we'd tried this in the previous round at least. I could live with this 11 and it does offer plenty of danger from set plays which I assume China still can't organise themselves for.


                              Ryan
           Sainsbury   Degenek   Souttar
Grant                                                     Elder
                 Mooy       Hrustic
                        Rogic
                Boyle  Taggart

Preview show on 10 Bold at 4pm AEST tomorrow, first chance for Ten to make a good impression.

Speed hosting? :D

Zappas didn't say, although Hill tweeted a video from the set today: https://twitter.com/simonhill1894/status/1431504026965712897

Hopefully the lighting's better on the day lol

Strain wouldn't be there if Karacic was fit

Arnie suggested the only reason there are 3 LBs is because Smith arrives on Wednesday. 

RB and ST are positions of concern with no Maclaren, Leckie and Karacic available. With those three instead of Duke, McGowan and Izzo that squad is bloody strong. Desperately want to see Deng push on because we would then have 4 very strong CBs with him, Souttar, Degenek and Sainsbury. Juric should be in too IMO.

I’d like to see smith as a left winger

Could be an option considering the paucity of forwards. He probably won't play the first game though as he'll only just have arrived from the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_national_football_team#Current_squad

Experience in key positions and some Brazilians creeping in. Also really curious how other group games go.

People wanted kuol or Juric, none

Ryan
Grant-Sainsbury-Degenek-Elder
Jeggo
Boyle-Mooy-Irvine-Hrustic
Taggart

Great to see Strain. He was great last season and built a really good number of appearances in the A-L before going abroad, where he's doing well and starting now. He's playing European football now and regularly too. The RB position will be very competitive in coming years. 

position coverage

GKs: 4
Left backs: 3
Right back: 3
cb: 4
DM 4
AM 4
wingers: 3
strikers: 2

not much depth up front but thats no surprise I suppose

It makes for hard reading to see where regular squad Socceroos are playing abroad these days.... 

you should take a look at the 2014 wc squad - this a massive improvement

2012-2014 were fucking darks days lmao.

hope strain gets a run, underrated player.

Hope he doesn't, shouldn't be in the team, extremely overrated player, Adelaide defence was horrid last year, and as a possible deep lying attacker well 0 from 82 games in the aleague speaks for itself, to add he dove more than Mauk, which in itself isn't the problem, the problem is he was terrible at it.

To add would have preferred Atkinson, the bloke killed it in the Olympics against solid competition, he will be in the national team soon enough, may aswell blood him at this standard.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Does Arzani just get a free pass into every side? He played good for about 20 minutes at the olympics and has not bolted a spot down anywhere. Stay and concentrate on getting a club game. 

Agreed. The one player that I just groaned when I saw him on the squad list. 

Arzani lucky to make squad - helped by no Leckie and any other Aus based players. Borello must be pissed

He only has himself to be pissed at. He’s been given a decent amount of chances with the national team but his performances have consistently been hot garbage.

Playing Borello feels like playing with 10 men because it feels like he goes missing.

TBH this is the most optimistic i've been about an Australian Squad in the past decade

Even more so than the Asian Cup squad in 2015. That was a very pleasant surprise, but before the tournament started it looked like a disaster about to happen. Hell even a good bit into the Kuwait game it looked like things were in dire straights. 

This.

This is the game I am most worried about. China is the dark horse in our group, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them in the top 3 at the end of qualifying.

I don't know which team is most disadvantaged by it being the first game. I am hopeful of our run in the ME to stand us in good stead on Friday morning.

kina worried about Arzani finally has a team that plays himm.. wonder if he would better just staying there and working on cementing his spot..

Just checked this game is on at 4am..... dafaq 

Sydney time. 9pm in Qatar.

Getting sick of these games being played in these middle east dog tracks.  

Hope we can get those later games played here in Australia.   

nothing like living way way down under EZ :)
Makes it special getting up early AM lol, I'm used to it so look forward seeing how we go.

Link to host broadcaster for those outside Australia - 

https://gtly.to/ALjiLJDOH

From the FFA

How international fans can tune in to Socceroos v China

Just wish we could play this game in Australia...

https://www.sporttotal.tv/ev6fcd1e3d

Looks like this German channel has finally uploaded things. Would be very surprised if it were free but it seems to be the case.

🎥 Catch all the #AsianQualifiers Final Round matches LIVE with us on AFC Asian Cup Youtube 🔴

*only available in Syria, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Yemen, Poland, Romania, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Ireland & Andorra.

Got Romanian and Spain vpn. 

Would love to see a starting XI of

Ryan; Grant, Souttar, Sainsbury, Elder; Dougall, Mooy, Hrustić, Mabil, Boyle, Rogic (in a withdrawn 9/10 role as an attacking fulcrum) 

Yeah that'd be something. Dougall and Jeggo have a massive tank so I think one of them probably should start. I'd prefer Hrustic in the advanced role. Boyle has striker tendencies so he'd compensate well.

I think we're likely to see Taggart get the start but maybe Boyle and Mabil will be played as a front two. 

My tips

Australia 2 China 0
Japan 3 Oman
Saudi 3 Vietnam 1


South Korea 3 Iraq 0
UAE 1 Lebanon 0
Iran 2 Syria 1

Less than 24 hours to go. Come on you Roos!

I came here to say the exact same thing lol 
have to say I’m extremely worried about this WCQ campaign. The glaring issue for me is up front. Defensively we’re decent, midfield is our strength it’s just our attack. 

Couple of current surprises on UEFA always makes me nervous and wary. 

I checked the Portugal-Ireland score it’s 1-0 to Ireland 90th thinking what an upset then an hour later hearing Portugal won

Real banana skin this one.  Anything but a win to start of with and we could be on the back foot immediately. 

Scotland lol, that coach needs to be fired ASAP. Poor selection by them yet again.
we got lucky with Souttar and boyle but still would have liked dykes.

To be fair to Scotland, Denmark are pretty good- bet they probably could have benefited from having Souttar and Boyle though 😉 

Currently doing mental gymnastics on whether to ruin my sleep for this

i hope 10 release a minimatch

It'd be nice if an international could be on a bloody weekend for once

Japan Oman in 1 hour.

South Korea Iraq in 2.

On 10Play in Australia apparently, 8:15pm AEST for Japan and 9pm for South Korea.

Can't see any mention of the games on the app whatsoever, though.

We surely aren't going to see a 1:0 for Oman like the UAE did 4 years ago? Saudi shouldn't have won their first two games last time but for blatant dives to win both late. Hope Vietnam can do well in this bout.

Well then....

Wait you can watch the other qualifiers on 10play for absolute free?

Fuck yeah I love channel 10. With this and Australian Survivor I love it.

I mean, what audience is this game scheduled for? 4am is pretty much the worst time possible, and I don't think it's too much better in China. It's ridiculous. 

I won't be able to watch it. I have to go to work at 8. There's just no way. It pisses me off. 

Oh wow, looks like they're streaming every single AFC WCQ: https://10play.com.au/live

I might have Saudi v Vietnam on a another screen while watching the Socceroos.

https://www.sporttotal.tv/ev6fcd1e3d

Plenty of links. This company from Germany has all streams. All legit.


🎥 Catch all the #AsianQualifiers Final Round matches LIVE with us on AFC Asian Cup Youtube 🔴

*only available in Syria, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Yemen, Poland, Romania, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Ireland & Andorra.

I love Gamba's stadium.

AFC hub was great last time around until Bein got all pissy and made it very hard to watch online. This round is an absolute godsend with the AFC finding very accessible and FREE streams. 

I gotta say, Japan probably has the best national anthem melody I've ever heard. 

I agree, a beautiful tune, I think it's the world's oldest national anthem too. Hearing it in our away WCQ in 2017 was a massive highlight for me. But actually due to their history the anthem is quite controversial at home, you might have noticed a number of Japanese fans on the broadcast not standing for it.

OMAN GOAL HOLY FUCKKKKK

10/10 cross but the finish was scuffed and it still came in lol

Wow!