bam bam...give us some more boys.

Not sure that Ange did all he could though if he left just before a world cup. If he wasn't forced out he left the team high and dry imo.

Nothing is ever Angie's fault.

"I wasn't forced out”
Yeah hard hitting rebuff!

Paquette now bringing the crap.   Straight click-bait.  Tip:  If you are a dead-set loser of a football journo, then head here.  They pay anything for click-bait.

Literally all Ange said is that he wasn’t forced out of his national team job. How is that a biff with Arnold? The author is really trying to make something out of nothing here. 

"I had four years and we won the only trophy on offer and then we qualified for the World Cup, so I think I completed the mission.”

This is my beef with Ange. He did qualify for the World cup - but his job and 'mission' included the World Cup. He did what he thought was the best for him and his family - fair enough - but he still had work to do and it was very disappointing that he left when he did.  

I dont know if this is true or just rumours but I was led to believe that his contract was only UP to and INCLUDING qualification to the 2018 World Cup. Contract would have to be re-negotiated before the actual WC2018 tournament and he was told to not bother applying for an extension of contract. Again, disclaimer, I dont know if any of this is true, just what I have heard around the traps.

Honestly, i reckon Ange is being cagey. When the time is right, he will reveal his version of the truth. But I’m sure he has plans to return to Australia to coach one day, maybe even the Socceroos. So he probably doesn’t wanna burn bridges before then.

As much as I love the guy. I will always be dirty he left us when we needed him most.

That would put a different light on it - but I'm sure the players expected him to be there with them. 

Yeah 100%, they sounded gutted when interviewed, a mark, at least in my opinion, that they had all bought into his vision.
Apparently even the playoff game against Honduras in November was a special 1 month "extension" of his contract .. again according to some.... 

Ange still dividing opinions, which is sort of funny in some ways. He worked miracles to get the Socceroos to win an Asian Cup with what was not a particularly strong side and  then left us high and dry before the 2018 World Cup, after leading us to qualification. The Socceroos have been on a steady decline since 2006 and this has very little to do with who is the coach.  A very good coach will squeeze the best out of our boys, as Ange did in 2015 but the quality and quantity of top players just isn’t there to compete with the best in Asia, let alone the best in the World. It’s sad.

Ange could have left but he stayed till the Socceroos qualified First, and they did, then he moved on. No abandonment there.

No doubt, but a better coach than Arnie would nonetheless have us in a more-preferable position than where we find ourselves right now.

As far as the next NT coach goes, we need to go foreign again but this time from either Spain/Portugal or Latin America. They have so much to add to our football in terms of attacking & creative savvy, that it'd be remiss of us to not give it a go. The Dutch-derived experiment, well-intentioned though it was, bombed no matter how you slice it.

As I've posted in the Aussies Abroad thread, an astute coach would've taken the opportunity of our WCQs against Nepal and Taiwan in 2019 to field a whole squad's worth of uncapped youth prospects(your C.Volpatos et al) abroad - it's not like there was an actual chance of us losing said matches💡

I disagree. If we put out any less than our best nowadays then even Nepal and Taiwan will likely beat us. Asian nations have improved since 2006, even so called minnows, and we have gone backwards. Missing out on a World Cup might actually be a good thing. It will rid us of any lingering superiority over Asian football nations, including the minnows, and hopefully cause us to have a long hard look at the local game and the lack of world class players coming through.

Lol. 

Pretty disingenuous by Ange.

He was at his absolute peak in terms of negotiating power after we beat Honduras... and then he left.

I, for one, remember the way he was hounded and he definitely made noises about the way he'd been treated when he justified his departure. 

It definitely looks like his latest comments are designed to distance himself from any comparison with Arnie. Bit sad if you ask me. I'm a huge Ange fan but that's beneath him.

Let's be frank people were relatively happy with Ange 

He did a good job with the cards he was given. Sure we were dissapointed when he left before the world cup bit thay was his choice.

GA on the other hand from day 1 of his 2nd tenure id say the majority of people opposed him being in the job. He is a car crash of an appointment,  in the need to have an 'Aussie in charge' we simply hired the wrong man - this is literally the definition of privilege aka jobs for the boys 

GA is trying to deflect on the serious fact he should be sacked asap. To save the socceroos from missing Qatar which would be a disaster for the game and a disaster for the FFA but the fact is the money isn't there to sack him bring someone else in and he probably is under pressure to resignation.

I dare say there is a clause in his contract is he doesn't quality for the WC he is gone but there should of been a minimum point target by certain stages in the group stage to ensure qualification or the axe 

I'll add this after his disaster with GA I never want a Australian to manage our national team again 

I also don't ever want to see no bodyanagers like Pim and Holger 

We need managers who have pedigree and are market able. 

Imagine we had Marco Bielsa now? He would be charismatic, play good football, have a solid reputation etc 

Just like having star players a star manager markets the game. 

I'd like us to try get someone like Renier or Rafa etc next. 

Strongly disagree that Arnie is a bad manager. He proved at the Mariners and at Sydney that he's a pretty good manager, but plenty have been death riding him the entire time as Oz coach.

He's been dealt a pretty ordinary hand as far as players and circumstances are concerned but in recent times he's caused even me to doubt him when he keeps picking the same tired old players. He really needs to freshen things up or even coming third in our group might be too hard!!!

I think Arnie is a better club manager than NT manager. At club level he can buy the players he wants to suit his system and then have uninterrupted weeks of training to bed down the system with his team. He can do that well but I also think he's a bit of a one-trick pony. A slightly different skill set is required at NT level. Successful NT management sometimes demands flexibility and improvisation.

'Hounded'?! Ange constantly talked of football 'culture' and invited robust analytical criticism by journos except that when he got it he cracked the shits and threw his toys out of the pram.

I don't hate Ange and hope he does well at Celtic (which I'm sure is just a stepping stone for something bigger) but he was a wanker the way he left Australia in the lurch.

(1)I wouldn't say never again, but def not until the avg. Aussie coach is closer to Ange, Popa or even Arthur Papas in terms of philosophy & mentality

(2) Ideally yeah, but not bloody likely alas. Besides, further to your next point Rafa Benitez has never dabbled in international football which, as we know is a totes different beast to club football.

I've no problem w/low-profile managers so long as they meet all the other criteria, and - ideally - would be committed for the relative long-haul. As I suggested earlier, we ought to look to Spain, Portugal or Latin America for Arnie’s successor.

This is spot on. 

Fair enough never might be a stretch but I wouldnt want an aussie manager at the expense of a international manager if his CV isn't better. Ie hire the best person for the job. 

As for Rafa he was just an example of someone well known - right now our Socceroos have close to Zero start power, the team is rubbish on the field and rubbish from a marketing point of view. If we at least had a respectable name at the helm it would give fans something to talk about and give fans some hope. 

Football needs media and right now the socceroos are ghosted due to being at the lowest level in decades 

we managed to get a pretty decent replacement to be fair

No offense mate but this whole preoccupation with 'marketing' is a sizable part of why the game in this country is ar$e-backwards...

All the marketing in the world isn't gonna convert Pauline Hanson, Sam Newman or their respective acolytes to 'the sokkah' in a trillion years...so pray tell why are we still at it?

The only people who need concern themselves with football in this country are football fans, not the bogan masses ensconced in their safe-spaces away from the world at large💡

As a short term replacement. We cannot afford/ will not pay top dollar for the type of long term overseas managers that Davstar wants. Venables was a 18 month contract to include the 1997 Confed Cup. BVM and Hiddink were virtually just World Cup gigs. 

TBH Arnie and Ange are the best Australian managers we have. Popovic has won the the ACL and a premiership - but that was with with salary and 6 visa player advantages. at the end of the day when he has the advantage he competes well. The same can be said of Papas and even Rudan in their NPL careers. If the club overspends they do well. If they underspend they fail. Arnie (particularly at CCM) and Ange not only picked important foreigners but they made the team greater than the sum of the players. TBH the only time I can say that at a NT level were under Rasic and then later under Venables and  Hiddink (both with considerably better squads than we currently have) and Ange for a period around the Asian Cup. 

seems a wiser investment to have more aussie coaches to draw from so we can eventually find our own bvm and hiddink. Honestly Ange isn't obviously worse, so we might already have had one

if we have more 1st division teams and full time coaches in the 2nd division there are plenty of opportunities

As respected as Ange is, he is far more suited to being a club manager where he works with his squad day in, day out and embeds the team with his philosophy and style so they are all synced as one.

As a NT manager you sometimes get the players 48hrs before a qualifier so you barely even get a proper training session in, let alone managing jet lag and niggles that the players have.

They  shouldn't  be  so  tight  with  money -   if  Arnie  is  no  longer  getting  the  job  done , just  spend  the  money  and  get  some  one  new  in  to  qualify   us  for  the  WC.   Don't  be  so  Tight !  It's  just  a  bit   of  money   after  all.  Put  football   first !