Referee is confirmed as Slavko Vincic from Slovenia. 

Just reffed the Europa League final. Good. No nonsense. 

hope he is hard on diving 

So pumped for this game!! 31 hours til kick-off and in no more than 33.5 hours we'll all know if we're in the world cup or not!! Getting nervous! Such a massive game. Our biggest since the last world cup.

Team sounding like

Ryan(Vukovic/Redmayne)
Atkinson(Karacic)-Wright-Rowles(Degenek)-Behich(King)
Mooy(Dougall)-Irvine(Genreau)
Boyle(Tilio)-Hrustic(Mcgree)-Goodwin(Mabil)
Leckie(Maclaren)

Davidson out injured
Sainsbury 50/50
Taggart 50/50

unlikley to be used
Stesness
Duke
Dagostino

I think so too. Really hope Sainsbury pulls through. Taggart too but I'll be less alarmed as Boyle etc will go all out. 

Rather see Karacic start.

Peru centre backs both 185 cm tall.

In Arnies pre game presser he was asked about striking options and said about the UAE game 

"Leks did very very well there agains the UEA, he chased and harassed the centre backs."

So thats what doing very well as a striker means, not

* Goals
* Shots on target
* Setting up goals and shots on target
* Holding the ball up until attacking teammates arrive

Nothing that has anything to do with attacking, having or using the ball, but rather chasing and harassing center backs is how you do very very well as a striker in GA's book. Disgraceful that FFA gave this guy the job for the second time and kept him in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4wC2XC0554

Excellent!

I will be happy if we make the world cup but if we dont ill also he happy that we will see the back of Arnie, hopefully forever this time

I'd love to get there and I'll be upset if we don't. At the same time it'll be the end of the Arnold era. The U23 going around at the same time is a welcome distraction. The general disinterest in this world cup and how rushed it'll be in Qatar means it'll be over before we know it.

Good. Was thinking typical Fifa get given a latin or Spanish ref... 

I feel a bit similar to you. I hope we qualify but I’m not sure how upset I’ll be if we don’t qualify. Watching the campaign I’ve been appalled by how we’ve played and I find it a bit tricky to think, gee we really deserve to qualify. I’m also not enthusiastic about the prospect of qualifying only to be caned in Qatar and for no improvements to be made.

I don’t know if just me or if there does seem to be a sense of disinterest. But it does feel as if … if ever there were a World Cup to miss, this is it.

In saying all that, now and then things just click at the right moment. There’s one or two lads in coming through (in this squad and also yet to play for the NT). We might yet qualify for Qatar, they might yet be picked and the tram might yet do well. But I realise that it’s unlikely that this WC will go anywhere near that well for Australia.

Good. Was thinking typical Fifa get given a latin or Spanish ref... 

Can i just say that all of our media, Fans and past players are fking pissing me off with the "oh Peru are going to spank us, we aren't as good as we used to be" (Schwarzer said this). The fact is other than the peak of the golden gen of 05-09, this is team on paper is about as good as any team we've had post 09. We did just set a world record as recently as 1 yr ago with this very same team. 

Also have any of these people actually looked at the Peruvian team???? It's very average. Their best player is a 32 yr old italian who plays in Serie B. Their 2nd best player is a 32 yr old who plays in Saudi. 

Gone are the days of their geniune international standard players in Fanfan, Guerroro and Pizarro who all helped lift Peru to their very high ranking of 22 (which is based on the last 5 yrs results).   

Furthermore we are playing in a ground we are familiar with and have already one a do or die game in... genuinely think we are favorites and will throw some money on us!

The Socceroos squads between 1997 and 2006 were pretty bloody good.
Let's not forget that only 18 months or so before the 2006 WC, the likes of Ned Zelic and Paul Okon had just retired, played their whole careers at the highest levels in the best European leagues, I mean seriously, there is no one in the socceroos squad that comes within coo-ee of either of them, hasn't been for a very long time, and they aren't even part of the 2006 golden generation!

I think it will be close. Much closer than the the market odds (which rarely reflect the “true odds” calculated by the bookies).

At $5 from Sportsbet, Australia is a massive value bet, imo. Looking at the odds, I think that the bookies view Peru as slight favourites. So they’ve massively overvalued Peru (and, correspondingly, undervalued the Socceroos). They want a lot of people to back Peru on shorter odds than Peru ought to have.

I’m just annoyed with how we’ve been playing for a while and with our WC routine.  Since 2010, our WC has gone along the lines of … qualify, perform worse than at the previous WC and then do absolutely nothing to improve the state of the game at grassroots or professional level.

I’d prefer for those improvements to be made and for us to start winning games at the WC. Rather than complain about how we “nearly drew with” France, the Netherlands, etc. And how we should’ve beaten the Danes.

Have just gone through their team one by one from the last qualifier they played against Paraguay.. this is where their team plays..




                                                                  Orlando City (MLS)
Boca Juniors (Argentina)    Boca Juniors (Argentina)   New York City (MLS)       St Etienne (Ligue 1)
                                                                Celta Vigo (La Liga)
    DC United (MLS)          Malmo FF (Sweden)       Sporting Cristal (Peru)           Al Fateh (Saudi)
                                                               Benevento (Serie B) 


Compared with our team from last qualifier... 

                                                             Real Sociedad (La Liga)
Hearts (SPFL)                Hearts (SPFL)                     Sunderland (Championship)           Giresunspor (Turkey)
                                                                 Shanghai (CSL)
                                 Eintracht FF(Bundesliga)            St Pauli (Bundi 2) 
Al-Faisaly (Saudi)                                     Melb City (A League)                              Al-Wehda (Saudi)     




                 

Hmm  Zelic and Okon certainly didnt play their entire careers at the top level - they were both well and truly cooked by the 06 world cup, Zelic playing in a fairly weak J League and Austrian leagues the last few seasons before that and Okon had been at Serie B, lower belgian and Cypriot clubs. 

Great players in the 90's sure, but were well off it by the 06 world cup. 

Comparing these to our team now, remember Sainsbury has played at Inter Milan and PSV, captained a team in the Dutch and Swiss leagues i'd say at the peak of his career he was just off okon and Zelic's level albeit admittedly has fallen away a bit now. Hrustic has just won a Europa League final (matching Zelic's feat). Matty Ryan is at the Zelic and Okon level too imo, and i think both Souttar and Mcgree will also play in the EPL at some point. I'd argue Rogic has been even better than zelic and Okon over the course of his career. 

Agree that our stocks 97-09 were better than now but if you actually go through player by player we have more talent than ppl give us credit for and the attitude towards our team now is overly negative. 

Trent Sainsbury has one cap for Inter and six caps for PSV.

He played for them. But not in the way that Zelic was playing regularly

Hey everyone, wondering what the best way to watch the game is outside of Australia? (Specifically greece) 

This didn't really prove your point as Peru looks heaps better on paper LOL

10 Play app

Damn straight. Peru just arent a team to be intimidated by, at least on paper. If we go into this with a “backs to the wall” mentality we deserve to get flogged.

I think we have the players to match them but I'm concerned that we will be out-thought and out-manoeuvred by a tactically superior manager. All the reports I've read about Peru say the squad is nothing special but they've achieved what they have because of an astute manager. By contrast, the more I see and hear from Arnie the more I think he's a dinosaur. 

Yep my thoughts too.

I'm kind of sick of hearing about how our player stocks have never been this bad. Whether that is true or not, I believe it should still be enough to get us automatic qualification in Asia. And that's not a disrespect against Asian countries but you look at how we squandered Oman and China away and Saudi at home and that's an extra 6 points there and we're through. 

We have good players who I don't believe have been maximised to their fullest and I'm worried that's gonna be our undoing tomorrow morning.

It's not really a massive difference, and the game isn't being played in South America.
This is pretty close to a 50/50 tie.

John posted some options in another thread (Peru TV in the title) which seemed to be for euro options 

The ultimate would be qualify and arnie to be sacked straight after. 

We can beat them.