I mean is Arnold like the uni student that just keeps hanging on by a thread? I can't entirely by into the idea that his playing stocks are poor.

In saying that a lot of the team hasn't played much football recently, 11 made a WC debut and our CB pairing had their first ever game together.

Imagine that pairing, which is the future, over a 20 game period after both putting in two full European seasons. Yet add the fact our goal came from two A League players who played directly. Great pass by Souttar as well. Add a different coach who has a team keeping shape and transition fast forward and we'll have a better chance.

We'll never get it but I'd love to see each player lay out what's good and not so good about the tactics and system with reference to some of the finer points from their club. Our players have had some of the best coaches in the world. We've all been there where we have a different football manager or boss where you think 'this style is getting nothing out of the group.'

2019 Asian Cup was just flat, possession, European Handball tactics. The UAE game saw the nice Giannou offside goal. That was about it. 

In 1974 a team of part-timers lost by three goals to the eventual WC winners. 48 years later …..

I’m really interested in this forums’ opinion on what has happened to Atkinson. A little over a year ago, he played out of his skin against Argentina and Spain and was very influential in the Olympics team that included Souttar, McGree, Tilio, Rowles, Devlin, Baccus and Arzani. He had no problem defending and the drop off to Deng against Egypt was substantial. He was also coming off an A-league campaign where he scored the decisive goal in the GF.

I saw the 2nd half Saudis, Iran, Wales even Qatar came out and press hard then saw Australia under this coach just sat back and gave the French all the time in the world is shocking. The whole world were watching and we played the most boring football in this tournament.  The underdog tag or Aussie DNA has been destroyed. 

I honestly thought Hernandez was faking being shot as he knew Leckie was past. He's done an ACL.

I'm trying to see what's he's done. He's stomped with the right leg which doesn't seem to buckle then half attemaps am extend towards Leckie, leg doesn't extend, pulls leg back and falls. He's grabbed at it during the attempted extend. Must have just popped. 

Some fun trivia facts.

Goodwin's goal is our earliest ever at a world cup beating Holman vs Ghana by 2min. It was our second longest time in the lead in a world cup game. Surprisingly close to Serbia which was 21min not including added time while last night was 18min.

I think he’s been going full pelt for the touchline, the first touch has turned him inside out and he’s tried to hit reverse, but his momentum has kept going and Leckie has his revenge for 2018.

He looks out of sorts, unfortunately. That can happen. Inexplicably, you feel bad and nothing works. As opposed to those fantastic periods when you feel great (mentally and emotionally), everything works and every touch feels good.

But has Atkinson ever demonstrated lots of pace?

I don't think he's athletic enough to be a modern fullback. The reality is every very good fullback in the game is extremely fast. You need football IQ and technique. But that's not enough. Because you have to cover so much ground, it's a necessity that you're very fast. The position requires the player to act as a wingback. Slow (or average) wingbacks are a huge defensive weakness.

To play Atkinson at right-back while having only two centra defenders is incredibly foolish

Arnold's second halves have almost all been shit. The only game I can recall where we didn't drop off dramatically in the second half is Peru. This says to me that his reading and analysis of the game is poor, leading to poor tactical decisions during half time.

I still cant believe how we sat back deeper and deeper as the game went on and just gave France such an easy path to our goal.

Watching first half again 

First 25 was quite good. Numerous moments where Mooy transitioned quickly forward. Irvine won the ball a couple of times. He made a good square pass.

The left side worked well. McGree could've put Goodwin through prior to the goal. Rowles and Atkinson with good tackles early on. Rowles and Souttar intercepted two scary passes in the 21st min each. That was immediately followed by the Duke shot. If only. 

That situation came from France blocking and Irvine pass to the left. Had he run diagonally right, Leckie could've got in behind. Atkinson should've been going up the wing too there. 

22:10. Ball rolls to Mooy on left. Leckie and McGree way available right with a 30m gap between French defenders. He goes back to Rowles. Mooy can make that pass every time. 

25:18. Ball lands at Mooy. He goes high and swerved to Goodwin but it goes to Pavard. McGree was peeling very nicely into space which then should see Behich enter the frame and we've got something down the left. 

The clear issue early on was the movement of the back four that allowed Mbappe and Dembele to wind up and get around.

First French goal. 8 gold Shirts on the 5 yard box line to 5 blue. Mooy and Atkinson were nearest and needed to sprint right out at Hernandez there. Rowles preoccupied with Giroud's back when standing tall and seeing the ball he may get a head on it if he jumps. As the ball was flying out of the box, Rowles glances to his left and sees Duke is probably going to cover Rabiot.

Min 29 when Giroud headed over he was actually offside by the position and tracing of all 10 players was shocking there.

Second French goal. Ball rolls across box to left corner. Behich signals for Ryan to gather. Griezmann is at Ryan but trudges back facing away from him. Rabiot is nearly at the left corner flag from the previous play. Tchoumeni is at least 5m to the left of Ryan's right post about 35m from goal. McGree and Mooy and free and McGree just puts his hand down. A quick roll there sees McGree run on the ball with Goodwin vs Pavard and Irvine is already fairly high up while Duke would be there. Instead we go to the right where Irvine wants it and we know what happens next. 

On another note the ref was good last night. 

Yeah I blew my ACL changing directions sharply. The bloke I was trying to tackle yelled at the ref I was diving. 

All the refs have been excellent I think. There's quite a few lady refs here as well. Not sure if any will do a centre but they've done some 4th official work so far.

Canada 18 shots so far. Australia last night, 4 in total. Canada are ranked lower then us and Belgium higher than the French. Just goes to show what good coaching and good structures can achieve. (Also every single Saudi player came from their domestic league so saying we don't have the cattle is not strictly correct.)

Sure, agree with that but the reality is also that Canada’s roster is just so, so much better than Australias. They’ve got the right combo of coaching, structure and players right now. Even with a better coach than GA you still need the horses and Aus just doesn’t right now. Though I do think Canada’s manager would get a lot more out of this group than GA.

The big difference is the Saudi's always have had technical players who choose to stay in their domestic league. Ours don't and end up in the lower leagues of Europe sitting on the pine.

 At the age of 37 Ninkovic is still at the top for technical ability in this league. Atkinson and McGree  can't cushion a pass and they're starting against  France in a World Cup.

Lets not kid ourselves- the cattle is poor.

Canada is obviously better than us and it's not even close, but France are realistically much better than Belgium irrespective of the rankings. Belgium is an aging side, their golden generation slowly fading away like ours did in 2010.

 My wife and I thought that too.

Should have opted for an out and out fullback. Atkinson looked out of sorts even in his positioning. How he received the ball to cough up possession is extremely poor. I don't believe he is cooked just inexperienced at this level and was being exposed by superior players. We should have played a top ten team in a friendly to gauge this better Degenek, Deng or Karacic would all have been better options. It also makes me wonder why Jason Davidson was not picked. He too was naive when we went to the World Cup 2014 but felt he had really grown as a player. 
It does make me question whether Arnold applies tactics. I mean the fact we didn't protect our flanks suggests we weren't, this is the most predictable aspect of the French, yet we didn't even bother to provide extra cover. I don't like the excuse that they were just better as they were definitely better, but we looked like we were without a plan. 

@ Decentric: Any comments on the technical ability of the players our NC is producing?  Improving our technical ability was the prime objective.  Why have our coaches failed in that objective-(and yes it comes down to the coaches).

I haven't read all the posts, but no doubt there will have been a great deal of criticism for Arnie.

Unfortunately, for  him, he is coaching a team in transition ATM. His players of the right age aren't good enough,  some who were good enough are getting too old, and the younger  personnel  haven't had enough experience.

 When Aaron Mooy  has time and space on the ball, he looks good.  As soon as he is closed down in intensive squeezing, he struggles.

He also struggled to close down space himself to make tackle, or cause turn  overs against France. Fortunately,  Irvine could do that.


One highlight was the 6 pass sequence of play that led to the Goodwin goal. It was possibly Leckie's best moment in the green and gold - his receive under pressure from a terrific Souttar ball, and making the subsequent perfect cross for the unmarked Goodwin to make the perfect run and finish at the back post.

We just could not maintain the type of squeezing intensity, and  sustain  an effective defensive shape in our BPO 4-5-1 formation, with the 1:4 midfield, to force an excellent France into making mistakes. We were good for 25 minutes.

If we beat Tunisia, all will be forgotten.

Thankfully,  they drew with Denmark. From the extended highlights replay, Tunisia looked to be the better team. 

Atkinson's copping far too much criticism. It's unfair to judge him on this game. I doubt anyone else we have would have done much better against Mbappe. He made a mistake for the second goal but there was no cover what so ever. It was just poor defending all around. 

Although of course Arnold should have taken him off early in the second half if not at half time. He was clearly spent. I honestly have no idea what Arnold was thinking in the second half. It was like he had no plan at all. It was awful.

Arnold has refuted that.  He said it was the job of Atkinson, Leckie and Irvine to guard MBappe side.  Although Arnold didn't say it, the way it played out  Goodwin and Behich and McGree were to guard Dembele's side.

 The failure was in the selection of Atkinson and McGree.  Arnold has defended Atkinson saying "he will learn from it".   That may suggest he's using this WC as a blooding tournament for those players he sees as the future.

He's done similar things at club level. The very harsh lesson he's being taught is at levels above the A-League a poor touch like his is punished and there is no time on the ball to make up for it.

We've just played the world champions on a good day. Last time we played them in Russia, they had a very bad day by their own standards.

Football is the number one sport in France. They also have an excellent football coaching development system, that ours is based on.

 In Australia, we would even know the World Cup is on in the mainstream media. Women's AFL,  women's T20 cricket, basketball, AFL draft, whether  Tassie should have an AFL stadium, etc, are all  taking up the column space and air time in FTA media. Even SBS has no travelling reporters covering the Socceroos day to day events.

Football has an ever diminishing media presence in Aus. The specialist football journos, some being freelancers, - Tom Smithies, Ray Gaatz, Mike Cockerill (passed recently), David Davutovic, Aidan Ormond, Val Micagglio, Beau Bush, Jessie Fink, Sebastian Hassett, etc - some who know a lot about football, have virtually disappeared from FTA.

Nobody who isn't a passionate football fan I know, knows the World Cup is on, apart from Qatar banning alcohol and their abuse of workers building the stadia.

Every other nation present in the WC, football is the number one sport, occasionally number two  sport, and there would be saturation media coverage of the event in those 30 countries, apart from the USA.

So with so much focus and potential talented athletes in Aus playing egg ball codes instead of football with its low profile, and the range of other sports, it is virtually impossible to compete with France, on a technical level.  We have so few getting access to top level coaching programs and playing enough football  on the street/school.

Other sports, T20 cricket, basketball, women's AFL, filled the void when FFA /the A L clubs dispute was on for a few years. I'm not sure we can regain the ground lost?

Even a day later it's depressing!!!
Some perspective though even the greatest right back we ever had would have struggled against Mbappe yesterday & even with our greatest 11 we would not have beaten France yesterday.

The Socceroos after the first 25-30 mins were very poor, there was no fight, there was no pressure, there was no wise tactical coaching. It was just pathetic, this is what upset us all. Arnold totally out of his depth.

Watching some of the other 'minnows', really does show our first touch & technical ability is still so poor.
Watching the Japanese 2nd goal, that 1st touch over his head to set up the scoring chance, most Aussies cannot do this.

Agree.

When Atkinson lost the ball, the defensive shape of the team in our Defensive Transition, was awful, when we conceded that goal. The entire Aus defensive unit struggled, as we were out of shape.

 French wingers Mbappe and Mjembe ? had too much speed over the turf for Atkinson and Behich. They constantly got behind them over the entire game.