This video here is quite detailed and is mostly accurate for a foreign video

It hits a lot of points people have been making, some of the solutions seem easier than others


1) too many foreign players in the a league
2) lack of second division
3) lack of connection up and down the football pyramid
4) expensive private academies
5) over-reliance on physicality on results at youth level
6) the decline of the ais
7) the decline of high profile youth friendlies against other big country 
8) not enough games per year at all levels
9) entrance to the afc means lots of our best end up in low quality leagues getting huge money
10) entrance to afc means qualifying less often for the youth world cup

Some of these problems are more fixable than others. 5 arguably is fixed, 2 will allegedly be fixed within a year or 2, 9 and 10 I don't think matters as much as I used to think. Of the remaining only 1 is easy to fix without enormous financial risk. 3 might be fixed in a decade and I would be surprised if 8 is fixed in my lifetime. There is some hope that when P and R comes that will fix 4


Anyway what are people's thoughts

There's no simple answer as to high costs for kids unless clubs become massive like they are in Europe and they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars where they can subsidise talent and/or we land a $2.5 billion TV deal like the AFL has.

yeah this seems like a very hard problem to fix to be honest

Every few days I hear a story about some kid who couldn't afford to play football but got paid to play afl. Part of my reaction is "well AFL, like the EPL gets a ton of money from being a megarich league"

I asked if we really had free academies back in the nsl days and someone replied that only the ais was. (Is this true?) So perhaps its hard to solve

having said that, it does seem a lot cheaper to play youth football in canada. So I'm curious how to avoid that

I watch a lot of his videos and I feel this one is quiet poor when compared to his usual ones.

I don’t agree with reducing the amount of foreigners in the league and I don’t know where he got the argument of reduction them to 2 from. The main number I see is going to 3+1 which wasn’t mentioned at all.

Lack of second division and lack of connected pyramid are obvious issues but he fails to mention the mooted NSD and the challenges to get it up and running as well as connecting the pyramid. It’s easy to point out issues, but he should come up with potential solutions or talk about why the reasons why these things aren’t in place.

Expensive private academies are shit and you don’t need to join one to make it as a pro. Also I feel he should mention the cost of registration fees and the fact that NPL clubs use these fees to pay their first team players which just shouldn’t happen.

Having the AIS is pointless now that A-League clubs have their own youth systems. What’s the point of relocating these kids to Canberra when they can stay at home and actually be at a pro club?

Points 7 and 8 are very accurate but the biggest barrier is the cost and how these would be funded. I feel he should’ve spoken about that too.

9 is accurate but nothing we can really do about it.

10 is a consequence of playing in a stronger confederation.

I was disappointed that he didn’t mention that not only A-League clubs are playing more youth players, the youth players are also better which is why results at youth level are improving and why many players have gone overseas in the last couple of years. This really should have been mentioned but it wasn’t.

On reducing the foreigners issue what is your reservation?

That there’s a huge gap between the best and worst players in the league. For example, club like CCM sells a bunch of players overseas, they are fucked because they have huge, gaping holes in their squad and would have limited to no options to replace those players adequately if they were restricted to just two foreigners.

fair point

it does seem though that the last year where more spots opened up due to covid the quality did alright. It seems that scouting in Australia isn't great and who ends up playing well enough at a league level becomes a random process. 

Need to create a "development contract" which allows teams to sign players under 23 for up to a 3 year period and the wages are subsided by the FFA but are not included in the salary cap. This will allow more youth players in the squad at a low cost to the club. They already do this in the NRL.

You basically described what a scholarship contract is except the club pays it.

Clubs also have to have a minimum of 3 U23 players on senior contracts (not scholarships) anyway. 

This is the dumbest post I've ever read on here. The French would never ever get rid of their Clairefontaine academy. Never... as the players have a 90% chance of going pro if they make it. I'm sure the AIS was putting out similar numbers. 

Towards the back end of the program it wasn’t and given the high costs to run it, there’s no point in keeping it going. In the video it said by the end around 50% (I can’t remember the number exactly) never even played pro football.

Why have one national academy when you can have 11 around the country aligned with their local A-League club?

what was the budget out of curiosity?

Can’t remember but it’s in the video

The problem is before the AIS was closed a-league academies started to come in and maybe the best players that not choose that path to go to Canberra?
But I feel the AIS or FFA COE would have been still be useful especially for the women's program or for kids that dont come from major cities that dont have an a-league team that need that elite development training.

I also remember Ron Smith was saying they changed the age group intake as well so I wonder if that was something to do it as well.

Clairfontaine isn't equivalent to the AIS though. It's only designed to serve the Ile-de-France region which includes Paris. The French have equivalent academies in all the other regions as well. 

The French system is closer to our current system with the state based NTCs and then going to A League teams after 16. 

Probably no cause to be rude and call people dumb if you're not even providing correct information. 

100% on the money with most, but I don't agree with #10. Youth world cup qualification probably accounts for, what, 3-6 games against high quality to mid tier quality nations in a players entire career?  

Doesn't change the fact it was a balls-up to scrap the AIS and State sports-institutes' ⚽ programs. If it was bc they weren't 'producing the goods' I venture to say that's an indictment on the quality of personnel at the time and not the concept as a whole.

Pretty sure the state based elite programs are still there. The major difference is these kids now stay in the pathway only until 16 much like the French system. 

After that they get funnelled into the club system, much like the French system. 

You are right, I apologise for calling you dumb. I do know that the players at that clairefontane academy do still get to go home on weekend and play for their clubs. I'm not sure if that was happening at the AIS. 

Migrants from poor areas in Paris produce some of their best players, so we need to find a way for these poorer kids to get their chance.

BECAUSE OF GREED AND MISMANAGEMENT SOCBALL HAS DECLINED, AND THE SAME REASONS CONTINUE TODAY.

Didn't nearly all of our Golden Generation have European parents? Not many come to Australia anymore. 

sure seems to help Genreau (a fine player but doubt he would have the same success if he had no french connection)

This seems a good place to put some research I was doing into the AIS.  The following is from the start of the AIS football  program in 1981 up to 2009 when FFA changed it to an u16 program instead of a program to prepare young footballers for the u20 World Cup and to be professional footballers.

There were 434 players who went to the AIS for 1 or 2 years over the 28 years of the original program.
105 of them were selected in the u20 national team to play in the world cup.
41 of them were selected to represent Australia at the Olympic Games.
50 of them were capped as Socceroos.
There were 260 Socceroos capped over the 28 years.

A quick assessment of last names showed about 60% of them had "ethnic" last names while 40% of them had "anglo" last names.  Prior to 1986 there were generally more anglo than "ethnic" young players.  From 1986 to around 2000 "ethnic" players were strongly more represented than "anglo" young players.  Since 2000 the mix was much closer with "ethnic" young players still in the ascendancy.

NB.  I may have missed a player or 2 here and there so the numbers may not be totally accurate.

That's interesting Gyfox... I would,say that alot of the "ethnic" surnames would not have ventured outside their junior clubs until the NSL had been going for a few years and the "trust" for lack of a better word between the clubs and Soccer Australia was more evident with time..... 

I watched it, it feels quite an negative outlook on the problems with youth development here but most of it is even as an outside view it's quite accurate.

And that's the thing, the outside perception of the Socceroos is the lack of quality names which the 2006 generation had which these days you would find to find one player that is recognisable and that is speaking from Europe where im based at.
The author mentions the USA and Canada's new generation of players, meanwhile our profile has dropped quite alot and overall our perception is not great from an international perspective even by making world cups.

If we want to change this then more emphasis has to be on youth development and that's not just in our own backyard with more integrated elite youth academies (I personally feel the NPL system along with the support of NTC doesnt do enough as it needs more resources which is why we need more professional clubs who can fund more full time academies like what we see with some a-league academies but it needs more depth.
Ideally you have an clairefontaine system but geo. distances make this almost impossible except on a state level.

But also we need more exposure to international football, something that is forgotten quite alot is the GG had been exposed to alot of youth football from overseas whether it be youth world cups/olympics but also international friendlies and tournaments from around the world which helped them prepare for the level from overseas and therefore got into the eyes of scouts.
The lack of youth national team action is quite alarming which Football Aus have not addressed enough even before COVID, they dont even have a permanent national TD to prioritise this right now!

The cost of playing football is a big problem too but goes back to elite academies and the NPL isnt strong enough to fund this properly which is why parents pay alot to cover the clubs fees, I think the NPL needs changing to reduce costs and centralise elite development to ones that can do it and afford it.

It's only the NPL clubs and private and Aleague academies charging parents an arm and a leg ( I think a handful of Aleague clubs are now subsidised by the owners???) and it appears the major reason is the financial implications of artificial licensing and structural rules they need to abide by as per the governing body.... The fish rots from the head they say....  Grassroots clubs in successfull countries like Brazil, and Argentina, as per the vid,  dont have a TD, a football operatIons manager, an FFA licensed coach at every single age level, etc etc etc.... they just PLAY A LOT OF GAMES....

1) too many foreign players in the a league - agree
2) lack of second division - agree 
3) lack of connection up and down the football pyramid - agree 
4) expensive private academies - somewhat agree but cost isnt that bad 
5) over-reliance on physicality on results at youth level - disagree 
6) the decline of the ais - somewhat agree 
7) the decline of high profile youth friendlies against other big country - agree but this is more the 'cost' of playing games have become ridiculous blame the PFA  
8) not enough games per year at all levels - agree professional teams should be playing at least 40-50 competitive games a season plus pre-season 
9) entrance to the afc means lots of our best end up in low quality leagues getting huge money - agree 
10) entrance to afc means qualifying less often for the youth world cup - agree 

this is pretty spot on overall and i have been saying almost all these things for over a decade

Well, listening to that was a waste of time.  Everyone in football in Australia knows the limitations of what we have and we know it better than he does.

I don't think things are as bad as he painted.  We have a professional league.  We have clubs in that professional league with teams down to u13 that have professional support staff and some of those clubs charge no fees.  Some of the clubs have high quality training grounds with multiple pitches and off field facilities etc.  Below the top tier we have a planned NSD thanks to the AAFC and JJ driving it in FA.  As I understand it there will be P/R from the NSD down.  We have state NPL's where clubs are required to meet licensing criteria and below that we have regional leagues and community football that is growing numerically.  

Sure we have a long way to go to get all the professional clubs with the full suite of professional facilities and no charge academies.  We have a long way to go before the NSD is fully professional and all that entails.  We have a long way to go to get the transfer system functioning across all levels.  We have a long way to go to get the numbers of players in the AFL states up to scratch.  etc., etc..  The positive thing is that at last we are moving in the right direction... slowly.

Another great thread, Grazor.
 
Thanks.

However, this is produced by a person with limited insight into football. It is more echoing what has been previously written by Aussie  journalists with little and  limited  insight into football to be able to analyse it - with a degree of authority.

I agree:

* Private academies are a big problem - having undertaken them to get extra quality coaching. It should be free and easily accessible. Children who  don't come from wealthy families struggle to access better coaching that is free.

* The A L youth teams don't play enough games against other high calibre opposition in Australia.

* It costs too much money to play junior and youth football in Australia compared to other sports.

Having said this, this video has been produced by an Anglocentric perspective about Aussie football.  There is not a great deal of awareness about football beyond the English Channel, or any veritable insight of football specific performance criteria. Until recently the English Football Association thought football ended at the English Channel too. Since the English FA have changed a little, English  youth teams have improved immeasurably in international football.

One argument in particular to  counter the essence of this  video, with quite a few populist, but spurious premises,  is this.

There are only 9-11 teams that have qualified for the last five World Cups in succession.  There are 2008, possibly more now, registered FIFA football playing nations.

*Europe
Spain
England
France
Germany
Switzerland

I'm not sure if Portugal have achieved this too? I know Croatia missed out in 2010.

*Asia
Japan
South Korea
Australia 

Have Iran qualified for the last five WCs?

*Africa
Now that Nigeria has failed to qualify for the Qatar WC, I'm not sure any African football nation has achieved five successive WCs in a row?

*CONMEBOL
Brazil
Argentina

We stopped  Uruguay in 2006.

*CONCACAF
Mexico


The next question should be posed, why have Australia qualified five times in succession?

It can't be argued that Asia is simply a weak Confederation. That is because Australia has beaten:

CONMEBOL twice in WC sudden death play offs - against Uruguay 2006 and Peru 2022. 

Australia has also beaten CONCACAF once in a sudden WC  death intercontinental  play off - against Honduras in 2018.

Australia have only directly qualified via Asian WCQers exclusively - twice - in 2010 and 2014.

One of the reasons,   not touched on by any of the 6 GGs in a video posted on here, is that the National Curriculum has been installed. It has put great emphasis on training   Aussie coaches and having quality European powerhouse based coach education imparted in Australia.

Prior to Rob Baan and Han Berger's Football Aus TD tenures, coaching was ad hoc all over the country. There was no consistency whatsoever. There might have been  good coaching occurring at one club, or with one team, or a team in a suburb close by, but there was a lot of shonky  coaching occurring in many settings. This was because there was no national coaching system established with European based methodology to ensure a  mandated level of  quality everywhere.

This has led to far better tactical coaching by Aussie trained domestic coaches - in the Socceroos, Matildas, A League, W League, A L Academies, NPL clubs - senior, youth, junior. Any coach who does  C Licence ( Semi - Pro and Pro) and beyond, has to undertake comprehensive match analysis training, and, has been trained to plan coaching sessions on the training track, based on those problems identified in  the match performance of a team.  When, Who, Where, Why, What, How?

 To use  some technical terms:

*There are three  thirds of the pitch where coaches have to analyse Ball Possession and Ball Possession Opposition performance based on the previous game, or groups of games that a coach's team plays.

* Four man moments - BP, BPO, Attacking and Defensive Transitions.

* Communication and structure  to organise teams.  

In Ball Possession formations can  evolve depending on the phases of play -

eg 4-4-2 Ball Possession Opposition,

4- 2-3-1 in back and middle third of the pitch in Ball Possession,

then evolving to 4-3-3 alternating with 4-2-4 in the attacking third of the pitch for Ball Possession,

reverting to 4-4-2 in Defensive Transition.

The Socceroos did this against Peru, and particularly in the first half peruvian coach Gareco was going ballistic, because he couldn't counter the Aussie game plan. Ostensibly, Gareco is a  master coach in South America, but he struggled to combat Arnie's game plan. Meanwhile, Peru used a simple 4-3-3 defensive  midfield  triangle in Possession and and a  1:4 midfield 4-5-1 in BPO - a simple game plan to negate.
 
I think I'm correct in advancing this, but only the Czech coach of SFC after Kosmina and Butcher, has had any success since about 2010 when Aussie coaches were inculcated with the European powerhouse methodology from Football Aus coach education.

Since I think it has only been the parent countries of the national curriculum coach education, that have succeeded in Australia - French, Dutch, Spanish or German - which is a amalgam of how Aussie domestic coaches have been trained.

Despite not having improved technique  greatly ( which takes a long time), until the recent graduates of about 8 years of Skills Acquisition Program have started coming through in the last few years at under 23 and senior level, tactically our teams are usually very good.

Moreover, Australian national Under 16s, Under 17s, Under 20s and Under 23s, play a similar structure and formations as each other. It is easier for players to adapt to national team game plans as players  progress  through the underage ranks.

Australian teams in 2022, are able to play far better as team units, than even in 2006.

No matter how man GGs we had playing in European leagues, they were inexperienced playing international football until Pim's WCQ campaign starting in 2008. Playing  2 big sudden death games against Oceanian opposition,  2 big intercontinental two legged sudden death knocked out games, plus 3 games at the Federation Cup, amounted to 7 meaningful  competitive games prior to the 2008- 2010  Asian WCQing campaign.   
  
_Now we play something like 20 WCQers.

- 3 games at the WC

-Circa 8 Asian Cup qualifiers

-3-7 games at the Asian Cup

*7 meaningful  games every four years pre 2006 for the Socceroos. Now the Socceroos play 35 - 40 meaningful games every 4 years! The latter scenario is going to create a much more cohesive, battle hardened, match savvy team unit.  

The  video claims that the Socceroos were  used to big games at club level with the GG. True. But they weren't  at international level.

Our worst performance in the Asian Cup tournament  was probably 2007, where the GG struggled.

Yes, it can be argued. And with relative ease simply because it's true. Consider how poorly Asian teams actually tend to do at the WC.

Yes, it's great that Australia beat those countries. But it doesn't tell us much about how weak or strong tge AFC is. Sweden has beaten Spain, yet failed to qualify. North Macedonia has beaten Italy. Anything cam be claimed if you choose the right result. So let's look at actual results at the World Cup.

How many Asian teams have got as far as the semi-finals of the WC this century? One.

How many have made the quarters? Not many.

It's bloody rare for them to get out of the group. I remember that Japan did in South Africa (?) and that waa fantastic, but rare, for our confederation.

People on here love to say that North America is weak. Compared to Asia, it's not. They get fewer spots than Asia. Yet Mexico has the record, with Brazil, for most last 16 appearances at the WC. The USMNT are formidable and have somewhat recently got out of their group. Costa Rica has also recently made it to the last 16, possibly quarter-finals. And now Canada have qualified top.

And yet, that's a weak confederation but Asia isn't? I would say Asia is now probably the weakest.

Also, Decentric, the means of measuring success that you're using is problematic. Successive WC qualification is great but it's only one way of measuring success. And a somewhat unorhodox way, at that.

For one thing, it's influenced by more than consistency. To a certain extent, it's a function of the level of difficulty of the route to the WC.

Australia has qualified for five consecutive World Cups partly, at the very least, because it has one of the easiest pathways to the World Cup.

You mention Croatia not qualifying in one WC. Since their qualification streak isn't so strong, is their any argument that they're weaker tham us? Meanwhile they have actually played in a World Cup final.

Consecutive qualifications are great. But they don't say that much about the strength of the team 

I think I'm correct in that Australia has only qualified for 2 WCs in succession via Asia.

3 times we've knocked out intercontinental opposition in the last 5WCQing campaigns. The consequent logical proposition, is that the opposition has been worse than us.

So as the 5th ranked Asian team, we've beaten successive CONCACAF and CONMEBOL teams in sudden death play offs. It isn't a perfect argument, but still a plausible one, that the 5th ranked Asian teams, us, have been better than the 5th ranked South American team, 2022, and 4th ranked CONCACAF, 2018.

In 2006, Aus as Oceania champ, again defeated the 5th ranked South American team.

So in 3 out of 5 successive WCs, Australia has had to beat intercontinental competition to qualify for the WC.

I take the perspective advanced from Football Aus Tech Dept, that so many football nations keep improving and closing the gap on the better nations.

I also don't subscribe to the notion, that an absolute case can be made, that where a player plays their club football extrapolates to their worth as an international footballer. Many fans do. I use objective football specific performance  based criteria to analyse players. It might be a bit elitist, but not many have  made the time and commitment to undertake that level of coach education - and - coached at state feeder rep and NPL level.

Scott McDonald, Dukes, Harry Kewell  had records that indicated they were better club players than international players. If Harry had been 10 years younger, he may have been our greatest international player - if he had started in 2007 instead of 1997. 

Milligan, Jade North, Sainsbury, Spira and Matt McKay,  have  probably been  better, or achieved more at the highest level of international football - World Cup level - than club level.

Very selective criteria, by your own standards, QF.

How  many times have 4th placed CONCACAF beaten intercontinental  opposition, 5th placed Asian and CONMEBOL on their respective WCQ tables, to qualify for WCs outside Oceanian opposition?

Mexico is their one consistent nation. They must be close to qualifying for a powerhouse. Impressive that they record most last WC 16 appearances along with  Brazil? I'm  surprised they have more than Germany and Italy? What a fantastic achievement! 

Japan and South Korea are possibly Asia's best? I doubt any other CONCACAF nation, outside Mexico, has their consistency of WCQualification and exceed their performance at WCs?  

Is there/has there ever been  a scenario where multiple African teams progress past the group stages at WCs?

Finally, Chile were the notable exception at the 2014 WC with a Golden Generation. But outside the big three of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, few other CONMEBOL teams have been constant performers in breaking out of group stages  at WC level either.

Given the small standing football has in the Australian psyche,  compared to so many other sports, Australia  possibly punches  above it's weight more than anyone else. Hence, we can't be going as backwards as many like to think. I think it may be a question of us progressing more slowly than some of our Asian counterparts - willing to invest a lot more resources into football than us. Too many resources in Australia go into sports others don't play. Ditto media.

For a national coach Arnie, and his assistant, Meulensteen, to publicly state they, and the Socceroos, have far more detractors than supporters in Australia is a very sad phenomenon.

I remember this was even brought up before the 2010 WC.  Irish and English  commentators stated when Aus beat Ireland in a friendly, that Pim was an unpopular coach in Australia. It wouldn't extrapolate to England or Ireland with his WCQing record coaching the Socceroos. 

  

The problem with "social" media & what passes for football journalism in Australia is that it gives a very narrow view of what the average football fan feels about the national team.  They'll always support them no matter what however nor should they keep silent about what was obviously happening towards the end of the World Cup campaign.  

Agree with most of this.
IMO, the best way to measure the "strength" of a confederation is to check their success rate at getting out of the group stage of the WC.
Since 50% of the teams get eliminated in the group stage and 50% go on to the 2nd round, this is a pretty good indicator. 
If everything was equal, each confederation would have 50% of their teams eliminated in the group stage and 50% of their teams proceed to the 2nd round.
So if a confederation has a >50% success rate, by definition they're a stronger-than-average confederation, and <50% success rate means they're weaker than average.


Over the past 3 world cups;
2018
Succeeded in the group stage;
South America: Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia
Europe: Russia, Spain, Portugal, France, Denmark, Croatia, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, England
North America: Mexico
Asia: Japan

Eliminated in the group stage;
Asia: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Australia, South Korea
Africa: Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Tunisia, Senegal
South America: Peru
Europe: Iceland, Serbia, Germany, Poland
North America: Costa Rica, Panama

2014
Succeeded in group stage;
South America: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Argentina
North America: Mexico, Costa Rica, USA
Europe: Netherlands, Greece, France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium
Africa: Nigeria, Algeria

Eliminated in group stage;
Europe: Croatia, Spain, Italy, England, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Portugal, Russia
Africa: Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana
Asia: Australia, Japan, Iran, South Korea
South America: Ecuador
North America: Honduras

2010
Succeeded in group stage;
South America:  Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile
North America: Mexico, USA
Europe: England, Germany, Netherlands, Slovakia, Portugal, Spain
Africa: Ghana
Asia: South Korea, Japan
Eliminated in group stage;
Europe: France, Greece, Slovenia, Serbia, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland
Africa: South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast
Asia: Australia, North Korea
North America: Honduras
Oceania: NZ

Success rate:
South America: 14/16 = 87.5% (Amazing! Over the last 12 years, only twice has a South American team failed to get out of the group stage)
North America: 6/10 = 60% (This is also a surprise, I didn't realise how successful NA has been recently).
Europe: 22/40 = 55%
Asia: 3/13 = 23%
Africa: 3/16 = 19%
Oceania: 0/1 = 0% (Admittedly a very small sample size)

Going by this... South America and North America have a claim to get more spots at the world cup, at the expense of Asia & Africa. Or at least - when the world cup expands to 40 countries, these confederations are the ones most deserving of getting the extra spots.

depth matters too right? If you put brazil in oceania their ratio would look pretty good too but it doesn't mean america samoa need a world cup spot

If you replaced Japan with Brazil it also wouldn't change our world cup qualification chances either

since the original context was about how impressive it is to qualify 5 times in a row, the best way to measure this is the strength of each confederations team that finishes with a .5 place (or just misses out if a confederation gets a whole number of places)

Well concluded Petszk and agree that measuring success at WC level is a difficult beast but your method is as fair as any Ive seen on here lately.
Whats glaringly obvious is that if Japan never had their "new dawn" and 100 year plan the Asian confederation (with or without Australia in it) would be ALOT further down the pile....  One nation is literally carrying a whole continent+ a few outside islands on its own shoulders.....

This is a really  informative post, Petszk. 

Thanks for doing the research.

For a bigger sample size it would be useful to have done this for the 2006 WC in Germany, and after the Qatar WC too.

I'm really gobsmacked at North America  getting out of WC groups as much as they have? 

The Honduras we played for 2018 WC Russian entry, was easily the weakest intercontinental opponent we have had to play in sudden death play offs,  compared to Uruguay or Peru in the last five WC campaigns. I don't think we have ever had a CONCACAF opponent at any WC we've qualified for?  
 
Is it fair to say we've had harder groups  than average at WCs? Every one of the 8 WC groups has at least one powerhouse.  Yet in 2014 we had Spain and Netherlands, 2 European powerhouses - and  - Chile, who I think were South American intercontinental champs at the time?

2010 was a tough group too. Maybe 2018 was a bit easier, and we couldn't finish to save ourselves? 

I also had no idea, that Paraguay or  Colombia had ever  progressed past the group stages either? I thought Chile had only one done it once in our group in 2014, but not twice? Knocking out Uruguay  and Peru makes it even more meritorious for  the Socceroos to  knock out CONMEBOL teams twice from WC entry. 

Adding 2006 to the sample makes the totals look like this:
Success rate:
South America: 17/20 = 85% (Amazing! Over the last 16 years, only three times has a South American team failed to get out of the group stage)
North America: 7/14 = 50% 
Europe: 32/54 = 59.2%
Asia: 3/17 = 17.6%
Africa: 4/21 = 19%
Oceania: 1/2 = 50% (Admittedly a very small sample size. Considering this is out of 4 world cups, might be fair to say 1/4, and therefore 25% instead)

Decentric, with respect, can I ask are you a fan of the game of football?
Im curious to know if you had a childhood obsession with the sport, a favourite club or clubs? A player you idolised growing up perhaps and pretended to be playing in the backyard or at school with mates? I dont mean with an analytical, calculating accountants perspective which you clearly enjoy that aspect of. Just wanting to understand the motivation behind the methodology.  DId you ever play, or actively support a club?
I pretty much disagree with the majority of your opinions and that reflects on the way I view the game as opposed to the way you do. I am by no means under the illusion that I am right (not even half the time) and you are wrong, its just that your approach to the sport is so foreign to me. 
Im not trying to be insulting in any way btw, genuinely curious.

Decentric has said before he finished playing in 1974. 

 Fair  comment, MSC.

Played underage state rep, NPL youth and NPL senior level.

Coached junior suburban, state feeder rep underage teams, adult women, country club Tech Dir and was an NPL club Tech Dir.

Not so  much this season, but have watched a lot of NPL senior level football.

Grew up in England until age 10,  supporting Liverpool and Glasgow Rangers.

Also, supported my local town team  - Glastonbury. I used to watch them live in 1965 and 1966.

For  most of the A L have supported Melb Vic, and then changed to Melb City a few years back. Plus I've recently wanted to see CCM do well.

I think one big issue in Australia, is football fans talk the local game down. 

We have Eurosnobs who won't watch local football, A League, even ones heavily involved with NPL clubs. A lot of coaches I've met across Australia, prefer to watch EPL than local pro football. 

Bitter fans, associated with old NSL ethnic clubs,  won't follow A League. They feel left out without promo and releg.

One thing with this video that is very positive, is that a number of English fans and stakeholders even  more heavily involved, are thrilled Australia, their English speaking mates from the Antipodes, have qualified for 5 successive World Cups. Of course they know how hard qualification can be in Europe. And they recognise beating Peru, 5th on the WCQ CONMEBOL table, is a notable achievement.

Hey Decentric, thanks for taking the time to respond. Sounds like you are a poor, lost, "football tragic" soul like most here.... :)

Ok, I won't agree that point even though I believe it to be a legitimate agrument (also quickflick makes/made the agrument already). So I pose this counter-question....

How many of the past 5 WC's would Australia realistically qualified for if they had to qualify via...
(1) Europe??
(2) South America??
(3) North America??
(4) Africa??

1 - not many 
2 - probably most of them
3 - probably all of them
4 - probably many of them

To finish in the play off in south america means being as good as peru this round and then playing against afc opposition. Africa have a bit of randomness to their qualification route which means it isn't always the best 5 making it 

The FIFA rankings are far from perfect, but if you simply use those to answer the above question... we'd do alright.

Europe would be problematic.

I think we'd be the Scotland of Europe.  Thissssssss close all of the time.

Everywhere else we'd do OK.  Merely hypothetical though this line of thought. 

I'm 100% convinced however that more teams, many more games & an actual football pyramid we'd do much better at World Cup's.  

Austraian football has to stop playing the pathetic victim & acquiescing to the eggball cultural mentality.  This mentality is very,very limited due to the narrow worldview of eggball in general.  

If more people play football in Australia than any other sport by a fair margin ask yourself why it is so limited in crowds, ratings & general progression from an administrative standpoint.    Decline? Absolutely not.

After QF cited the difficulty in qualifying through Europe, I had a look at a lot of the UEFA qualifying  tables. I found it fascinating.

Scotland came second in an easier UEFA WCQ group.

I might be wrong on one of the  groups, but I think Denmark, Holland and possibly either Germany or Spain, appeared to have easier qualifying  UEFA groups. Not much opposition, on paper, to them, the one powerhouse in the group. 

Some  other UEFA WCQs were really, really tough. They often had one powerhouse, then three tough nations, similar quality to probably  Japan or South Korea in an Asian context, all in the same group. Each UEFA group has only one direct qualifier to the WC. Second ranked then have to enter sudden death play offs. 

 I think one UEFA group might have had a powerhouse, then  something like three similar quality teams to Poland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Turkey, Georgia, Israel and Sweden - all in the same group. Very tough group! Teams like Georgia ( my memory isn't great)  won a few big games against decent opposition in WCQers too.

Of course their rankings change quite quickly in short periods of time in  UEFA.

There was one bizarre scenario, where I think Hungary  finished 4th or 5th in their WCQ group. Then they thrashed England 5-0, or something similar, in the League Of Nations a few weeks ago! England qualified for Qatar  easily - again in what appeared to be a relatively  easy UEFA WCQ group.

That  Italy have missed out on two successive WCs, is incredible. I think they won the  European Championships in between too. I take QF's point how strong UEFA is and how hard it is to qualify for a WC in a number of UEFA groups. I also think  Italy, even not playing at their best, would probably  qualify for the WC in all other continents in 2018 and 2022.

Not only would Australia struggle to qualify in some  UEFA WC groups,  but almost any teams outside UEFA, apart from Brazil and Argentina. Even consistent WC qualifiers, Uruguay and Mexico, our own Japan and South Korea, would find some UEFA WCQ groups really tough too.

However, I disagree with QF's proposition that  the Asian top teams are weak compared to other football confederations outside Europe. UEFA's depth is phenomenal  compared to any other football confederation. 

  

 It is difficult to speculate.

 Factually, we've beaten two South American teams in sudden death WC play offs, and beaten 1 CONCACAF team in a play off, in qualifying for five successive World Cups.

Europe has some very difficult groups at times. It would be extremely tough to qualify in one of the hard European groups, or even come second for a play off place. However, Denmark's group was easier than others.

1 - 0
2- 0
3 - 5 
4 - maybe 2 

tell me you don't watch football without telling me you don't watch football. 

I dont dis-agree with some of your other points but this is just the 'dumbest' point i have read in a long time.

AFC is poor 

the last world cup 1 team made it to the round of 16 which went out the next round 

in 2014 0 teams made it out of the group stage with a total THREE points scored between the 4 nations from the AFC.... 

2010 it faired better with both Japan and S.korea making it out of the group stage in which both got knocked out at the round of 16 

2006 0 afc teams made it out of the group Aus represented OFC 


in the last 4 world cups AFC have had 3 teams make to the rd of 16 out of 17 attempts - that fat alone tells you how shit the confederation is 

0 sides made it any further then the last 16 - there is a real chance 0  out of 5 will make it out of the group in Qatar

I mean most confederations have poor results at the world cup outside the top teams except europe

North Korea have made the quarter finals (1966)
South korea has made the 4 and the 16 (only nation outside europe and south america to make the semis, yes I know people complain about the refereeing they always do)
Japan have made the 16 3 times
Australia have made the 16
Saudi Arabia have made the 16 (1994)

Cutting things off at post 1960, concacaf has awful depth with only 3 nations making it past the group stage, though mexico and costa rica both made the quarters.

Africa have 6 nations that have made it past the group stage, with 3 making the quarters

I would say africa and asia are quite similar and concacaf is the weakest confederation outside oceania, especially if you put weight on depth

Both confederations are s**t  but AFC is shitter when you put it into context ill try explain - Africa have a 'few' more big names 'as does Asia' but overall Africa has a problem that Asia is biggest strength and they wont ever fix it and the short answer is  'no money'. Thus they have few 'big' players and everyon generally garbage opposed to he bigger Asian nations which all have cashed and a base level of quality from their domestic leagues  

the lack of money or in other words resources to build quality leagues, structures/pathways and coaches, grounds etc add in content instability in the region - you dont see big marquees heading to Africa to play...this wont change anytime soon, off the top of my head i could only name a handful of African clubs and they are mostly junk leagues  


Asia in comparison has 'loads' of money thrown at football China, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar to lesser extents Japan, s.korea etc  - i read somewhere a Saudi club is offering CR7 120m pounds or 240m AUD  a season to play for them, i think i remember Tevez getting 30m to play a few seasons in the CSL, add in names like Oscar, Hulk and managers like AVB and Lippi etc this is unheard of in Africa no one can throw that kind of money around on football...

thus both confederations are garbage but Africa has more of a 'reason' to be garbage then Asia. This world cup bar Senegal i dont expect much from African teams and to be fair i never do - sometimes one might surprise you but generally they flop, but they do 'preform' slightly better then Asian teams historically and it is because most sides do have a few 'top quality' players that usually get developed in France or other parts of Europe but coaching, structure etc all are lacking thus i dont think they will ever win a world cup without some nation having like a miracle golden generation as they simply dont have the resources to ever be serious contenders. 

*Cough*
USA have also made the semis.
1930 FIFA World Cup knockout stage - Wikipedia