Nice yarn by Vince Rugari about the excitement of the new gen of Socceroos, such a welcome change from so many years of underwhelming times with the national team albeit Ange's success but this time we got the quality coming through to work with now.

Noticed something interesting was Arnie's quote when he mentioned about the Joeys camp which blew him away in 2018, the likes of Bos, Botic, Teague are in the national team set up including u23s but what happened with the rest of them exposes the current system's problems which we know about and hopefully addressed soon.

Also the much talked about football curriculum which was brought in around 2009, these players are now 18 to 22 and coincidentally are now part of this exciting new generation which we are talking about now.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/we-have-a-right-to-be-excited-socceroos-on-cusp-of-a-new-golden-generation-20230322-p5cu7z.html

From what I understand if you are hosting a major tournament like world cup (men& women). FIFA wouldn't allow the pitch to  be played for 2 months. All the pitches have to be in perfect condition.

Good article. Thanks for sharing.

And yup, before I even read your comment I was about to go on my own little rant about how (in spite of the naysayers) we are finally seeing the fruit of the national curriculum. These are the first lot of players to have gone all the way through the first version, let alone the second. Imagine in 10 years when we have an entire league full of players that have gone through it (and ideally a NSD to play in). I'm excited.

That's the thing that concerns me is we are probably going to waste more talent that's out there if more isnt done about the current problems, there is plenty of talent out there probably not identified too which is why a larger net needs to be to found otherwise they will go overseas or get lost to the game completely.
For me expansion and NSD coming in is great but there also needs to be a youth league brought back in so players get that year round football, that was very important for the GG era out of all because they played more games and had a longer season in those key development years.
Also the FA needs to invest in their junior national team programs, more exposure to more international football for all age groups and less reliance on making youth world cups which is getting harder to qualify via Asia who are chucking money and resources on it let right and centre!

The thing is we are now developing a generation of players that have benefit from something like this whilst before it was a player or two that stood out from the rest, this was always going to take time and maybe a good lesson with how development works when people were taking pot shots who knew little how this stuff works.

The dutch get it, which is why FFA back in that time brought in a dutch TD to create this exact thing because this stuff always starts from the grassroots if you want true change and better results.

So much for the supposed dutch mafia ruining our football! ;)

100%

its a stark contrast from 10-12 years ago when we had Holger played boring football and our only decent youth prospect was Robbie Kruse. Now we got 3 or 4 guys who could get to Kruse level in Bundesliga. Very exciting time.

Baccus still ahead of Devlin!

Aiden O'Neill debut

We should say thank you to Mr Lowy

You could get more personality out of wood than mat ryan 

thanks to Julien Assange for creating such a good relationship with Ecuador we had so many friendlies with them over the last few years.

The midfield isn't exactly exciting

Good to see O'Neil start 

geez poor crowd 

Welcome to country is bullshit.

Interest rate rises dude.

In contrast a sold out Suncorp for the NRL Brisbane derby.

26' min right now. I think Mabil has been really poor. He's out of confidence. His positioning is bad, touch is heavy, no real urgency, safe passing. 

Mabil and Behich have been particularly poor.

Degenek is not a RB, not mobile enough. We gain nothing from playing him there. 

Arnie said Robertson will be playing at about 60'. I'd make that change sooner. Irvine, Baccus and O'Neill good players but theres a sameness to the three. It would be good to balance with a technician. 

31' Mabil goal haha. You can thank me now. 

The ref hates Baccus. Giving him nothing. 

lost the ball every time he touched it, then hits a banger into top net lol

Mabil very lucky to be given a gift, still been terrible overall.

Is it me or is Duke playing with the swagger of a Brazilian?

Always punches above for Australia.

Dukinho?

Geez how good do we look compared to a year or two ago. 

It’s Australian culture mate, sorry it’s not Anglo enough for you.

Mabil after the goal a different player. Amazing what confidence does.