Not a good game for us. I hope in the world cup e will do better, however these are our players.Frankly, the coach is worse than the previous one and the good players are the same, just older. All the young ones do not seem to have the level to compete... We will struggle a lot I guess.. GO AUSSIES anyway!!

Have to laugh at the commentary when commenting on Kennedy (jesus) on a header he missed in the second half. 'Nice touch on the cross', no harm intended, just pointing out a coincidence. Germany to beat Australia, Ghane to draw, Serbia to draw, short stay...

If it was another practice run why did he start exactly the same XI he did against Denmark, and only make 3-4 substitutions in the whole match?

He was taking it seriously. Holman was obviously rested, Kewell isn't fit yet and Cahill is put on ice because we don't want him injured. But he was taking it serious.


Pim didn't tell the boys to go out and play any different to the Denmark game (imo). We were just forced to because we went behind and because they really took the game to us.

I'd start Valeri over Grella too.

Also: Does anybody, after watching the past few games, HONESTLY believe that Kennedy holds the ball up better than Macca? Macca did it brilliantly against NZ, and Kennedys touch and passing have been absolutely atrocious these last 2 games. Every ball he gets he miscontrols, and if he does manage to get one, he passes it to nobody. Looked disintersted and lazy tonight. Not happy

Edited by imnofreak: 6/6/2010 04:50:54 AM

We beat Denmark: All the Pim lovers come out saying 'Fantastic result, showed we can grind out good results, great signs, we'll make the semis, etc'

We lose to USA: Pim lovers say 'It's only a friendly, means nothing, weren't taking it seriously, we dominated (when we clearly didn't), we'll be fine for Germany etc.

We lose to Germany: 'It's alright, it's only the first game of the WC, we have two to go, Kewell will be back to fitness for Ghana, we'll win, dont worry, Pim has it under control....

I sincerely hope we beat Germany, dont get me wrong.

Denmark WAS a fantastic result but this was obviously a scary match. I don't know what happened to the defence, it's like the Denmark match never happened. And the stupidity of standing around doing nothing when asking for offside that is never given is amazing. Kennedy adn Schwarzer didn't show up. Answers: rest Grella, Bresciano, Moore, Kennedy and Garcia against Germany. Or at least don't start them. Instead, I'd start Valeri, Vidosic, Beauchamp, and, oh I don't know, Emerton. On form. Let's hope Pim learns from his mistakes starting Holman in the past based on training rather than match form. We are in trouble having no hold-up man but that can be turned into dangerous attacks from midfield if a fast attacker like Chipperfield or Rukavytsya is released. Pluses: Chipperfield, Cahill and Wilkshire. That's slim pickings out of 11 players. Pim has some work to do this week.

The sooner Pim and GA are away from our National Team the better !!!!

Surely the headline should be "Socceroos crash to 3-1 loss" like the NZ headline yesterday :)

We didnt get the game over here, how did they play overall?
Remember as long as they learnt something then the loss isn't a worry. It's the real games that count.

We are going to get thrashed no doubt. Thats Pims heaviest defeat since he has been in charge, simply because we tried to attack from the get go. Its clear, we have such limited attacking options and its a game plan that doesnt suit the team. Disgrace.

Oh and Serbia beat Cameroon 4-3. Go Roos!

Unfortunately I didn't get to see the game last night however, I have just viewed the Fox hi-lights. The USA are continuing on from where they left off with their impressive dispays they showed at the Federation's Cup. This US team, is going to do a lot of damage to the reputations of the more fancied, established, so called super-powers of Football. Look out England you're going to go down.

Having no one up front who can step out will be the socceroos downfall this WC.

Are we going to wait until we've lost to Germany and Serbia before Moore & Grella are replaced by Beauchamp & Vidosic?

The good to come out of this game was; Grella was so bad he cant be played. Moore too.


Then again the bleedingly obvious to most oft gets overlooked to Pim.

Culina/Bresciano did nothing, they seem to have no combination with the team. or understanding how to run into space and no skill to pass/dribble way out of trouble. Did you see they way the US attacked a couple of times? Fantastic running interplay. Grella/Bresch/Culian not capable of that at all.

For me Jedinak, Valeri, and Vidosic have come zooming into (a sane person's) calculations.

Culina showed his versatility in Cahills role, If there is no Emerton than id like to see Culina in one of those front 4 preferaly wide right in place of vido or Garcia, he seems to make the team play more fluently along the ground.
I wouldnt blame Moore or Grella apart from the first goal, Moore showed great pace to keep up with findlay and Grella will come good when it counts.
No chance Kewell or Emerton will start which is a huge loss

Kenndy is no good sorry he missed two sitters, he was to slow and his 1st touch was worst then some 15 year old kids.

Moore needs to get dropped

Grella is just trying to get a red card Velri played well should replace him.

We probably should have lost that 5-1 Marko Brece is surely nowhere near as good as he was 4 years ago.

Whilkeshire and Chippers are chipping the ball to Kennedy for him to turn it over WORST PLAYER EVER J-LEAGUE IS A DROP KICK LEAGUE.

Edited by Davstar: 6/6/2010 09:47:05 AM

How come you get "defeated" and we "crash"! USA are good unit, keep your chin up.

i cant see australia qualify if they keep playing like shit, very dissapointed

On that perfomance we are gogogogogogooooone.

Our midfield is so ordinary is scary.

Culina might use one year under Miron Bleidberg as an excuse.

What's Vince Grella's excuse? He's just awful.

Grella is shit, EPL- DROP KICK LEAGUE.

Pim needs to learn from this loss and drop both Moore and Grella. How many times will we need to read the line "[insert player name] powered past Craig Moore and angled a shot" before the guy gets dropped.
Perhaps Grella getting a red card early in the tournament will be a blessing in disguise.

A-bysmal. Who are yous all supporting after Australia gets knocked out?

The problem is it could be so much better. We not only look scarily bad in defence, but none of our attack comes through the middle with Grella and Culina there.

I can't see us starting with Kewell and Emerton against Germany. Hopefully they will get some game time.


----------------Schwarzer----------
Wilkshire----Beauchamp---Neill----Chipperfield
--- --------Valeri--Jedinak---------
Culina----------Cahill----------Bresc
--------------Kennedy------------

Subs

Emerton for Culina, Kewell for Kennedy, Vidosic or Ruka for Bresc

The amount of times the USA slid passes in behind our defence to well timed runs was scary. On another day against better opposition (eg Germany) we could be put to the sword. USA could easily have had 5 goals. Findley missed a sitter from one of those nicely weighted passes, Dempsey forced an excellent save from Schwarzer and the disallowed goal situation can easily be interpreted differently by another linesman. (Could argue for days on that disallowed goal but different interpretations cannot be avoided because it is decided by each individual human)

Having said that, Australia also had a multitude of chances and could/should have scored 3 or 4. Kennedy missed an open goal header, and with greater anticipation early in the 2nd half could have equalized, instead he just blazed over from the angle. Bresciano didn’t need to belt the sh-t out of the ball which went straight at the keeper, he could have taken a touch and passed the ball into the net.

It was great to see some attacking intent this time but I think that we need to find a healthy balance between attack minded and defense minded. We leaned too far towards attack last night and the score line doesn’t truly reflect how much it cost us. (although that might have something to do with the fact we were chasing the result after 3 mins).

It’s a shame we actually can’t be more attacking because Australian Football is in a crucial ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ phase. It seems if we do what the general ‘unwashed’ public want and play attacking football. Then we will probably lose games because our defence looks so vulnerable when we expose it even a little bit. Losing games mean we lose the public because nobody likes a loser.

If we don’t play a more adventurous attack minded game and play Pim’s dour but ultimately successful Plan A but no Plan B style, then the hoards complain and the bandwagon people go back to their AFL and NRL saying ‘soccer is boring’. (What to do now???? I am so torn!! What to do in the future???? Never employ a Pim style coach ever again but employ a coach who can teach great adventurous, imaginative football without compromising the team’s defensive duties.)

A couple of positives from last night’s game.
   1. Created plenty of chance’s.
2. Chipperfield was awesome down the left, great defensive work but even better attacking duties. His overall passing was amazing, he has figured out this Jabulani ball.

Ideas to improve our play.
1.   Get rid of Craig Moore, Grella and Garcia
2.   Don’t pass to Kennedy unless it’s a cross for him to head the ball in.
3.   Shoot more from distance; let the crazy ball do the work.

Forget about the goals conceded... I think the biggest issue with the match was how our defence was unable to cope with the diagonal runs. The move that ended with Dempsey's shot being saved by Schwazer showed how easily our defence was pulled apart.

Just on the World Cup Jabulani ball, based on all the internationals on Setanta TV…. it doesn’t seem to be as crazy at sea level. Altitude makes it fly further due to the thin air etc etc… And the brains trusts at FFA and Pim have got us doing specialized sessions trying to get used to this ball. Problem is we are doing it at altitude when our first game is at sea level and our 3rd game is only at 600m in Nelspruit. So we do 3 straight weeks of altitude training with the ball and then head to Durban at sea level to face Germany. Who coincidentally have been playing with the ball in the German league since the ball was released. (Germany is at sea level). Our fitness levels will be fantastic so look out for a fast finishing Australian team in Game 1 except we will 4-0 down and all our passes will be off.

My team for Germany:

----------------Schwarzer----------------
Wilkshire--Beauchamp--Neill--Chipperfield
-------------Grella--Culina--------------
--------Vidosic--Cahill--Bresciano-------
-----------------Kennedy-----------------

Emerton & Kewell to be used as subs

Unlike the Serbs and other Euro teams we should not make excuses when we lose like they do such as we are working on our system, experimenting, etc etc. Two major weaknesses were Grella and Moore, the others were OK and as we are on the end of a very heavy training period we should improve. The USA is a hyper agressive team and very sharp. DEmerton and Kewell will make a difference but we need two forwards up front and Chipperfield and or culina to push forward more.

That's pretty much the formation I was hoping to see last night. I can't understand why Pim hasn't given a Valeri/Jedinak partnership a go. Valeri was outstanding when he come on last night and Jedinak's played pretty consistently when given the chance. This formation would also have given us a little more creativity in Midfield IMO. Valeri's passing vision combined with Culina's involvement on the right would have been a damn sight better than Grella's thuggery and Garcia's non-existence.

On the bright side, at least it was an entertaining match.

Stop copying NZ - 1-0 win then a 3-1 loss

scary that we're gonna loose chippers after this n carney is in no way an international left back.