So sad, but very proud of them, it is just football... Australia... 'cause fuck Pim, but they showded that Australia do has Football... Australia had more merit, perfect goals, Tim, Holmman... and What about Ghana? two gifts, two penalties... that is just football.

I'm not too sure about that.

At least Ghana have always been our bitches.

well seeing as we lose to the eventual winners every tournament that means Germany have to win the world cup now ,what are the odds like at the moment

Well played Aussies. Everyone played their heart out tonight. Bresciano played great, he has been the best & most dangerous free kick taker in the World Cup so far, (pity we didn't get many free kicks).
It really makes a difference when we play with 11 players for the whole game.
We shocked those Serbians, who were thinking about their opponents for the next few games. Geez, they kept possession of the ball well under pressure didn't they?

I assume Raddy Antic will now be out of a job? How about we get him as our coach? He's bloody well qualified & he knew how we can play before the game, I doubt his players believed him.

Graham Arnold out.

just makes me wonder what could have happened if we were not so negative in our approach i think that was the difference between now and 06. cannot wait to see the back of Pim Verbeek

given the way germany played against serbia, and the way i am assuming they played against ghana(give the measly 1-0 result) i think its safe to say that we allowed them to be as a good as they were. no reason, if we went out with the intent and desire we did the last two games, that we couldnt have beat germany.

Well done Australia... really good performance. Such a shame we can't continue on through the tournament with this form.

Holman has made me eat my words and I am a fan now. Jesse Fink should apologise and write a congratulatory article about Holman.

I hate to be negative but it has to be said again.

One person is responsible for us not progressing and that is Pim Verbeek and his decisions/tactics/formation and mindset that he sent out against Germany. 4-0 will always be the result with that kind of non-sense.

Fair enough Greece can play that way, Italy too and a few other nations, but it simply is not part of the Australian psyche or thought process.

The next Aussie coach should be sat down in front of a DVD player and the biggest TV the FFA can find with Pim's team sheet, tactical sheet and log book and shown that performance 10 times straight.

Just so it is clear what I am getting at.

IF ANY AUSTRALIAN COACH EVER SENDS OUT AN AUSTRALIAN TEAM WITH THAT MINDSET, THOSE TACTICS AND THAT FORMATION (Germany 4-0) AGAINST ANY TEAM IN THE WORLD EVER AGAIN. HE SHOULD BE SACKED IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE GAME.

Australia with 11 men is better than Australia with 10. At least we ended up playing more of the tournament with 11.

Put a former Yugoslav country in front of us and we'll send them home. Shades of Stuttgart.

Germany will smash England.

Lolman!

We won over Serbia. Great
Holman proved himself. Great
We are all proud of our team. Great
GRAHAM ARNOLD IS OUT TODAY Priceless

Long long long overdue. And Pim is gone too. Great. Fresh start with a new coach. Just hope FFA don't screw up.

Rejoice!

dont want to sound like i'm whinging, but fuk we done it hard, with the red cards(in 1st 2 games) practically played 1 full game with 10 men, reckon with Tim an Harry on the field together with a courageous coach, we could of made the last 8, bittersweet feeling tonite, well done boys

dam the world cup and the inexplicable amount of 'what ifs' it brings.

Why hate the Germans the only impact they had on australia was the 4 nil thumping they gave us - and we deserved that by the way we played... I honestly expected Germany to win by more but they did what they needed, cant blame them for that... We have been somewhat unlucky during this tournament and have displayed some good football in patches, but when it comes down to having to rely on other teams and their results you gotta take the good with the bad...

Bad luck australia, but good effort in the last 2 games...

Sad for leaving South Africa but happy with the performance in the last two games. That Germany game will haunt me for four years now, plus a loss of $100.00 I put on Australia getting to the second round.

bring on india :)

Simple really, keep it low and get it on target, let the ball do the work, makes you wonder when the show pony's from the so called top nations wake up to it.

Firstly, very proud of the boys for the performances in the last 2 games.

The next month or 2 will be very interesting though. To see if anyone at the FFA come out and criticise Pim (hope not, that will deter other coaches from applying, but Lowy has a habit of saying what he thinks). To see if any of the players come out and criticise Pim. To see how many retirements there are, or will they all try to win the Asian Cup. To see if Pim puts his hand up.

Fuck all the "what if's". Thats in the past now. Look forward people.

Edited by villaboy: 24/6/2010 07:09:54 AM

DEVASTATED...2nd best team in the group. DEVASTATED

To be honest the Poms arent playing that bad, just not putting the goals away, I think this game will possibly be the best of the tournament, Germans probably win on penalties though!

by the way, nothing more than our failure to take our opportunities against Ghana cost us. red cards, yeah whatever, we missed our chances.

F&CK That sucks, but we fought so hard and made so many proud. DEVASTATED

Pim did well in the end with his resources. Nikita did not do well enough to replace anyone and I couldn't have seen McDonald doing better than Holman in terms of goal tally. That said Holman did little else. Jesus was unfortuhnately a bit of a washout although if the NZ-Italy game is any rule he had a couple of penalty calls. The boys did us proud and with a smarter coach (don't forget Pim was an emergency option after some FUCKING LOSER gazumped us) we can look forward now to better refereeing treatment and a better show in Brazil. And a first major trophy (sorry girls) at next years AFC cup.

We did well. We had a go. We flooded forward. Well done guys! No disgrace. The Ghana-penalty-Harry send off, is the one that got away, not the Germany game. Germany did out play us and deserved to win - but Pim's tactics & Tim's send off gave the 0-4.
I think the criticism of Pim is a bit short sighted. He did get us there. Perhaps he over-reacted to Germany's threat (with a doubt of putting an untried Harry on the park) by his selections. However, it was the same guy in charge today that coached us to a great 2-1 victory over 15th ranked Serbia. I say thanks. We need to look forward ... again.

hopefully the refs learn their trade in 2014 and show more bloody respect :P

So proud of australia, proud of each one of the boys. we picked ourselves up and probably deserved more... we just lucked out from unfortunate send offs.

Our future is good, the boys from 2006 backed it up for us in 2010 and players like holman and valeri have showed that we aren't going to be left in the dark in the near future either. Bring in the right coach and we'll unearth some new talent.

Schwarzer and cahill as a side note are fantastic players and hey if they are still kicking it and doing well come 2014.. why not! ;) it's just a shame to not see kewell work his magic today.
I'm wearing my shirt with pride today! :D

Never thought I'd say this, Brett Holman - Superstar

This proves that, at the start, how you define the goal/vision/aim will affect the whole result. The problem was that FFA narrowly defined Pim's job as merely reaching the World Cup. So Pim did that in a negative, grinding, boring, soul-sapping manner.

The new coach should be selected to guide Australia in the right direction in building a foundation of being a world football superpower. That involves someone having a heart for developing the standards of the A-League.

One of the negatives I'll always remember Pim for is that he criticised the A-League, but never did anything about it. If the A-League's training is so poor, what about going to each club and giving them some guidance on how to lift their game. Philip Troussier did that for Japan - he is credited with developing the grassroots quality of Japan's game.

Pim's negativity showed right from the beginning. I'll always think it was totally negative of never giving players like Nick Carle a real go. Totally negative to bring Carle on with 10 minutes to go. Carle never really had a proper chance to show his worth. Admittedly, it is true that Carle never broke out in the UK Championship, but at least Verbeek could have given him a go. For instance, Scott McDonald can never say he never had a chance to prove himself, but Carle was never given that chance - and it reflects on Verbeek's stubbornness.

Another thing I'll remember Verbeek for is his unwillingness to experiment, sure, not in qualifiers, but surely he could have experimented in friendlies, particularly with trying to find a system to maximise one of our overseas club success stories - Scott McDonald.

So, in summary, I am glad Verbeek is leaving, and am left with a regret that this golden generation really could have done something special, if given the chance under a different coach.

A coach really, really makes a difference. Look at Harry Redknapp's resurrection of Tottenham from rock bottom to Champion's League the next year. See how Guus can transform a mid-level international team like South Korea and Australia, and make them punch above their weight.

So, relieved and glad to see Verbeek go, for the above reasons.

Agree with evrything here. Especially interested in what happened in the sheds when the teamsheet came out for German game. Next coach has to embrace the Australian spirit and natural tendency to want to attack and have a crack.

It will be an interesting approach to the Asian Cup, do we go fresh or go the same or balance the squad with new and old talent? I'd like to win it and with a new coach in place and not having someone like Arnold running the show, maybe the players will be up for it this time around.

Great night. AT Aus 2-0 and Germany 1-0 it was tense. It was good to get the win, and 4 points...well 4 points often gets you through.

The criticsm of Verbeek is bullshit. Yes some decisions in the Germany game were poor, but 4-0 isnt just a result of tactics and formation. The players were overawed by the situation as well. Ok its a lesson and bit of experience hopefully the players take to the next World cup. \

But why is it fine to forgive the players for past failures after a win, but not the coach. Other than starting Carney (who is easily the shittest fucking player imaginable - He was crap in the A-League and has only warmed benches since), the team was spot on. The changes of Holman and Chipperfield proved a wonder (both heavily involveed in the goals).

We qualified easily for the World Cup and bowed out after drawing with Ghana and beating Serbia. Thats a damn good effort and despite one game against Germany, his time as Australian coach has been hugely successful.

Congrats to the Socceroos and Verbeek.

Brilliant performance by Australia. I think we played fantastically. A little shaky early on, but we definatly held our own against a Serbian team with a lot of talent.

Definatly getting a Brett Holman Socceroos Jersey :lol:, i'll name my son after Brett Holman. I wasn't a fan of his, but he's defiantly been tucking into the Weet-Bix in recent weeks. Pim finally got it right today, Everyone was tipping us to lose to Serbia, but we litually played flawlessly. Wonderful stuff by the Aussies, I think Pim finally learnt his lesson, albeit it being too late, but we can look back on this world cup with fond memories. For the majority we played well when we were written off.

Heads up lads, we've done well i feel. Unlucky, we had many calls go against us, but i think we defied the odds by beating Serbia. This'll be a big morale boost to all Aussie fans, and players. They can hold their heads up high and be proud of their performance.

There'll be a lot of what-ifs. But you gotta take the good with the bad, and i think this is the best way we could have ended the tournement.

In the words of one of the Martin Tyler "We were facing a challenge as high as the mountain in Cape Town" and to have scored 4 against Serbia would have been difficult. We got halfway there, and that proves we can perform at the highest level, against the best teams. The boys should be congratulating each other, we didn't deserve the 4-0 thumping at the hands of Germany, we didn't deserve some of the rash calls against us, but our performance against Serbia will be a good morale boost, the really happy side of this world cup.

and hey, we went through the entire match without having a player sent off, that's gotta count for somthing ;)

The Boys are legends, every single one of them,

Absolutely, you're spot on there mate. The FFA didn't set the bar high enough. "qualify with ease, make the round of 16" should have been the requirement. But the FFA were too concerned about failure, and not obsessed enough with success at all costs.

It's cliche, but "shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you'll end up in the stars" is appropriate here. We should have been aiming for a classy qualification, and to march in to the round of 16. Even if we missed and ended up with the performance we got from Pim we've made the WC, pushed our group all the way and on a whole have every reason to be proud of what we achieved.

On the whole I'm happy with our World Cup. I think it could and should have gone a lot better. But it definitely could have gone worse.

I'm a fan of Kennedy, and I think if you ask Tim Cahill he would be an even bigger fan. Cahill always seem to be able to ghost in and score seemimgly unmarked. Why? Because funnily enough the focus is on the big man and not so much on him. Until we find a player to replace Kennedy or we change our style completely, he will be leading the line.