I'm not defending Vidmar's performance as coach. I just reckon those comments are motivated by arse covering. 

You know what's fucked about our imminent non-qualification for the Olympics?

People will just say 'Oh well if only we had Irankunda' to not have a good hard look at where it's all going wrong. As if the one player would make up for what's been dished up. 

Remember Fornaroli getting picked for the Asian Cup. Was going to win the golden boot according to some here.

What happened? Zero impact.
 

Gersbach most definitely played LB that tournament albeit with License to get forward so looked like a 5 in midfield when we had the ball

Just watched Spain v Brazil friendly from last month on Paramount. Two of the best players on the pitch are younger than Nestory Irankunda - Lamine Yamal (Barcelona, Spain) and Endrick (soon-to-be Real Madrid, Brazil). Yamal is 16, Endrick 17. Oh Aussies, ye of little faith in youth. We'll never know what Irankunda could have done v Jordan and Indonesia
https://www.goal.com/en/lists/brazil-player-ratings-spain-endrick-lamine-yamal/blt3cdb0aeb1f5fa82d

Yes was more pragmatic. Played what I would call a balanced style, not counter attacking but not direct either. Pressed hard though in a 442 out of possession which has become a hallmark of the socceroos. I remember anytime they managed to beat our press, Bacchus being an absolute beast at covering ground and mopping up. I remember being like "who is this guy he is going places" and turned out right. Having said thought Piscopo was unbelievable but hasn't really kicked on. Deng played well at rb and souttar of course at CB with Dylan Ryan. Seemed to be a real spirit in that group with some strong personalities who have gone on to form the basis of the current overachieving socceroos. 

Its not all about population. Its the quality not quantity. Otherwise China would have won the world cup. In terms of football they are still C class nation in Asia.  Right now Indo are using many mixed blood players. These players grew up in Europe.

Indonesia never made it to this last stage of U23 Asian cup b4 and this is their 1st win in their history. They beat the Oz cuz this Olymroos might be the worst team not because Indonesia is any good.  You will see they will get trashed by Jordan in the last game.  ASEAN teams are still far  behind many arab nations.

Game-changer!
Just going further than that...
Couldn't find any 2000 Australia games
Seems like all the 2004 games are there (Olyroos and Matildas), and just the Aus v Serbia for 2008

Personally I think U23 is a waste of time and money.
To assume we should beat Indonesia is simply arrogance. Why should we be better at football than Indonesia? They have more than 10 times our population and are becoming a powerhouse economy. Football is their number one sport. They have the pick of the best athletes. We don't.
So why the assumption of superiority in football? Fact is that all the south East Asian countries are catching up. Fast. 
We are small country where football is sport number 3 or 4 for the best athletes. It will be more difficult for us to compete as time moves on, and we are seeing that now. These U23 performances are not some kind of glitch after which normal service will resume. 
And you what? That's a good thing. Strong regional football equals meaningful competition and more interest and hopefully a genuine ACL that means something... If our clubs are ever good enough to compete. 

What is the wage budget of the k and j league tho?

In future we should indeed be able to get past the next teir with domestic talent tho. Think we should have dones so convincingly this time with a coach with club experience

Yes, in the future we won't be able to use our best European players which is a good thing because it means we are progressing through Europe as you remember that most top European nations and been going through the same thing for decades and they just have insane depth that it doesn't matter if their top players never play for age-group teams. 
Should also remember that we aren't the only country in Asia that faces this problem, any country with notable European talent from Asia suffer the same, with a lot of countries having this issue and it'll only get worse as more Asian based youth talent transition to Europe. But we should still be able to qualify with our domestic talent as nearly every other nation is currently using full domestic league talent and still beating us. We aren't as handicapped relatively as we think we are. It comes down to consolidation of talent with coaching and dispersing that talent onto the field correctly. Australian football coaching and identity is way behind with junior football, the values we have, the way we setup and what we find as important attributes to possess is so outdated. The whole Aussie DNA is stupidest thing I've ever heard from Arnold. 

All the games are accessible on the Olympics Archive website. I watched a few those games back in preparation for these tournaments and yeah despite some of the would-be Socceroos names, we weren't good at all. Happy to have Souttar at the back but honestly even this team performing the way they are would run a good contest against that 2020 team. 

I guess we have to decide what we want, unless we have a bunch of players have a break through year at once it is hard to see us qualify through asia using possession football as we dont get the euro players. Even if we get better at youth development that just means more players overseas

But that doesnt mean this lot are crap. Farrel is defensively good enough to make the big 5 one day imo, milanovic and brook are as good as silvera was when he left and are a year younger, holman looks strong enough to go to buli 2 next season and this is just our a league based olyroos. Still it hurts to be out of the olympics....

Yes it was far more pragmatic. Honestly all the games in the olympics were shameful, yes we beat Argentina but we parked the bus and used Lachie Wale's pace. I know it doesn't look like progress as we are 1 point from 2 games in the asian cup but we have a lot more players out than last time and our technical ability on the ball has come on a lot.

I dont think the issue is the players, it's how you use them and how they are coached when facing this problem.

Interesting playing gersbach at lw like bos at lw for the nt or shannon cole at lw for popa, spira at dm under holger, franjic at rw under ange, guus playing culina high up against uruguay

It seems a common tactic to put technical defensive players higher on the pitch than they are used to

I remembered the game vs  Thailand in the 2nd game of the group. The host Thailand just beat Bahrain 5-0 in the 1st game.

The firrst 30 minutes we were outplayed by Thailand with many turnovers by us and they lead us 1-0.

Agostino scored just b4 half time and then we outplayed them in the 2nd half.

After the game in the press Thailand accepted they were totally outplayed by Australia in the 2nd half.

Arnie changed the tactic in the 2nd half to press high and pressed hard and was more physical which tired the Thais. Gerbach was fantastic at the LW and Agostino did well as a central striker.   Thomas Dang was RB running  up & down and closed down their winger he did well both offensively and defensively.  And the core of that team is Piscopo as AM.  All of the creativity came thr him.

Does anyone remember what style we played with arnie in 2020? Was it more pragmatic. Can only watch the sk game

Given we cant get our euro players and a league budgets are too poor to retain players who can play proactively in asia should we try and have a coach that qualifies for the olympics by any style necessary going forward?

Asian champions league teams that dominate possession have historically struggled in australia

Really? You’re saying that about a coach that waits til very last minute to ask likes of Irankunda to join squad?! If he had more balls he would admit his tactics and player selections are poor and that he needs to improve quickly 

I bet even Vidmar isn't that dense. He's putting a positive spin on it to protect himself/the players. 

Wow i just watched Vidmar in post-game interview say that ‘he couldn’t fault the way team played’.
So he has no problem with the lack of ball possession & control in midfield, the lack of scoring chances created, or the lack of defensive organisation for set pieces that led to Indonesia goal?!
he is absolutely clueless. It was Indonesia FFS - not likes of Argentina or France!! Not even scoring against Jordan or Indonesia is atrocious Tony.

The U16s v Switzerland had some very good dribblers, Treffiletti in particular. Irankunda's power, pace and striking would have been handy. 

That is one possible way but you need to be flexible in how you play, good movement off the ball, finding the free player, attacking the space etc.

For all of your Neymar's, Hazard's you also need your De Bruyne's, Modric's too.

To defeat a low block you need lots of guys who are good at 1v1 dribbling. Tottenham is struggling against low blocks right now as they only really have Kula who is decent at this. We need to produce guys like Doku, Hazard, Neymar etc

I agree. Our 2020 team played defensive arnie ball, while this team actually tried playing attacking football. These results commonly happen at this level. Let's not forget we struggled against this team when we played our seniors and the 4-0 scoreline was flattering. 

And no doubt other nations know this and use it to their advantage when they play Aussie teams

One of the biggest weaknesses going on at the moment at all levels with Australian teams including the women's game is our poor inability to be effective against low block defences, when teams open up its easier but we really struggle when we have the ball not sure why is is but either way it faces questions in how we develop our players and coaches too.

This problem will not go away if its not being addressed properly but im not confident with the people running the game and will use as a smoke screen for other reasons to suit their narrative i.e we need a home of football...

Hopefully Qatar will rest their main players. But the concern is where the goals will come from as we got absolutely no ideas to score.

Cut back 
Corner kick
Set pieces
Striker who can score
Combination play 
Wingers who can dribble and take one on one
Creative midfield with killer pass
Long ball 

All of the above are none exist in this Olymroos. 

Are you Decentric in disguise?

Japan and South Korea roll through their group and both qualify for the QF's

Just seen the scenario, we pretty much need to win and rely on Jordan to win as well but also win by more than the Jordan win as goal difference would put us ahead of them.

Its doable but a tough scenario which could have been avoided in the first place, disappointing tournament so far.