Yep i agree in terms of producing better 7,11 and 10s we getting better at producing these kind of players.

My only issue have going forward is we need to make our players more incisive and are intelligent in scenarios on the pitch, too many of our players weren't doing a great job at keeping the ball as a collective, not enough support off the ball and often had players who weren't close to the ball carrier which therefore put plenty of pressure when someone had the ball they turned it over due to poor decision in front, execution and decision making of the ball carrier.

Also when the reached the final third, they lacked ideas in how to break down a defence, the runs of the ball weren't good enough when trying to penetrate the defensive lines this was occurred in the Germany and Nigeria match especially and not enough creative play such as one-twos, wall passes and consistent combination play in general.

But they have the skill its the matter of becoming more street smart when solving key football problems and this what we need to work on with the future gens.

Edited by Barca4life: 10/11/2015 10:30:53 AM

There's no difference between what he is saying and what I was saying no matter how you try and spin it.

There's a difference between our respective posting styles and that's what gets up your nose and that's translated to an obvious dislike of me.

Fine, I'm not here to be your mate or ayone elses for that matter.

I'm here to discuss the how's, where's and why's of the FFA NC in relation to our performance of the Joeys's at the U17 world cup.

The fact you can't separate your evident bias is your problem not mine.

Barca says:

"Also when the reached the final third, they lacked ideas in how to break down a defence, the runs of the ball weren't good enough when trying to penetrate the defensive line"

So third man runs and quick 1-2's which I've mentioned time and time again but which you continue to ignore as an aspect of our game that needs developing. (They're 16 years old not 10.)

The whole premise of my initial arguments was that there is too much emphasis on 1 v 1 duels to the detriment of other aspects of the game.

I also stated I am concerned that "flashier" players are getting selected over other types of players. (And went into great detail to explain why.)

All things that have been repeated here ad nauseum which you refuse to concede.

Surely you are not implying that because we made the round of 16 and got flogged we are better than any of the above teams?

You can't be serious.

I would argue that at senior level this is a major deficit in our game.

You only have to look at the intricate passing and off the ball running of Japan when they play us to see the huge gulf between the respective standards in the final third. (South Korea are also excellent at this.)

Why does munrubenmuz have a bug up his arse in every thread.

He called me out yesterday

Just a thought.Think of all the A-League coaches who have tried and failed dismally.
Consider that those dismally inept coaches would be derided by virtually everyone if they were given another job coaching our best young talent.
Then consider that the youth coaches for our national teams ,probably in most cases aren't better than those who dismally failed.

Edited by crimsoncrusoe: 10/11/2015 11:33:37 AM

Edited by crimsoncrusoe: 10/11/2015 11:34:13 AM

You need to stop assuming that what was happening in Tassie was happening across the country. This might explain why Tassie's greatest export is Dominic Longo

Using Armenakas to back up your view is also pointless. He's been overseas since 2012 and before that he was at one of those 'recalcitrant' clubs his whole career (Sydney Olympic)

This will be the first and last time I will mention a youth player personally as I'm trying to make a point, but I don't rate Derrick.

I think he is very fast on and off the ball, I think at top level (European first Division) he may make it as a wing back.

I don't say this lightly either because in the Australian/Victorian context he is a dominate player in his role.

But if you see the quantity and quality of number 7's and 11's he has to compete with, in his age group, in major European Football Clubs and the number of African and South American's he has to compete with then he has a huge task ahead.

Rated Panetta.

In terms of completing with the world's best of course its going to be challenging, but the only hope we have to produce these kind of players is to produce them in bulk and hope a few of them kick on.

I will also throw in Arzani and the recent players in Mabil and Kuzmanovski.

We must create an environment to produce these kind of players if we want to get to a higher level, we need match winners and the whole world is looking for them too.

The landscape of world football now is a lot more harder than it once was 20 years ago, its been mentioned a bit in the OS Aussies thread already.

I agree with you Arthur ... I think his speed masks some very obvious deficiencies .... by memory, (and I only watched the game once) Derrick's errors contributed to at least two of the Nigerian goals

Competing with the worlds best players as a 7 or 11 for me means you must have the ability to "glide" past players rather than "barge" past them. Top level "Gold Standard" players can do this.

I don't believe you can just "produce" the exceptional 7 or 11 from the production line cookie cutter approach.
The best have a high level of creativity and skill.
http://soccerlens.com/2015-european-player-rankings-top-25-wingers/169450/
Just this list alone benchmarks the levels a winger must reach to be at the top level.
For me this means more futsal upto U14.
More SSG football up to U14.
More free time play.
Add on your SAP's Coerver etc.
But add on to this Football Culture.

Our cultural view on football stops us from creating these players.
Dribbling vs kicking long
Holding on to the ball vs quick passing
Risk taking vs efficiency
Big vs Small
individualism in sport vs collectivism in sport
Kids with a ball at their feet from 3yo

If Messi came to Australia he'd now be washing toilets at the MCG

The Oz under 17s were able to display game sense and showed reasonable combination play, which featured third man runs against a lower level of opposition.

At some stage of competition as it gets tougher any team's game plan is probably going to break down unless that team is world champion.

The Australian under 17s have probably been successful in attacking interplay, or combination play, against mediocre opponents. The next stage is to achieve this against even higher calibre opposition. Also, at this level it is not going to be as effective as at senior level where teams attempt this more regularly at club level.

Edited by Decentric: 10/11/2015 05:25:07 PM

At best I like that you posit antithetical perspectives which creates the preconditions for a fertile debate.

I don't dislike you. What I dislike is your recent adopted adversarial style. You focus on points of difference more than common ground. This is probably why many other posters respond to you in such an adversarial way, as you deliberately try to annoy them.

Other guys in this discussion are discussing the topic in a constructive way.

For the interests of the forum, given you say you support the FFA NC, what do you understand it to be?

You don't appear to know what it is.

Yet perplexingly you love to mock and denigrate it.](*,)


In terms of players selected, what do you define by flashier players being selected?

Your disquiet in this discussion smacks as some sort of issue off forum being a problem.

Was most of his youth at Apia with Nick Rizzo before moving to Milan academy, nick had a lot of the young ones playing a couple of years up in local comp , also played his players in SSG comps all over Sydney .
The Academies in Sydney (love or hate them) took up the slack following the demise of Coever , coaches like Rizzo, Genc,Carle , Icardi and Colougari would be responsible for many of the 96-97-98 and 99s running around now in national underage teams.

It's my major point about environment, a huge disadvantage when football is only 3rd or 4th popular depending how we view it whening try to compete with more established football nations its makes the task even harder.

Our football culture is quite weak and often stereotyped from the old school British culture and throw in the existing stereotypes and how the community see sport in general should be played which is quite mirrored of the rugby and AFL culture.

In the 6 years there has been an attempt to make a huge cultural shift about how we view and play football, small strides have been made but we still have a very long way to go.

I prefer to look at countries whom have changed their football mentality and culture from obscurity to where they stand today, where the likes of Japan, South Korea and even the USA in a small part have made huge strides to how they play their football and the players they are producing.

We need to think long term with constant evaluation of what we do time to time.

Edited by Barca4life: 10/11/2015 07:41:20 PM

I know someone who has coached Armenekas.


The milieu in football has changed irrevocably. Ideally and normatively there is little difference in the type of coaching players are or should be receiving across the country regardless of state or territory.

One of the points made by someone in this thread is the sensitive topic of discussing kids aged 15- 17.

I may have done it, but I think I have posted strengths or admirable qualities of these young players. If I have posted anything negative I'll quite happily delete it. I'm sure players will have been made aware of areas to improve by the coaching staff.

We've had issues locally where NTC players have been discussed on blogs. The kids are sometimes as young as 13. Many of us posting g are parents. Nobody would like to see something disparaging posted about their own kids.

There was one instance on 442 a few years ago where two posters were discussing a young player on 442. Then a regular poster posted it was his son they're talking about and the son was a regular visitor to 442. Nobody, particularly underage players, or parents of them, wants to read negative comments about aspects of their play on a forum.

In the younger cohort of Joeys we have two parents who post on 442 about the conditions faced at various tournaments. I think all of us enjoy the two parents' insights from the games we've watched. Hopefully, they have not read anything negative about their own children.

One point made by you, Barca, and Arthur, is football culture in Australia.

Fair point.

It is hard for it to change quickly.



Edited by Decentric: 11/11/2015 09:35:57 AM

Informative post.

One point I think you made earlier, was you appeared to ridicule step overs as being part of genuine football. In one aspect, 1v1s, it can be viewed as a useful technique amongst a range for players to adopt.

In terms of 1v1 attacking techniques, some players are more comfortable with some techniques than others. Step overs are more comfortable for some than others. A more simple move with the same body position and fake than the standard Brazilian step over, is the shoulder feint/body swerve.

One branch TD in FFA, a current NPL TD and former state youth coach, thinks that any work done in the right context on mastering techniques that may never work, is that incidentally, players will learn to acquire a more comfortable feel for the ball at their feet. Theoretically, this should improve more fundamental moves such as ball carrying with the outside of the shoelace part of the foot, and inside and outside of the foot.

Which traits do you suggest currently exist, as to what should exist, Arthur?

I might be thick, but I don't understand the post.#-o

Lol , l didn't really ridicule the step over just the fact that a thread was getting bogged down about the use of the step over .
All of the best really good academy coaches do have a lot of tricks that they teach players which is all good but one thing I have noticed with the new breed of SAP coaches is that not many will have the skills to demonstrate step overs , maradonna spins , Cryuff turns etc to the kids .

Speaking off stepovers this little gem below was posted in response the the FFA's dire piece of analysis (by an unaccredited author) during the Women's World Cup where Australia were beaten 3-1 by the USA and yet we were somehow "the better team".

Others, at the time here, suggested Decentric wrote the article. It would make sense. It certainly matches the tone and superiority complex often on display.

Interestingly the article is no longer available on the FFA website. Funny that. Here's some excerpts though:

http://www.news.com.au/sport/football/us-media-up-in-arms-after-aussie-report-says-the-americans-arent-any-good/story-fndkzvnd-1227391238241

“The US certainly like to talk a good game. The reality is they play a fairly rudimentary, bog-standard 4-4-2, were short of ideas going forward and outmanoeuvred tactically. ‘Play it long and look for the head of Wambach’ seems the default game-plan for a team stuck in the past.

“World football has moved, in case Jill Ellis (US coach) hasn’t noticed. US were outplayed by a better, smarter footballing side — who were also without two certain starters in Polkinghorne and keeper Williams — before the Aussies ran out of gas.

“Technically gifted, tactically aware, good pressers, attacking intent, young, fearless — this team (the Matildas) is fabulous to watch and has developed to a point where they are clearly a better footballing nation than the US.”


Besides the outrage generated in the US about losing and claiming you're the better side (plenty of that in this thread) this article taking the piss of the previous article, particularly the following excerpt, made me laugh because it relates directly to the conversation above re: the Joeys.


1: The Matildas, well, they just aren’t that good

A team that plays with the bog standard raison d’etre of simply scoring more goals than the opposition are living in the 1800s. The Matildas style of football is outdated and just dire to watch.

Who wants to see speedy, overlapping full-backs, crisp passing and shots at goal? Throughout the ninety minutes against Nigeria there were no overhead kicks and not one Matilda even tried a ‘rabona’ for Christ’s sake.

I mean what sort of second rate nonsense is stringing together a couple of passes and scoring?

‘Get the ball in the danger area and score goals’ seems the default game plan of a team stuck in the past. World football has moved on and if there are not a hundred pointless step-overs in the lead up to a goal then it’s not worth the price of admission.

Jog on Australia.

http://thefootballsack.com.au/2015/06/australia-v-nigeria-4-things-we-learnt.html




Edited by munrubenmuz: 11/11/2015 05:50:11 PM

Having these techniques is one thing but how to apply it in game situations is another, this is where we fell down on.

Our players did not demonstrate to solve football problems or better they didn't not have the game smarts at all times i.e Mexico and Germany were very good at this, no point doing step overs just to make you look good a good footballer has to demonstrate they can solve a football as themselves or mostly as a collective with the skills they have.

In fact having these 1v1 skills is weapon of choice they could use when the reality but should not be the only option, runs off the ball, passing skills, crossing skills, creative play such as wall passes, one-twos, 3rd man runs are main factors which we didn't do enough of which concerned me.

This is what makes an x-factor player, mandatory high technical and physical level, intelligence and perception of identifying the football problem and execution.



Edited by Barca4life: 11/11/2015 02:19:05 PM

yes agree, 100%, application is the key but this also comes with have the game smarts of knowing when and where , do I pass or dribble ,do I shoot or pass ,how do I defend against a left footer playing on the right side?
all of the above were at times lacking at the WC.

On another note , where have the COE boys gone to now ,have any been recruited by A League clubs or overseas or have they returned to Canberra til end of 2016 season.

pretty agree much with this and in particular 'gliding past players' , when you see a player that can do this at junior level then you know you have something a bit special.

In a way, aren't we doing this already, or should be? The best of our talents in this area, from recent generations, do bring a degree of this to the table? Tom Rogic, Daniel De Silva, Chris Ikonomidis... ?

Edited by GloryPerth: 12/11/2015 06:16:15 AM

Olyroos play Qatar tomorrow morning our time over there. Not sure what time exactly? Than Iran next week in Dubai.

Edited by lebo_roo: 12/11/2015 02:01:10 PM

These 2 games will give us a better understanding of where we are at in relation to Olympic qualification ,We should have a near full strength u23s squad for these games ,made up of players from both Europe and A league also 2 uncontracted players in the mix.
BTW what is the latest on Brad Smith, cant be much fun been without a club?