Let us know how they go against the Uzbeki's early in the morning. For anyone who will be awake for it.

what time?

3:30am

FTS

Down 2-0 after 41 mins. Going to be tough from here.  Watching via the wifi of my Spanish hotel foyer. 

yeah thats the deal with our defence? why is it that we are always so vulnerable to counter attacks? 

Tajikistan beat China 2:0. These young central Asian teams appear very fit and motivated. Improvement of their technical ability will see them only be challenging for us in future senior matches. 

Down 3-1 now with 10 to go.

i dont fancy our chances against Tajikistan...

Finish 3-2
Not much to say , Defence pretty awful for first 2 goals
Third goal great skill by their winger
They had man red carded on 55min
We scored 2 pens
Kalik come on for rose
Kusi injured

is that the only way we could score against them? jesus thats pathetic

Too many balls in transitional play for me in the first half that I watched.

In Ange Postecoglou's book, he went into some detail how the Oz youth system needs changing - expressly by adding more clubs in a bigger HAL with 16 teams.

Ange wants more clubs in a bigger HAL, before a HAL 1 and HAL 2 with promo/releg, to provide more pathways for youth players. According to him, there are only 8 HAL youth games played  between HAL clubs in a season.

There are are two specific threads on Ange's book  in the Performance section of the forum. 

Agree , but to be fair the 3 goals were very soft
First goal from midfielder not tracking his man
Second goal Left back skinned , ball across box for tap in
Third goal , good work again by Usbekistan right winger, got cross in which should have been cleared by Cenrte back and another good finish.
Last 35 mins was farcical with player been sent off and then players going down injured all over the place , the refereeing at this tournament has been woeful imo.
Anyways , all or nothing v Tajikistan on Friday hopefully the lads can do what they did in Veitnam after been beaten by Thailand in the group stage they went on to win next 2 games 5-1, 5-1.

We really did not look good against the Uzbeks.. I dont know that there were too many future socceroos out there.. not many impressed..
disappointing effort made look not as bad as it could have, with a red and two pens going our way

Now I've had a look at the Uzbek game until the first Uzbek goal was scored, I think the Oz team was playing better against them than China in terms of cohesion. I had a look at most of the first half of the China game. However, Australia appeared to create more chances.

Both China and Uzbekistan were very physical, and squeezed high up the pitch in full presses, until Uzbekistan applied a half press after the initial burst of full pressing.

In the early stages of development, Australian underage rep teams were mandated to play with two DMs. In a 1-4-3-3, this is known as the defensive midfield triangle.

The under 19s, and national teams onwards, including the senior Socceroos, are now playing with the 1-4-3-3 attacking midfield triangle. This is a more attaching formation and makes teams more susceptible to counter attacks. I've noticed Spanish club teams teams preferring to play like this.

The antithesis of this is the way Pim played with the Socceroos. He had two screeners in the defensive midfield triangle version of the 1-4-3-3. This enabled Australia to negate more counter attacks, but they had less forward impetus.

The better aspect of the game against China is that Oz created more chances on goal, despite making more turnovers.

Some posters have posted they are fed up with conceding on counter attacks. Even if we do, only one team, Italy, has been consistently successful playing counter attacking football on the world stage at senior level.

All other teams who have enjoyed sustained success in international football , have played trying to dictate the game - not waiting for opponents  to make mistakes.

Again one weakness appears to be that Mutch at RB, and Bandiera at LB, even though improving, still seem to struggle jockeying and turning and chasing opponents and dispossessing  them if beaten. Too many crosses are coming in from the opposition.

Mutch is good in the 1v1 block tackles and sliding tackles. Bandiera is also very effective going forwards.

In saying this, apart from Brad Smith, I've seen few Aussies at any level who are good at this - jockeying, delaying, turning and chasing and dispossessing opponents  in the full back positions.  

Maybe Zullo, Elrich and Davidson are up to par? If I looked at opponents more closely, it might be the same in other teams as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q1C0MAQNhI

Bit of a dent in our progression hopes.

We looked second best throughout the match, credit to Uzbekistan they look quite strong physically and have a couple good individual players up front which i think this team lacks.
We struggled to create any sort of chances which is worry given we had alot of the ball, huge last group game coming up.

Just saw that Worst Korea has been eliminated from the tournament by Saudi Arabia. Whilst it's nice to win everything available to us, just goes to show that youth results don't necessarily translate into senior results, especially in the AFC.

Anyway, we've got Tajikistan at 3:30am AEDT tomorrow morning, so hopefully the boys can get back on track with a good win.

A draw not enough. 

At senior level Saudi Arabia is top of our world cup qualifying group at present.

Usbekistan are top of group atm, we have to win tonight to set up a quarter final date against Japan on Tuesday .
Look for a all out attack tonight , the loss of Kuzi with a season ending ACL is a big loss however I think we can get a result .

I see we need to win as we are currently on 3rd place behind Tajikistan, not ideal but can be done.
 3 30am kick off...catch up on the score the next morning then 

The match just finished scoreless so we are out. Whether it's Okon or Talay or the Vidmar brothers. Same results. As Ange say's it is a very complex issue rather than just the coach. 

I found these comments from Stefan Mauk

Check out @StefanMauk's Tweet: https://twitter.com/StefanMauk/status/789533580842106880?s=09

Well said by Stefen , the gamesmanship by Tajikistan and the referee in this game was appalling , missed pen in first half was a killer but we had about 12 shots to 1 on target , enough to win any game.
Should have went to 353 a lot earlier .

As in the opponents have older players? Our youth teams are just rubbish? Our team is selected on show you know and not ability? 

I'm not exactly sure what's meant by all this.

Oh that tells me a lot. Every game has its own 90min and we've seen so many underdogs handle bigger sides. If the manner is gamesmanship then that's another thing. Our teams have to focus on making the most of the chances and trying to avoid frustration. 

Gamesmanship it is then , every time a Tajik player was touched they went down as if hit by a car .
Trouble is they get away with it and it's a blight on the game , however having said that, we did have enough chances to win the game easy.
Can't really blame the coach or the players , maybe should not have copped 3 goals v Usbekistan , that was a killer.