Agree. The zRef never saw the angle thay showed convlusively that Risdon connected with the ball. Also why was the French 'hand of God' player not given a Red Card. Personally I was very happy with the Socceroo's performance and thought feel that the Soccerros were most unlicky not to get a point out of this game. Hope they can regroup and go on to win their next to games.They have the ability to do so.

Interesting fact from Sky Sports : the French only had two shots on goal after the first 8 minutes. ( Unfortunately for us they were both goals).

Agreed. It's all in our hands going into the next two games. That's all we could realistically ask for.

In theory this should also be a wake up call for France and hopefully force F to lift their form a bit the next 2 matches.

Risdon still tripped the player by contact with the back leg. It is irrelevant that he touched the ball first.He still fouled the player in the act of tackling so its a penalty so he got a yellow not a red.

Top effort, guys. Very proud. Gutted by the result. But gutsy performance from all of them. Trent Sainsbury and Maty Ryan, in particular, just phenomenal.

Now we need a Australia Denmark match thread.
Juric, Luongo and Irvine to start

Regarding the VAR thing. It was as if the ref and VAR team just rushed it. Given how big the call was, surely they should have been more sure.

In cricket when it goes to DRS, they check, double-check for a whole bunch of different camera angles, with hot-spot, with snicko and with hawk-eye. Rather than going, nah yeah, that's a penalty. If you want to bring in the technology, at least do it properly.

Post Socceroos world cup matches I get a massive emotional hangover. Fuck that point would have been brilliant.

Iceland still holding on and now they'll get all the limelight. We're still being reported on positively at least.

Gutsy, won respect, honourable sometimes...I wished we can get the rub of the green and actually get a result.

Chile, Netherlands, France sometimes it would be nice to get some luck on our side, Denmark next for me it’s a must win a draw or loss would make it very hard.

Put everything on the line guys! Let’s make the world take notice!

I am proud the almighty and invincible France was held 0-0 at Half time by a bunch of unemployed Dole bludgers on Centrelink tht are fuelled by Victoria Bitter lol 

CARN YOU CENTRELINK SOCCEROOS !!!!!

We need more of Arzani, Rogic has disappointed a lot for me.

Whilst I'm disappointed the Socceroos couldn't hold out for a draw, I have to say we did ourselves proud against one of the best sides in the world.  I honestly thought France was going to put 5 or 6 goals past us,a 2-1 loss to a football heavyweight like France is no disgrace.

Mate if he gets the ball then the resulting trip is redundant given it was in the process of tackling the ball. The touch is central to everything

Rogic does fine if you play him for half an hour at the end. Rather than from the get-go.

Nearly and essentially took a point from the group favourite. The Denmark game will be a different type of match. Gotta keep that solid defence going but attack better. 

It's gutting. It's always soooo close. Against Italy, against the Netherlands and now against France.

You're right we'll need that defensive strength against the Danes. Theirs is a very good side. And we're going to need to attack better. Maybe BvM isn't too fussed with lack of chances against France (given how little possession we had). Let's just hope against Denmark it's more along the lines of chances we created against the Czech Republic.

With VAR I want to see us get the ball into the box a lot more. The one advantage is you'll have a better chance at getting penalties normally waved away by the ref. The box will now be a sin free zone. 

Especially if it's somebody like Kruse or Leckie who aren't usually the best shots on goal in the first place, lol.

I wonder if BvM can tailor our game a bit to win us more penalties. Fucking VAR. But gotta play the game, I guess.

I so wish we'd taken a point today. I actually feel Denmark beat France. 

the on field ref practically was having a merk game it was a little frustrating. Big nations have the refs on their side

in any case we are close enough that 4 points is enough from here especially if the next game is a draw. If its not a draw we have to win against the winner of peru v denmark

Just glad all our players except Rogic had a good game. Kruse was not as good as Leckie but bad isn't a word that enters my mind.

Surely clubs in Europe will be thinking 'that Risdon is insanely cheap and can be handy for us.' 

Scouts are always watching but I think the pressure of the world cup helps prove if a player is able to compete. 

I can't see the posts in this thread, but I read one where the French only had 2 shots on target , after the first 10 mins.

In the  first 10, I counted 3 or 4 French shots on target.

I thought I also read that we had 4 shots at goal, but 2 were on target, with Lloris' finger tip save from the set piece in the first half.

Craig Foster keeps denigrating the Socceroos under BVM, for playing a less proactive game plan.  Pertinently, he should've praised the team's defence as it has improved out of sight.  The structure in BPO is tighter, and  the shape is more condensed under pressure.

A further defensive  improvement over Ange, is there were constantly 2-3 defenders swarming.The first defender often had the support of a second and third defender to cause a turnover as a collective unit - from good defensive coaching.

It might not be most fans cup of tea, but as coaches with semi-pro and pro-training, we have to do a lot of training in defensive structure. I enjoyed it immensely.

It had to change.

After Ange had a very good period from the World Cup in Brazil, and the Asian Cup, after a few games into Stage 2 of the WCQs, we became very predictable once he abandoned 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 attacking midfield triangle, to a 4-4-2 and then his voodoo 3-4-2-1.

The BVM coached team sat off, with  more conservative squeezing, a deeper defensive line in BPO, and , without being so susceptible to opposition counter attacks in our defensive transitions.

It helped that the French adopted moderate squeezing after initially applying intensive squeezing in those first 10 min.

France also closed down our passing lanes and space in midfield, but  we improved at playing through them as the game progressed.

We didn't create a lot of chances, but after the first 10 mins, neither did they. 

Risdon was often very good going forwards, but early on was guilty of poor body shape in defending 1v1, which led to fouls being conceded.

I thought Mooy played his best defensive game for the Socceroos as a DM. He won many hard balls, won many tackles and also  made intercepts from effective reading of play.

When the French originally adopt the full pressing and intensive squeezing, he and Jedi were ineffectual at screening the  back four.

When France dropped off in squeezing  intensity, and adopted to a half press instead of a full press, Mooy and Jedi improved a lot at maintaining defensive position when they had the ball. This meant the back four were screened more effectively.

A couple of people suggested before the game that Milligan was the weak link.

Over the last four years he has probably been our most consistent player, but  more as a DM.

He made a lot of intercepts and blocks through excellent reading, plus timed some very good tackles. His distribution, as usual, was excellent.

Thankfully, for Milligan after attending 3 previous World Cups, where he only managed a half against Chile before he was injured, he played a full WC game.






As a defensive  team unit all did their job well, although Rogic struggled to contest as many second ball contests as quickly as one would've liked.

Some notable stats for the game:

1. Mooy had an absolute pearl of game 5 tackles 3 intercepts and 2 shot assists, 58 passes at 78%

2. Jedi like the last world cup was surprisingly ineffective in defence managing 0 tackles and 0 intercepts. His discipling in staying in position is useful but he was a traffic cone at times

3. Kruse had a special game in defence shielding his full back from too much worry. He made 5 tackles in defence. He also drew a lot of fouls cleverly when playing out and things looked a bit frantic. Drew 5 fouls in his game. Surprisingly Leckie didn't rack up his usual defensive numbers this game his defensive contribution was pretty much limited to some fouls. Some in dangerous areas

4. Rogic our most accurate passer at 95% and managed to win a couple of 1v1s in attack, second best on ground after Mbappe. Also drew third most fouls after hernandez (6) and kruse (5). Pogba made things difficult for him however. Him and mooy were key but hope they play better next time. 

5. While Irvine offered little in attack he did make 2 tackles which is better than Rogic's 0. Here the stats can be a little misleading though imo. Rogic causes oppositions to be reluctant to push every player forward. Notably the score was 1-1 with rogic on and 1-0 with him off. I view him as key to our defence 

6. Risdon and Behich had busy games with 4 tackles each. Risdon unlucky he also made a match losing rather than a match winning challenge. I suppose he was unlucky (the VAR in particular was strangely used as it wasnt a howler) but if he gets a tiny bit more ball we have a point. Risdon struggled to play out though with 63% passing accuracy which put his side under a lot of pressure

Based on this I'd start luongo ahead of jedi in the next match but keep the side unchanged

I hope arzani gets more minutes. Limited touches but those touches were class

Good to read these stats.

 I'm not sure where you complied them from?

whoscored.com are taking stats for every game

Although winning few tackles,  Jedi was often part of a cohesive, well organised defensive combination of first, second and third defender. 

It was often the work of the unit as a whole that resulted in someone winning the ball, not individual brilliance.

This has been very well coached under BVM.