Have you met Scottish Football fans? Bitter doesn't even begin to cover it.

We hate the split, it was brought in as a shitty compromise to avoid having to play 44 games each season but still ensure that Celtic play Rangers 4 times a year. The problem is that teams play each other three times before splitting into the two groups which is unfair due to fixture imbalance and robbing smaller teams of bigger games as well as being seriously dull.

Nearly everyone I know would rather the Scottish Premiership be expanded to 16 teams, for a total of 30 games at which point a split is a bit more palatable or we just fuck off with it altogether and end the season there.

I think MV's defense was much better organized and effective without Rhys Williams to the point where you could put twinning the championship down to his injury in the warm-up in the semi.

Could be true... so we put him in midfield where he belongs next year. 

Boyle should not be playing for Australia.

The national side is a representation of the nation and of us as a people.   A bloke not born here, who has never put foot in Australia until last week, should never have been selected.  I don't care what other countries do and I don't care how good he is.  (And he was excellent last night.)

Maybe if he was born here and then moved away. Maybe. But in his particular situation no way.

It cheapens the shirt.

I wish it would cheapen the shirt... have you seen price? Fucking ridiculous. 

100% agree. 

If he was born in scotland, but spent significant time here then ok, but he has not even been here before. I am sure he counts himself as Scottish and not Aussie. 

True.  That would be the only other way I'd be happy with him being selected.

Just posted this in the match thread but IMO Degenek is/will be a better CB than Sains. I've been a huge fan of Sainsbury but his lack of football is finally catching up with him.

You may be right, but time will tell. Degenek has age on his side and is already playing at a high level. It's really going to come down to Degeneks next move. He would surely of caught the eye of some big five league teams.

Dudes playing champions league for his childhood club. I’d imagine he’d be in no rush

Sainsbury had an off performance, but is still comfortably one of our best. I would pair him with Degenek and move Millsy back into midfield, where I think him and one of Mooy/Luongo are still our best pairing. 

I agree, however now he has been selected, I wonder if this will bring out him really embracing his Australian link.

Cahill was very passionate about playing for Aus even though he chose another country first

There is nothing wrong with Boyle playing four Australia.
We should support any player who has the luxury of dual nationality making the choice to play for us.
It’s a huge honour to play football for a nation, and I don’t know many that would reject the opportunity, even if it was for a nation you’re only eligible for through your heritage.
I’ll support the bloke and those that selected him.

What ginniou and that Croat kid?

Couldn't care less about Boyle playing for us, however there's not honour involved in this. This is just a professional sportsperson capitalizing on an opportunity to increase his own personal value after not being good enough for his actual nation. 

Had he had the opportunity to choose to play for Scotland or Australia he would've chosen Scotland every single time.  He's Australian as a panda bear.

I'm on record here saying that having that Croatian bloke in the world cup camp was a joke.

As for Giannou as he spent a fair whack of his formative years here I have no problem with that.

Yeah I'm kinda with you Muz. Just feel a little dirty about Boyle in the side, same with Karacic. 

Giannou is a different story. 

But at least he didn't choose to play for another country (like Samoa) and then switch allegiance - cause he'd never be one of us then, eh?

But we’ll accept Arzani lol 😂

Let’s just play to the FIFA rules hey - and his father is an Aussie so don’t underestimate the love he will have for this country.

Weird hearing a Scottish accent aye, but I watched a young man who was very proud to play for his country so no problems for me

Born in Iran to Sima and John Arzani along with his brother Ben, Daniel moved to Australia with his family at the age of seven and was raised in Sydney before moving to Melbourne.^[2][35][36] He is fluent in English and Persian.^[22]Arzani is a former student of Sydney Boys High School and La Trobe University.^[37][38]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Arzani

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cahill

Samoa[edit]

1994 OFC U-20 Championship[edit]

Although born in Sydney, Cahill had lived in Samoa for three years before returning to Australia as a child. The Football Federation Samoa invited Australia-based Cahill to play for the country at the 1994 OFC U-20 Championship. The competition winners would qualify for the 1995 FIFA World Youth Championship. Cahill made his debut for the under-20 team at the age of 14.^[68][69]Cahill later reflected: "They asked if I would take part, even though I was only 14 at the time and it was an under-20 tournament. I saw it simply as a chance to go on holiday because my grandmother was ill at the time in Samoa. It was a chance to go back and see her on expenses as the Samoans were paying for all my flights, accommodation and living expenses. I could not have cared less about playing for them. It was a men's tournament and I never expected to play."^[70]He made his début for Samoa in a 3–0 loss against New Zealand coming on as a substitute. He also played against Vanuatu in another 3–0 defeat.^[70] He played alongside his older brother Sean, who was a goalkeeper. His younger brother Chris later went on to captain the country at the top national team level. Tim Cahill never represented Samoa again.

Change of allegiance

In February 2002, Cahill received an offer to play for the Republic of Ireland at the 2002 FIFA World Cup by Mick McCarthy, his former manager at Millwall. Cahill has Irish grandparents and McCarthy had hoped that Cahill would be interested.^[71] However Cahill was not eligible as he was cap-tied to Samoa.FIFA changed its eligibility rules in 2004, allowing players capped at junior levels to switch international allegiance, meaning that Cahill was then able to play for England, Ireland, Australia or Samoa. He chose to represent the country of his birth.

So Arzani is OK by me, Cahill as well and Giannou. 

Karacic is a no as is Boyle.

@ Muz

Not sure what your post is re Arzani?

The sooner this country just accepts FIFAs rules and gets on with playing football the better; this “we’re unique” shite needs to stop.

Boyle qualifies to play for Australia. End of story.

yep I'm with you Waz, lets get on with it !

Mmhmm. We've lost so many amazing players over the years who had varying levels of ties to other nations. In the ruthless world of football, I have no problems with us now getting some the other way.

Imagine if our golden generation squad (90s and 00s) also had Christian Vieri, Joey Didulica, Josip Šimunić, Tony Dorigo, Avraam Papadopoulos, Ivan Ergić, Georgios Samaras and Anthony Šerić. Some of those players admittedly have looser ties than others (e.g. Samaras), but if we could have kept/poached all those players, we would have not just qualified for World Cups but would have been competing for them.

The point is Arzani got here when he was 7 and developed as a football player in Australia so selecting him for Australia is fine by me.

As for FIFA rules what sort of low bar is that to aspire too?  Just because FIFA 'allow' it doesn't make it right.  FIFA awarded Qatar the World Cup.  A morally bankrupt load of shit if ever there were one.  

I hope our standards are better than this, but im not trying to knock the lad off he was fantastic and was just positive in how he played but what does it tell me? But he was deemed not good enough for Scotland(although they decided to call him up) but was good enough for us instead?

He was our best attacker by far and certainly questions the type of players we have seen in the national team in the last 10 years or so and the fact that a lad who has never been to our shores untill last week can make an immediate impact at international level starting off against his cameo against South Korea? 

Gee i hope the next gen show more promise than the previous attackers, its no wonder we still relied on Tim Cahill for so long.

Is this result of the old development system? The coaching? The lack of depth? Who knows but i feel embarrassed that Scotland could develop a better attacker than our current lot.

I have been impressed with Sainsbury over the years as our CB. Unfortunately, as the Coach's son-in-law, its a bit too close for comfort to have him captaining our side whilst demonstrably not up to his normal form. He should not have been in the side, let alone captain, against Lebanon.

I'd say comparing the ethics of the transparent and published rules that govern selection of players for all 211 national teams aren't the same as the behind the scenes chicanery that got us the Qatar world cup.