Good post, CH.

Decentric, I agree, I think Arnie will do well in the WC qualifiers and Arnie, his assistants, and the squad will all be better for this Asian Cup experience. A loss against Syria would undermine everyone’s confidence in Arnie, mine included, but like you, I’d consider sticking with him anyway. We don’t think long term in Australian football, and backing and investing in Arnie might be a good start. And once he has players like Mooy and Arzani back in the fold, combined with a more experienced bunch from this Asian Cup, I think there’s good reason to be confident about the next few years.

Any coach would be under the pump regards 2 points.
A massive rebuilding stage were going through And worse having so many injuries or otherwise to start up players going into a tournament.
I agree CH, Arnie isn't the best gaffa by all means but he sure isn't the worst imo - we've experienced some beauties over the years.
He made the right 3 calls for the 2nd game and not many give him credit enough and Crap on about hoof ball/cross's lol......
I wonder how many cross's Cahill received in his record tally of goals for us he put away with his noggin ! or did he slither on the ground putting them in with his head being it was passing through them all the goals went in ffs.......
What do pundits here expect, we won and won convincingly what we all wished for tahts all that really matters for one. 

and lets not forget ....every season a few more kids join the A-league or Overseas leagues...you never know who is just around the corner ...I will be curious to see if any of the National Curriculum kids start coming through in the next few years . A six year old in 2009 (when it started) would be turning 16 this year ...should be just starting to be looked at for NYL sides .Over the next 5 years we will see what comes through ....and whether the NC is working.

I think this post proves how delusional the anti-Arnie brigade really are.

Hoof it it the box? What the fuck are you on about? We passed the ball on the deck more than with Ange in the last two matches! We don't even hoof the ball in with corners half the time!

 

Because a large proportion of people who posted here WANT him to fail, even at the expense of the national team. 

It all comes down to the GIF where Arnie is shaking his head a few years back. People were revelling in Sydney/Arnie's failure. The following years they got egg on their faces when Sydney went on to be the best side the league has seen. If Arnie succeeds as Socceroos coach its going to be egg on face like we've never witnessed before. 

They can't allow that to happen so people make up lies like "he's a bad man manager" or "Arnie hoof ball" to justify it all.

I dont see that at all

I think people (rightfully) go with the logic that a coach who wins a rigged balanced league cannot translate their efforts in an open and competitive international competition

You only have to look at the number of players who got their spot in the Socceroos by scoring 20 or whatever goals in the A League who have "strangely" gone quiet for their club abroad and national team. Its the same for the A League coaches too

I dont see how Socceroos being second to Jordan was washed away last night by beating a team ranked 99th. Last world cup qualifiers we finished 3rd in a group. Now we are behind Jordan too

What fans know is that the FFA clutch at straws when it comes to vindicating their poor decisions and non action. If Australia make the quarters, they'd probably deem the tournament a success because it is in the AFL / NRL

Its not nice to want to see the national team fail for the message to get across. But unfortunately thats the way it is. Fans dont want to see the Socceroos fail because they are sick of them. They just want those in charge to reap what they sow

So why did people openly call for Ange's appointment 5 years ago?

@bluebird, serious question here. So has Arnie become the lightning rod for all that’s wrong with Australian football?
In other words, this is not just about Arnie the coach or man, it seems to be about the FFA, the problems with the A-League, our relative decline in World football etc etc. If this Arnie thing is about more than Arnie, and that’s how it seems to me, then that’s (a) not fair, (b) not rationale, and (c) not going to achieve much if Arnie gets sacked because none of the other problems will necessarily be fixed. I’d rather see the positives, and incrementally fix the negatives in our game, and along the way see our national side win as many games as possible, and see young players do well in tournaments like the Asian Cup, and see Australian coaches, whoever they are, do well. This won’t patch over the gaps, but provide a better foundation for fixing them.

Bluebird and the like don't do positives. They get a perverse satisfaction from any and all failures within Australian football because it allows them to gloat. These people are psychologically twisted and downright evil. They're a cancer on the local football community. The best way to deal with these embittered psychos is to simply ignore them. 

I dont blame Arnie. I didnt start this thread

There seems to be this myth that the coach does 100%. If the team wins its because of the coach, if the team loses its because of the coach

Arnie has been set up to fail because there is nobody coming through

Individually Australian players arent retarded. We are a nation that invests it sport, have more resources than other countries, and have opportunities abroad that other nations dont get. World cup qualification is essentially an inevitability, and with the current set up we have even won the Asian Cup and even the ACL

But this top level "success" masks a broader problem. The elite pathway is fucked and the quality of players coming through is poorer than when we had a semi professional league run on a shoestring budget

Any coach in the same position would have the same problems as Arnie. So I dont blame him. One point I did make is success at the A League shouldnt be used to determine whether somebody can be successful in a competitive environment. Whether or not Arnie should be in charge and whether he is to blame for the results are two different discussions

Thank god for this post 
+1 

Im not anti GA just calling it as i see it and what i have seen in both matches is poor tactics and a manager out of his depth   

We were naive back then. I think we the benefit of hindsight, most would question the selection of Ange back then (do you really want to go through another intercontinental playoff rather than direct qualification)?

To take your side however, Arnie is a more abrasive character than Ange. 

You need to learn what "hoof ball" is before claiming to call it how you supposedly see it.

Never mind the fact a coach we plucked out of a balanced, rigged league somehow guided us to become the Champions of Asia...

Nah I don't buy it. Ange lost the plot a bit later on but he did very well in the first 18 months or so, transforming the squad and winning us the Asian cup. 

This reemergence of cultural cringe re national-team coaches is hilarious. As soon as someone brings up the fact that Ita a choice between an Australian or another Holger or Pim everybody mysteriously goes quiet. 

If you went back to before the reform and gave Soccer Australia access to Asia you would have seen world cup qualification and possibly an Asian Cup win also

With our resources and ability we should be dominating Asia. Thats why we were invited in. Not so we can get a fair path but so we can help develop Asia as a region. Japan were not only behind us but their fans would turn up in more numbers to see Kewell play than their own team

You are giving Ange credit for winning the Asian Cup. How many goals did he score? How many runs did he make on the wing or beat the defender? This is exactly what some are saying is wrong with this thread

The Socceroos won the Asian Cup because of players that were developed through systems of other countries. Dont forget we won the ACL also. But there is no doubt whatsoever that the grade of players coming through our system and going abroad is declining. It just cant be seen because of the small number of measures for success

We finished 3rd in our group in the Asian world cup qualifiers. Did Ange have a bad game?

Bluebird, I generally don't disagree with the sentiment of your "closed league" argument, but your obsessive compulsion to pigeonhole EVERYTHING into it means you end up making statements like this which are, quite frankly, embarrassing for you. 

When you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail.

@bluebird and @Coffee Jackal I have a much better understanding of your respective views now, thanks. I agree with almost none of your views on Arnie or the state of Australian football, its history and our place in Asia, but it’s a game of opinions, so nothing lost in disagreement.

Ange played the exact same style for his entire tenure as coach. In 2015 he was a genius. In 2018 he had "lost the plot"

The coach plays some part but is not everything. The decline of football in this country is very clearly the lack of players coming through the A League system. I dont feel in the slightest bit embarrassed for being able to recognise that

How about i leave it with this comment it is a game of opinions and i respect people who dont agree with mine though some of your people have a clear bias from GA SFC days because in the two games we played, the football was abysmally bad but if you saw something else then whatever....

Ill leave it with this regarding the 'state of football' in Australia 

We left the OFC to 'improve' our football 

Playing Solomon Islands etc were deemed 'not competitive' and bad for the game. 

I would argue the pedigree of the sides such a Palestine and Jordan are of a similar (granted slightly better)  ilk then those of the OFC yet those defending our national team manager GA are saying that is 'good enough' even though we just beat a country that isnt even a real country (without trying to be political) and lost to a nation 99% of football fans around the world wouldnt be able to name 3 players in there starting line up and probably not even find them on a map.

How can we deem that 'competitive' and 'acceptable'? you cannot blame the players for the hoof ball we played both games and the lack of interest in this competition mirrors that of the interest in games that we played against teams in the OFC if we are being honest....

The only thing i can deduct from fans on this forum in the past decade is the bar has been lower so much that it would seem joining asia has made us a much worse footballing nation and that is a little sad 

The way I see it with Arnold is that his success has come from tactics that are well suited to the way the game is played in Australia, but not Asia and not international competitions.

He does have some strengths in keeping a tight defence and structure, good press, not conceding many chances and some good success in exposing the weaknesses of opposition teams. He also had a habit of relying on giving away fouls to break up counters as part of that press.

He’s up against teams now that are more skilled to create chances, better at counter attacking and the refs have less tolerance for the way he instructs his players to foul.

Too early to see if and how he’s changed his approach for the NT

Have always wondered what would have happened if Soccer Australia somehow managed to get into Asia with the NSL still running (especially before David Hill started fucking everything up). There probably would have still been a significant reform to bring things up to AFC standards but it maybe would have meant the eventual professionalism of the game wouldn't have been so destructive and exclusive. The money from WCQ's would have been a massive pot of gold for the governing body.

Eh? What about the infamous change to three at the back in the last 12 months or so? 

And starting Brad Smith (who was not playing for his club) and benching Mooy for the Syria game

I'd give my left nut for another Pim- qualified in a canter,  4 points at the WC, beat Serbia.  And don;t gve me this shit about how great his squad was.  Pim gets the credit for picking the team and blooded many future socceroos including captian Jedinak.  And Holman who was everybody;s whipping boy


A 0-4 loss against the best German team in 20 years who also put 4 past Maradona's Argentina and England and all of the sudden Pim's being ranked under Postanoclu and Arrnold. People with NFI should just stay quiet.

Reaction to these two results has been very entertaining.  As I said on Page 1, the coach can only work with the players he's got - and Arnie currently has a very thin squad to work with.  Losing to Jordan was disappointing, but hardly the end of the world, beating Palestine is a relief, but hardly an indication that we're flying.  We'll not lose against Syria, then we can find out what our level really is in the knock-outs.

100% that Enzo

As I’ve said before, that 2010 campaign was only disastrous over a couple 1%ers (the Germany game a big one, Kewells red card another). His mandate was get to the WC, and he did that with I’m pretty sure the best defensive record in worldwide qualifiers. Pretty successful if you ask me.

Holger was a little different, he should have blooded a bit more youth than he did, but ultimately, he got us there directly.

Agree with this. Pim has been tarnished with the Holger brush.

As for Arnie v Ange. Arnie is a bit more abrasive a character and polarising. I don't think Ange ever was. Both were successful in the HAL but when Ange was dominating, he didn't have the backlash whereas Arnie did (even during his CCM years albeit to a lesser extent). My position has always been to give him until the start of our qualifiers (around 18 months - 2 years) but this tournament might shortcut that depending on how we perform.