Jordan Slovakia should be interesting. Tunisia lead Iraq early. China 2 Philippines 0. Uzbekistan 4 Best Korea 0.

Typical Jordan counter attack to take the lead. Slovakia dominating but Jordan get the goal. 

Fair play to Jordan but Slovakia noticeably have their bigger names on the bench in Skriniar and Pekarik. 

Slovakia came back to win 4:1.

Looking long term if Arnie plans to play with 2 defensive minded midfielders in a 4-2-3-1 how do we look across the park

GOALKEEPER: Ryan has this locked in, if there's an injury Vukovic is an adequate replacement and Langerak next in line.

DEFENCE: RIght back is still a slight concern, Grant has a great motor but his defensive work is questionable at times against better players, Risdon will need a big season to get back into contention. Sainsbuty and Degenek look our best partnership with Jurman, Wright, Williams, Spiranovic all capable to step in. Behich has left back to himself, Smith and Gersbach give us good depth but Gersbach needs to find regular game time if he's going to kick on.

MIDFIELD: Mooy needs to be our #10, he can open up a defence and get shots on goal but is wasted sitting deeper retrieving the ball. Irvine has the engine and ability to get forward and support as well as get all over the park. We really lack a Jedinak type player to break up play and offer some physical presence in the middle. Luongo is consistently inconsistent and probably needs a fresh change from battling relegation with QPR. Jeggo, Amini and O'Neill did their case no harm last night. Rogic is the ultimate impact sub against tiring defences and another who probably needs a move if he's going to kick on.

ATTACK: This is our biggest area for concern, despite having some decent quality. Leckie, Mabil, Arzani, Boyle, Ikonomidis and Nabbout are the standouts with Giannou, Borrello, Williams, Taggart, etc on the fringes. Leckie has all the attributes to be a decent striker, strong on the ball, fast, powerful and good in the air and his finishing has improved. If Arzani can get back to where he was and Boyle continue on his early performances we've got good supply and goal threat from our wingers but I don't think you can have Rogic and Arzani in the same 11 unless you're at home and have a lot of the ball. 

Taking out the old guys that will be over 34 in 2022, we are left with a list like this imo.
Doesnt really include many of those young guns in the olyroos squad that have a slim chance.

GK-Ryan, Langerak, Redmayne, Thomas, Izzo
CBR-Sainsbury, Wright, Chapman, Dellbridge, Elsey
CBL-Degenek, Jurman, Susnajr, Souttar, Good
RB-Grant, Risdon, Deng, Strain, Atkinson
LB-Behich, Gersbach, Smith, Davidson, Elder
DM-Luongo, Jeggo, Dougall, Baccus, Wilson
CM-Mooy, Oneill, Amini, Antonis, Brillante
AM-Irvine, Rogic, Mcgree, Petratos, Hrustic
RW-Leckie, Boyle, Mabil, Arzani, Buhagiar
LW-Ikonomidis, Goodwin, Borello, Williams, Piscopo
S-Maclaren, Nabbout, Taggart, Duke, Yeoboah

pretty good hit out last night. i liked the mobile defencing midfield pairing.  i'd like to see mooy or rogic play as the #10 in front of that.

i asked the question in the match thread - which australian player has scored the most goals for the club/s this season?  

is adam tagggart and david williams on 11 goals in the a league the best we have?

a bit out there.  but spiranovic is one of those players you hear described as 'the most technically skilled player in the squad' when other players talk about the NT.

i'd like to see him throw his hat in as a striker.  it would be enormous for us to have a 6'5" striker to sub on when we were desperate.  i know it's a bit of shit football but anyone that's watch the NT for the last 10 years has seen we have been reliant at dropping crosses into the box at the best of time.

arnie's not shy on the idea, he used souttar in the same way right?

on a side note, his passing seemed light years beyond jurman and wright when he came on last night.  a real shame (for us) that he wasted his career for so long in china.

You know that what we literally could try souttar there as just a poacher. We wont ask him to run much just sit in and around the box


Maybe a formation like this with a lot of pace
                     Souttar
Arzani.         Rogic/luongo             Boyle

               Mooy--amini

Smith/behich----degenek----sainsbury----leckie


Just plonk souttar in the box and make our other players do all the running and put crosses into the air for for his head. We actually do have some very quick and athletic players. Try it out against Bhutan or Bangladesh or some shit team we could beat with 10 men at home

I'd also like to try to get Luongo back to being the player he was at the 2015 Asian cup and am not all that impressed with rogic

-----------------------Ryan----------------------
-----------Sainsbury------Degenek-----------
Grant-------------------------------------Behich
--------------Jeggo--------Oneill----------------
---Boyle------------Mooy--------Ikonomidis---
----------------------Leckie-----------------------

--------------------Langerak----------------------
-------------Deng-------------CB*----------------
------------------------------------------Gersbach
--------------Amini---------Luongo---------------
---Mabil-------------Irvine-------------Arzani---
------------------------Duke------------------------

Redmayne/Rogic

*Young CB choices?. - Susnajr, Chapman, Wright, Dellbridge, Souttar potentially.

Play Rogic on the right wing, let him cut onto his left. His highlights at Celtic are all around that area of the pitch. Use a RB capable of providing width in the attack ala Grant. Keep 3 working class CMs, or play Mooy at 10 and place 2 ball winners in behind him.

I think we also need someone pacey in the middle who can get in behind. Giannou is decent but the rest seem to back into their man. Maybe Leckie in the middle despite his finishing not being the best these days. 

                                   Ryan
              Degenek   Spiranovic   Susnjar
Leckie                     Sainsbury                  Gersbach
                                     Mooy
Borrello                      Rogic                      Ikonomidis

In a 4-3-3 I'd go with:

                                       Ryan
Leckie          Spiranovic          Degenek          Behich
                                   Sainsbury
                                       Irvine
                                       Mooy
Borrello                         Rogic                    Ikonomidis

or spira. 

my philosophy is this.  if you dont have a player that can fill a role - dont have that role in your formation.

when ange went to a 442 diamond (which imo is the best football we played under him) and then into 3/5 at the back - this was an answer to the fact that our wings and fullbacks were by far our weakest option. so why put 4 of them in the formation.  shifting leckie to the right wing back was perfect for that problem we have.

now we have 1 aus striker that hit double digits in any pro competition - on the planet. adam taggart. great start him. but we have another problem 2 x top class #10's. mooy and rogic. so for me a solution is to scrap the striker out of the equation - unless taggart is on.  we have wing that can score. the glaringly obvious solution to this is to play rogic as a false 9. linking in with boyle, ikonomidis, mabil as scoring wings.  we can do this in a 433 or in a diamondish shape.

TLDR: no decent striker available. dont have one in ur fkn formation.

grant----------degenek--------sains--------------behich
----------o'neil-----------mooy------------luongo
---------------------------rogic
---------boyle----------------------------ikon

rogic dies after 55 minutes. bring on taggart or whoever and switch into a more traditional 433 with no other subs required.

Macau have pulled out of qualifying citing security concerns in Sri Lanka, after winning their home leg 1-0. Sri Lanka qualifies for round 2 with a 3-0 result awarded for the second leg.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/football-macau-not-sending-team-to-sri-lanka-due-to-security-concerns

Much rather play in sri lanka than iraq

I've got a number of sri lankan friends and apparently it's a nice place. Terrorism happens in every western country now pretty much anyway, it's become part of the global world we live in.

Do the Australian cricket team play games in Sri Lanka? I'd pick up the phone to them before going to ask for a neutral venue like Macau did.

Can definitely agree that I've heard that Sri Lanka is a great place to travel, a mate of mine just went there recently before the attacks and loved it. As you say, maybe we should also be worried for the Matildas in France right now, they've copped it more often lately.

To answer my own question, seems they played test cricket games there as recently as 2016, but of course that was before that dickhead did what he did in Christchurch, which was apparently the motivation for the church/westerner attacks in Sri Lanka.

That said, the Kiwi cricket team is currently scheduled to tour there in July.

The multiple and coordinated attacks in Sri Lanka, according to security experts, would have taken months to plan. They were of al Quaeda or Islamic State level of sophistication. The Christchurch attacks were only one or two weeks before. So maybe a convenient post-attack justification for the Islamic State propaganda machine but nothing more than that. Of course, both Christchurch and Sri Lanka attacks were disgusting.

Fair point. Of course once the draw is done and the fixtures are set the same people will again have months to plan.

Even without such organisation, like Iraq, it only takes one person in a crowd of thousands...

Remember that away match in the Middle East when someone threw that pyro that went off on the field a few metres away from Holman? It was that easy to sneak in and throw, and could have easily been far worse.

SL is a very scenic country, but has very humid and sticky heat in the low thirties.

WC Qualification underway. Guam v Bhutan.
Live stream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDzPRSZLhR8

Danny McBreen is an assistant at Guam.
Lets bring this S*** home Guam.

#SocceroosvGuam

So the Copa America invite is official. Do we still have to officially accept? Would love it! 

We’ve accepted - Arnie has quotes out there in the media today. Job done ✅ 

https://youtu.be/TwJCFnD3KwA

Qatar fight back from 2:0 down to draw with Paraguay. 

Redmayne v Messi.  No competition.  :w00t:

this is great news... we are always complaining that we don't have enough opportunities for the squad to get together in competitive matches and gel..  this tournament coming at the start of the WC qualification process can only be  good thing.  Also if we Qualify for Tokyo then this tournament can again be a good preparation for the Olyroos.

I think Qatar has somehow all of a sudden left us for dead. They're getting great results on a consistent basis and we are now rubbish now that Cahill is gone and can't score. 

Who remembers our first WCQ match under pim against Qatar at docklands stadium where we blew them away and were 3-0 up at halftime. I even remember Fozzie saying they were rubbish and were Oceania standard! Lol

Oh dear, who could have envisioned this 11 years later. What are we now pot 2 Asia standard?