Yet acclaimed Peruvian  master coach, Argentine national, Ricardo Gareca, said in Peruvian media that it was very difficult to play football against the Socceroos, because of the sophisticated tactical and game plan. 

Gareca did not mentioned Arnie by name, but gave him a huge compliment.

If our coach is lauded by someone with  Gareca's stature, reputed in South America to have formed a terrific Peruvian   team unit out of moderate playing cattle, then this is exactly what we want in a national team coach isn't it?

Times have changed. Australian coaches are well-trained in Football Austrlaia coach education courses now.   

Mind you, the losing coach has a massive vested interest in praising the winners.

Otherwise he's admitting he lost to a worse team.

D2, I wouldn't rate that highly being he's been their NT coach for 7yrs with a 40% win ratio.......GA is at 61% right now so I see.
What else could he say as mentioned above by a losing coach, he should have said my tactics we're all wrong, I screwed up my boys heads, we had the ability to win in 90mins but my game plan was poop and I couldn't change the course of the game.

Huh?  Isn't he admitting he was out-coached?

Yep, that was my point.

Remember Scooter? "We were beaten by the best, boy!" 

Gareca's record may be modest - in a strong football Confederation. However, from what I've read recently, Gareca has had  considerable  success with Peru in the latter half of the CONMEBOL WCQ campaign.

I've been accused of going into too much detail about formations and game plans. Hence, in order to defend Arnie's coaching prowess using football specific performance  criteria, I will go into more detail, briefly, to elucidate  the two coaches' game plans.

 A majority of fans  in Australia  are  very harsh on our own players and coaches.  They appear to suffer  from an innate inferiority complex compared to Europe and South America. I find this weird.  Nevertheless,  I see it apply to other sports and film/TV/drama industry too.

Very sadly, now Arnie and other Socceroos state this - that  they realise the majority of  supposed football fans in Australia are critical of the Socceroos and don't support the national team.

*Gareca got Peru to play with a 4-3-3 attacking midfield triangle in Ball Possession.

Then in Ball Possession Opposition he dropped the two wingers back in a line with the  two attacking midfielders.

This manifested as a 4-5-1, with a 1:4 midfield shape.

Gareca essentially used two formations, which the Socceroos negated a lot of the time. Peruvian sustained periods of possession often amounted to sterile domination.



* Meanwhile Arnie used a 4-4-2 flat midfield in Ball Possession Opposition.

Then when they regained the ball in the Attacking Transition, in the defensive half the formation in Ball Possession manifested as a 4-2-3-1.

As the build up moved  higher up the pitch, it manifested as a 4-3-3 attacking midfield triangle, with Irvine moving up into a line with Hrustic.  Meanwhile, Mooy sat and moved into  a more central position screening the defensive line.  At the same time Duke was up top in a three player line  with Leckie and Boyle. There were four lines in this Australian formation when the Socceroos deployed it.

At other times, to confuse Peru, Australia kept Irvine sitting in a line with Mooy, but pushed Hrustic up high in  a line with Duke. This manifested as a three line 4-2-4. We did not play a 4-2-2-2 with a false 9, as some pundits claimed, because the wingers, Boyle and Leckie, would have to have played in a higher line than the one with Duke and Hrustic.


Australia held effective  shape  in all four of  these permutations. This requires good coaching. It also confused Peru as they could not work out how Hrustic and Irvine changed their roles, particularly in the first half.

Also the 4-4-2 flat midfield  in BPO was compact. Ideal distancing of 10-15 mates was managed most of the time - between and within the lines. It had improved immeasurably from a few games back. Peru found it hard to penetrate, particularly in the first half.

Let us give some credit to Arnie. 

D2, FYI I have no worries of your detailed posts at times, its your POV and time spent assessing games - its informative to me and at the same time weather I agree or not it no matter mostly I keep it to myself.......
Gareca's record is 50/50 overall, have they punched above their weight ? some games probably for as mentioned they sure are in a formidable competition.
To me he screwed up despite how good our our tactics were as explained they had enough chances by mm's that weren't taken plan and simple.
Thats football just ask Klopp the recent loss's.
Looking at the Roo/Peru stats near on everyone it was that close tbh.

you quoted below :
 A majority of fans  in Australia  are  very harsh on our own players and coaches.  They appear to suffer  from an innate inferiority complex compared to Europe and South America. I find this weird.  Nevertheless,  I see it apply to other sports and film/TV/drama industry too.

We're not the only ones "harsh" - just ask the pommy fanatics re Southgate and the 3Lions despite making the Euro Final last year.
Many Euro/Latinos are just as harsh and more.
We on the other hand have such high expectations its ridiculous to me for a long time, even during the GG tenure your biting your nails till FT where are these expectations coming from.....
The arrogance inbred in us since those golden 50/60/70's Olympic days, Tennis golden era back then, the wonderful cricket cycle its like, look at us punching above our weight but my has so much changed since those glory times yet - oh we're better than them still we should be flogging them, yes definately a complex.
Football people here expect us to beat every ME/Asian with a plumb barring Jap/Sth Korea for eg - like I just think wtf.
The tall poppy syndrome is rife here, like with Ange and GA even more.
I've sat quiet re GA - grew up watching him play, same as Ange, funnily GA got the NT gig because Ange walked.
Despite that occurring imo its always a poison chalice especially for one of our own, oh Ange was a BR and MV coach, I hate him, GA was CCM walked out to a better gig to the hated SFC, can never like him, plus he screwed this up screwed that up before yaddayaddayadda.
.
I'm so so glad he got that monkey off his back and we qualied and many here ate their poop.
Sure he'll get found out come the WC imo BUT so did every single one of our past coachs in games let alone depending the cattle capable.
I really had concerns making it BUT you only had to win that last game, even at the very last moments in pens, heck that'll do me.

Very detailed is OK  when discussing a coach's strengths and weaknesses.Apart from the late extra time header hitting the post Peru did not really threaten.Arnie had our defence finally tuned including two inexperienced players at this level( Atkinson and Rowles) and Wright who has been on the periphery for quite a few years. The fluid movement of Mooy,Irvine and Hrustic in the midfield was the factor that puzzled the Peruvian players and coaching staff as you pointed out.

Peru did not press high enough especially when Mooy had the ball and he was able to control the tempo of the game( I believe Peruvian fans and press were appreciative of Mooy's performance).

The benefits of the longer time in camp showed in that our team were disciplined in keeping their shape and following the game plan as they had time to work on it and understand their roles.All credit to Arnie and his staff and I think they learned something about themselves as well as about the players.

I don't mind reading your analysis, it is always interesting to hear someone's POV, whether I agree with it or not (and on a lot of occasions I do agree).

One thing I would say though, you said "Very sadly, now Arnie and other Socceroos state this - that  they realise the majority of  supposed football fans in Australia are critical of the Socceroos and don't support the national team." I would not agree totally with this, I do think that lately many football fans in Australia have been critical of Arnie and the Socceroos, which I think is quite justified, but I would certainly not say that the majority of football fans do not support the national team.

Agreed.

A hell of a lot of fans will come out of the woodwork around November.

True but the time difference will be a bit prohibitive when it comes to watching live, as always is the case.

Kick-off times being used will be 2:00am, 3:00am, 6:00am, 9:00pm, Midnight. (Local Eastern Australia Time)
The round-of-16 games, quarter-finals and semi-finals are all at either 2:00am or 6:00am.
The cup final is at 2:00am on a Monday morning.

The Australia games are:
Fra vs Aus - Wed 23rd Nov @ 6:00am (I might be late to work that day, but depends on the score at halftime)
Tun vs Aus - Sat 26th Nov @ 9:00pm (Perfect day/time, everyone will be watching)
Den vs Aus - Thu 1st Dec @ 2:00am (If we have zero points from the first two, then I'm staying in bed)