https://socceroosteamofthecentury.komo.site/

Kinda rushed it and tricky with the formations. A bit more nostalgia and appreciation if I'm honest. People can have fun with this. I started around 1994 as a kid so the past legends I can't vouch for like those who saw them.

                              Schwarzer
                  Neill     Yankos  Moore
Emerton                                          Chipperfield
                Bresciano   Jedinak
                          Cahill
                                   Kewell
                           Viduka

Bench: Ryan, Wilkshire, Warren, Holman, Aloisi.

Scoring at a WC gets you in. Honourable mentions to Tobin, Sainsbury, Culina, Vidmar, Popovic, Lazaridis, Skoko, Mooy, Luongo, Leckie.

Milan Ivanovic needs to be in that back line. Nothing in football could get past him. He was nicknamed the surgeon because he would pierece attacking lines with precision. He was also so clean in the tackle and so in charge of his ability that when he went in, he had already spent the ball in his mind. He'd dissect the opposition and already know exactly which team mate the ball was going to after. People fapped about Zidane's ability to trap a ball in flight as if his feet were hands of silk - Ivanovic could do it with the base of his skull. He used to put my team through training drills and we'd lob balls to the heavens and just one after the other he'd catch on the back of his head and place them down on the spot for us... just silk

Very close to my team I had Tobin, Warren and Muscat in

lol Luongo? Of all the great midfielders we have you pick Luongo for an honourable mention? He hasn't played for the Socceroos for years, he hasn't even got a club at the  moment. Lol. Anyway..

Schwarzer
Emerton Neill Ivanovic Lazaridis
Bresciano Zelic Grella Kewell
Viduka Cahill

Honourable mentions: Bosnich, Okon, Chipperfield, Luongo

I think it was how instrumental he was in the Asian Cup. Great in the Honduras away game. Stupid club choice and cruelly shafted by BVM in Russia.

Ivanovic gets plenty of plaudits on here. I wish I'd seen him. 300 games for Adelaide and no one says you have to go back overseas. Has it ever been mentioned why he didn't go back to Europe? I can imagine a good NSL life not the mention the conflict in Yugoslavia would've been a hindrance to going to the comfortable environment. He does get spoken about though that he'd have been a show in for the Bundesliga or Ligue 1 or the top Belgian clubs of the 90s.

This era was just before the "you have to go to europe" era which started with Harry and the Duke. That said, players still did go, but it was a bit half and half. In the early 90s, Adelaide City was a key NT nursery but they generally were close to last for the first couple of months oft he NSL season because players would go and play in Europe then return midway. In the case of Ivanovic, going back to Serbia wasn't an option at the time, but also this bloke was just hopelessly an Aussie and wanted to give back at every level of the game in Adelaide. Staying in Adelaide City was your NT shop window at this time and it served him well.

Kudos to that. Would be a top 5 defender if playing these days. A good story.

GK.  Bosnich
RB.  Culina
CB   Neill
CB   Ivanovic
LB   Chipperfield
DM   Grella
RM   Emerton
CM   Cahill 
LM   Kewell
AM  Bresciano
ST   Viduka 

                         Schwarzer 
                Neill     Ivanovic Yankos 
Emerton        Bresc       Zelic        Chippers 
                                Cahill 
                       Baartz          Kewell 
                               

                               Ryan 
                 Moore  Sains    Wilson
Davidson      Jedinak      Crino         Lazaridis 
                 Abonyi                  Farina 
                                 Aloisi     

Anyone who selects Viduka, Bosnich or Okon for this needs to be locked and banned from the thread (as good as they were at Club level). Vice versa Baartz simply has to be in the team. The one im really tossing up is Joe Marston. Only played a few official matches but played a lot of Unofficial games. 

Just asking: why Davidson?

I would imagine it is Alan Davidson,the father of Jason Davidson.Alan was a very  good FB and would be well above his son in the pecking order

All 3 were better at club level but I think we were able to experience pieces of Viduka in the national team. A very quick think, Aloisi was more successful for Australia than Viduka? The penalty, Confed and WC plus he scored against Japan at the Asian Cup.

My ignorance again 😉
Cheers.

So hard to pick and some good squads mentioned already..
Over the decades we have had some great players to watch considering our history.
My punt :
Schwarzer
TVidmar Neil Ivanovic Laza
Bresch Zelic Grella
Baartz Viduka Kewell

Cahill, Aloisi,Chippers,Jedi,Emo,Culina,Wade
Mentions - MSchaefer,Abonyi,Alston,Utjesenovic,JRooney

Like your list LFC.

Can I add Mehmet Durakovic as a nuggety defender and Oscar Crino as one of the all time greats.
Paul Trimboli as striker (as much as I love him to bits) misses out, but not by much - maybe best keep him on the bench for last 15 mins wizardry :)

And of course Angie to manage.... 

Absolutely, the man was a machine even into his 30s.

Thanks, some legends I wish got far more cred but thats not having the social media of the modern days.
I actually hurt more for Roo/Johnston, he did what he had to do for those times, I don't blame him but that his comments we're obviously jumped on we we're a basket case back then but re OS honours he's above all and played for a pretty good Euro Club :)

Yes you can and I also tossed up re Crino and Trimboli was another player that you think yes or no to start up for he gave it his all I liked his attitude.

Alan Davo was a solid strong bugga, held his position well, he must think what colour is the son going to trot out to the pitch this week lol......

Most posters here are too young to remember Les Scheinflug who played in the 60's for the famous Prague club in Sydney and played in 1965 when we tried to qualify for the 1966 WC but came up against the North Koreans who smashed us( they made the quarterfinals of the Cup,beating Italy and losing 5-3 to a brilliant Portuguese team led by Eusebio) Les was the outstanding Australian player and scored both our goals in the matches against the Koreans.He regularly featured for Australian XIs when overseas clubs such as Everton,Chelsea,Moscow Torpedo visited  and held his own against highly rated full professionals.

He was extremely left footed but made up for this by his football intelligence,excellent ball control and aggressive attitude.He later became a very successful coach particularly with youth teams but had stints coaching the Socceroos.He was a disciplinarian and did not tolerate slackers.

He would certainly be in the running for an AM role in any Socceroo squad.

_______________Bozza_______________

Davidson----Ivanovic------Popovic------v Blerk/Chppers

Zelic------------Odzakov------Crino-----Markovski/Lazaridis

---------------Dukes-----------------H Kewell----------------

Never heard of this Odzakov bloke but Lazaridis was my favourite player when he was in the roos. Romped down that left wing like a champion.

Rale Rasic put him in his greatest ever Socceroos side-in 2006 at the height of the Golden Generation.  Dominated the Scots in Melbourne in 1985-for 20 minutes. Don't know he wasn't picked for the first leg and didn't start the second leg.  He and Crino are probably the only two genuine number 10's we've ever had.

Chippers is way overrated imo

Take out, Chippers, put laza there, wasnt markovski up top? Anyway, I'd put aloisi for dukes as I cant remember Viduka having many big games for us (although one of my favourite players)
Maybe yankos, but other than that a nice team

Enzo I recall him - he's got my ol mans blood.
I like how he played a rippa against one of my idols KK but thought it was appropiate regards the ethnic thread what he quotes in a 2019 article :

What do you think of today's football from a club and national team perspective?

"I follow the A-League and the national team on television even when I'm in Skopje. I tell you, I wish I was playing now. It's a professional league and the money is much better but the quality of football is not much higher than when we played.
"There is an important reason for this, I think. In my days as a kid we played at every opportunity because we had a craving for the game. Today's kids seem to be more interested in computer games than real games. There is no hunger for football.
"Today young players come to training with their $60,000 cars and generally you can tell that they are not that desperate to succeed because they have everything. Their attitude seems to be 'if football does not work out I'll try something else'. They give up too easily. This is probably one of the reasons Australia is not producing as many good players as before.
"We have many academies all over the country but the question must be asked: 'what are the kids being taught?'. Something's missing."
https://www.sbs.com.au/sport/article/socceroos-greats-where-are-they-now-zarko-odzakov/swgtnldcu
Touche

Alan Davidson ... not Jason lol. 

Aloisi was top scorer at the 2005 Confeds cup. Scored in the 06 WC, something Viduka didn't do despite playing far more minutes. His record otherwise is much better, even against better teams. Who did Viduka ever score against that was decent? Ireland is the only decent team i can remember him scoring against (they were decent back then) and it was a tap in. Aloisi just seemed to raise to another level playing for the roos, Viduka the opposite. I heard a rumour from a very good source years ago that after the 2001 playoff loss to Uruguay that he said to Kewell "fark it we have our club anyway". Add to that he regularly didn't rock up early in his career and at the end of his career took a sabbatical from the roos whilst he was still playing for Newcastle. One of the reasons Gus giving him the armband was a masterstroke, as he knew it would lift his engagement level. 

Looking at his record he scored 11 in 43. Prob thinking 'well thats not that bad?!' But look at the teams those 11 goals were scored against.. 
Tunisia 
mexico
Ireland
Soloman Islands x 2 
Jamaica 
Singapore x 2
Iraq
Thailand x 2 

i remember him scoring against Ireland as i mentioned - before that match his record was 2 in like 25 caps. And you lot complain about Robbie Kruse and Leckies records!!! His late career playing against poor asian teams helped pad his scoring record out to be respectable. 

Lot of short memories on here, no way Viduka gets in the team, but because a lot of you 'watched him in da EPL' you're selecting him in the team. 

Ask yourselves, besides that scissor he scored against the mighty Solomon islands, when did he ever score a brilliant goal for the roos?! Exactly! 

I actually think he regretted selecting to play for Australia instead of Croatia for much of his career which explained his absolute apathy towards us up until 2005. 

Simply cannot be in this team but unfortunately everyone will vote him in because of his club reputation. 

 

Agreed, went up another gear playing for Australia so many games i remeber him absolutely dominating his opponent. Iran 97, France 01 and England 03 he tore those matches up.  I think his wing back role suited him more too wheras for club he always played as a LW - wasn't very agile / culdn't dribble through defences was better running in space and getting crosses in so LWB suited him. Kewell being a socceroo brought out the best in Laza in that regard as otherwise Laza prob would have been the LW/LF (with T.Vidmar the LWB). 

And Hiddink demeaned him as the 'Greek.' Hiddink went wrong by not utilising Lazaridis and Skoko at the world cup particularly against Italy. It's got to be remembered how good Lazaridis actually was at the time. He wouldn't have been out of place at all.