Sometimes one has to sit back and laud the opposition.

France played some of the best football yesterday that I've ever seen against any Socceroo team in history, since 1973.

Im not trying to be smart to you for a change but do you now understand my point about not wanting to be embarrassed again?

Arnie did protect the flanks by selecting Goodwin and Leckie as wingers. Both are good defensive players when the other team has the ball - and they track back well.

Arnie's game plan was sound. The intent was for the two Aussie wingers to provide extra support for the Aussie full backs. 

It is just that the French wingers were too good.

Good to read this from an experienced ref.

I thought the one who adjudicated Aus/France was good.

Unlike some others here I had absolutely no expectation of competing against this France squad on any footballing level.  I expected a 4-0 shellacking.

But I do expect us to not be at or near the bottom for technical ability at the WC for 4 World Cups in a row now. Tactics and formations come on top of basic footballing skills.  We clearly are not developing or not selecting enough of that.  Something has to change.

One has to get the timing of a Full Press, Intensive Squeezing, or counter pressing right. An opponent can play through it if they are highly skilled.

It  is easier to maintain shape by deploying a Half Press or Partial Press.

Having said this, Saudi won against Argentina by maintaining excellent off the ball shape in BPO, sometimes risking a very high line defensive line in a Full Press in the game. It was a very poor Argentina by their own standards though. South American football could be in decline.

The thing that needs to change is the profile of the sport in Australia, for us to improve relative to the rest of the world.

We just do not have enough talented players sticking with the game after age 12.

I think you are quite realistic. Because we played France where they had a very bad day in the last WC, people realistically expect more of the same from us.

However, I did  check on their UEFA WCQualification campaign. They could not beat Ukraine in WCQers.  France didn't beat Finland or Bosnia by the same margins they beat us either.

Disagree. The fault lies with Atkinson. He does two things wrong. 1.   He loses the ball due to a terrible first  touch 2. He then hesitates and reacts casually  thinking he has the time and space to retrieve it. 

Blaming the defensive shape will not address the root cause:  Atkinson's poor skill.  Which TBF he's not alone in, except he was the one exposed and made to pay dearly for.  That should moment should be a wake up call for everyone involved in youth development.

Maybe someone answered my question (have asked about 8 times) elsewhere but has ANYBODY heard that he made himself available again?

I for one never heard that

That's ridiculous. Some weird personal axe to grind there

He hasn’t gone backwards, he just isn’t very good. Sometimes players can have good games, where they get involved a lot, and make lots of passes and interceptions etc, without possessing much prodigious talent. Atkinson is just a player who is lightweight in terms of talent, speed, strength etc but I guess in certain formats (ie U23, A league) they can appear to be a lot better than what they are. Rather than looking at one or two games in which they played well its better to look holistically at their situations especially their club form to ascertain their true quality and value as a professional footballer. Atkinson has been mostly rubbish for Hearts, with a few flashes here and there. Even if he was to become a Hearts regular, its still just Hearts, a league comparable to Finland or Cyprus. We shouldnt be lookng to the SPL to find Socceroos at the expense of our own league.

Deng is another player who “starred” at the Olympics, yet can’t even get a game in the Japanese top flight. Which do you think is a more reliable indicator of talent, “starring” in a handful of games in an u23 tournament, or constantly being left out of the senior side in the J league and eventually having to drop down a division to continue his professional career?

Thats another problem with GA, he’s picking players who he “knows” from his time with the Olympic side; Atkinson, Deng, King etc rather than players like Dougall, Elder, Davidson etc who play at a much higher level. 

Does he have to?

 
Behich and Mcgree, although not great, not terrible, looked like they belonged at that level. Its hard to have a good game when you’re being totally smothered by your opponent, and your coached by a clown.

Nope. I think people just want to believe Arnie left him out of the squad out of spite like with Langerak.

Players don't make themselves "available".

They make themselves "unavailable".  Rogic made himself unavailable for two qualifiers.  He said nothing about the World Cup.  Until he or Arnold says otherwise, he was available and not picked.

Oh my God you can't make this shit up:

That's just your take. We are both speculating

However, re-word my sentence too if you're going to be pedantic.

Did Rogic want to come? Was he called and said no? Did he make it clear when he bailed on the qualifiers that he was done but asked people not to announce his retirement to not be a distraction?
etc etc etc etc

The drop in level in the Socceroos has, in my opinion, more to do with the number of games these guys play at high level over a season Vs other nations. 

Yes we no longer have a team full of Big 5 league players but I think that's not the MAJOR issue at play.

Take the Saudi's as an example. They beat Argentina on (effectively) home soil but with a completely domestic squad (yes their players don't play overseas because the money is too good in the Gulf). 

How many games would your typical Saudi National Team player play over a season at a top level domestic club? 
- 30 Domestic league games
- Minimum 6 ACL games, but given these teams go deep, more likely 9-10 games. 
- Arab Club Champions Cup (yes hasn't been played since 2020, but it's still most likely another 6-8 games)
So that's circa 40-50 games. 

On top of that you have all the national team matches:
- World Cup Qualifiers
- Asia Cup Qualifiers
- Arabian Gulf Cup
- Friendlies 
etc. etc.

These guys play a shit load of football. They are seasoned professionals. 

Australian domestic players are part-timers by comparison. 

This is a HUGE issue we need to fix ASAP!

We don't ask those questions of other players that weren't picked.

Hi Graham! 

I’m going to go pie in the sky.  And yes, you’ve heard this before and yes, I’m opening up myself to ridicule and yes, this seems to happen every time he is available but….

Bielsa is still without a job.

Having had some time to absorb prior games, the Saudis did well but were incredibly lucky.
The tip of the finger offside disallowed goals and chances on another day would have seen them 4-0 down in 35 minutes.
Good on them for picking themselves up from that and not losing focus but it was a freak game

Your earlier summary and some of aflEnzo's comments I agree but one thing needs to be reiterated.
NOONE in here expected us to give France a run for their money but we expect commitment and fight nothing more nothing less.
Every Champion is beatable on the day and the Messi boys loss isn't to question is south american football in decline D2 give me a break.
What it presented is the beauty of football, a minnow got up due to 110% commitment and countless plays fell their way, you got to make your own luck right and Argies whatever they tried/over tried broke down due to SA's sheer commitment putting them under pressure.
Same applied as you checked on France's quali ride, they struggled at times against some minnows.
They didn't hit form against us, we fell off after the first 25mins after they settled in and found their marks.
No rocket science using their flanks with the speed.
We were never going to contest all game no doubt about it but to roll over and be owned (thanks to arnie's tactics and selections but we haven't got much in anycase) France didn't need to lift as if playing against Germany or Spain etc they we're going through motions for they had space galore, time to play and look with hardly the pressure like the other minnows have been able to apply in their games the last couple of nights..

Despite our total inept lack of ability you'd think fitness was there obviously not when your ball chasing !!!!, Arnies lack of changes, I said at HT he should have taken off Atkinson for starters (like wtf leaving a green kid against that outside awesum beast of a player) but to watch us being run over like a kickabout not making more changes till 72min marks is dead set coaching incompetance at this level.
I have been on the fence with Arnie because FA made their call nothing we can do, its been mentioned over the last 4 odd games leading into this shellacking, that yes aflEnzo it was expected but his coaching vision is amiss, doesn't he see we can't hold back forever, we need subs to maintain intensity and ffs some forward press.
Your just waiting on the inevitable, the guillotine in doing its job.

IF we come out of this Tunisia game with some kind of respect thats all I can wish for atm.

Because they a) aren't as high profile but b) because they didn't go MIA completely and refuse to even answer the coach's calls before the vital qualifiers

C'mon man

Watching Japan and SA in the 2nd half with their fighting spirit and compared to us against France is very sad. 

The problem is we didn't have even a partial press, especially in the second half. When France had possession we just continued to drop back deeper and deeper in a 451 defensive formation and gave France all the time and space they needed to build an attack. No pressure of the ball carrier or receiver. It was just a gutless, throw in the towel effort.

Have a look at how Japan employed a 451/442 defensive shape against Germany, especially in the first half when Germany had so much possession. They didn't just allow the Germans to waltz through until they were 30 metres from goal under no pressure. There was always someone from the block of 4/5, or the one up top, looking to put pressure on the ball receiver. And then, when Japan did win the ball, they immediately looked to counterattack with great speed, not pass the ball backwards further and further and allow Germany to reset their defensive formation.

I am still so frustrated and embarrassed at how timidly we played, and the coach has to take responsibility for that. Even his demeanour post match was very "well, what could we do?". Well, show a bit of fight and pride to start with.

Like Decentric says that was an awesome performance by France, they are a joy to watch.

My point to you has been that we've always deficient bar Harry, Dukes & maybe a couple more Mooy, Bresc on our first touch for as long as I can remember.
Ninko has a better first touch then most of our GG players. I've seen improvements but we need to be better.

I don't think our view on football itself differs that much, just in our view of the administration of it. My belief is after 40 years of watching the game in this country, I would say only Dukes & Harry's first touch was world class, this is a deficiency in our coaching for a very long time, not just the 18 years of the A-league.

Yeah I feel like with Germany in 2010, this won't be the only game France scores 3+ goals.

I am on record stating I hated our sitting deep and allowing them to have the ball for 75 minutes and that Duke was under clear instructions not to press high etc etc but it's still true that France would have scored several against many many many teams in the world that day

Yeah, it's almost as if Rogic specifically didn't want to play in the sudden death qualifiers and Almost retired. 

Arnold even said he'd give him every opportunity to be in the squad.

ffs Enzo. 

100% agree