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Davstar
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Posts: 9K,
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+xIs it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I know we had a 'good world cup' but this post 'reeks' of blind bias - we have won 3 games in the world cup since joining Asia, drawn 2 and lost 10...... I mean Mitch Ditch Duke plays in the J2 League..... settle down now. Now as for the rest of you question i got nothing against players playing in 2nd tier divisions like the Championship, 2. Bundesliga etc as most of the top 5 leagues have a better 2nd division then most top division. - in Europe and the world ie the Championship is probably better then the Eredivisie... Now - were this post needs clarity is players should be aiming for leagues better then the AL - i would argue Turkish Super Liga are a lot better then the AL but the 4 nations i highlighted you could argue if they are not any better then the AL (however a few big clubs might be an exception) I dont think the SPL is much 'better' then the AL however Rangers and Celtic are fairly big clubs both have regular UCL/ECL football and the money is significantly better then the shit show that the AL pays so it could be seen as a gateway for players to Europe - as Scotland has a 'similar' standard of living/Culture to Australia ie English speaking etc Players will head to where the $$$ is we need to break this 'mentality' players need to go to Europe to get better and change it to players will go to Europe to star at a good level. Until Top 5 leagues are directly signing players from the AL (and the wider part Asia) the focus should be solely on how to 'up' standards to the level in which a clubs like Manchester United, Juventus etc turn around and say this 'young Australia player is gunning it in the AL and ACL lets sign him and give him a shot' Standards have 'come a long way' but we still have loads of players heading over to Europe and sitting on the bench - although we can moan they aren't given a chance the fact is the players aren't good enough to break into the 1st team at a decent level. - until that happens consistently nothing will meaningfully change.
these Kangaroos can play football -
Ange P. (Intercontinental WC Play-offs 2017)
KEEP POLITICS OUT OF FOOTBALL
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BrisbaneBhoy
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 2.9K,
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+x+xIs it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I know we had a 'good world cup' but this post 'reeks' of blind bias - we have won 3 games in the world cup since joining Asia, drawn 2 and lost 10...... Take away the rose tinted glasses and it does bring the performances in to respective.
🇮🇪Hail Hail🇮🇪
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Balin Trev
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 3.7K,
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+x+x+xIs it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I know we had a 'good world cup' but this post 'reeks' of blind bias - we have won 3 games in the world cup since joining Asia, drawn 2 and lost 10...... Take away the rose tinted glasses and it does bring the performances in to respective. The only 2 teams that beat Australia are now in WCUP final 😉
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Davide82
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 12K,
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+x+x+x+xWith our thread on Aussies Abroad, there is an inherent assumption that many leagues overseas are better for Socceroos to play in than the ALM. There are some extremely knowledgeable posters on this forum who know a lot about where our Aus players play overseas football. I'm not one of them. What has changed in this World Cup, is that with us reaching the last 16, no longer can accusations be levelled at the Socceroos, or Asia in general, for qualifying in a weak Confederation. Hence, denigrating our quality. Pertinently, we were only 5th ranked in Asia in the WCQ campaign. Yet since we've qualified as 5th ranked Asian team, beating the UAE, we've: *Beaten the 5th ranked South American team in WCQs - Peru. *We've beaten one of only 5 African nations to qualify for the WC - Tunisia. *We've beaten the 10th ranked team in the world in the WC, Denmark, where quite a number of our players play football. Looking up Denmark, the three teams our players have played for are the three best teams in Denmark, with one of them having significant Champ League/Europa league pedigree - FC Copenhagen. *We've also pushed Argentina to the limit in the round fof 16. The current problem is that many overseas leagues where our players play club football are usually playing with and against domestic players in those leagues who have no experience in international football. Or a failed experience in international football. Many mid ranked UEFA leagues have teams who regularly don't qualify for Euro Champs and World Cups. These are leagues that our club players play in. They are also often coached by coaches who have no direct experience of international football and international football trends, depending on their domestic football federations. A few leagues where it might be better for the development of international players outside the European big four, who our players are rarely good enough for, supposedly, could be Croatia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the USA. I'm surmising they redress the phenomenon that is our major problem in Aus - the short 26 games home and away season. In ALM there are a few Football Aus Cup games, and, at least ACL games for one/ two clubs. Which is close to ideal if a club is in the ACL. With Croatia as a league, it is dominated by two big clubs, with European Champ League and Europa League pedigree - Dynamo Zagreb and Hadjuk Split. Croatia national team comprises players generally from the UEFA big four, or they play for Split and Zagreb. Of course, Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal are desirable locations, if players can gain a contract. These are constant solid performers in World Cups and Euro Champs. The also have 2-3 big clubs, who provide a lot of national team players, along with domestic players who play in the big four UEFA leagues. I have not watched much English Championship League for a while, but there were some awful hoofball, second ball teams in that league who played football dross a few years back. Which is useless to develop international players. At the same time when I was watching the Eng Championship, there were an increasing number of teams who like Coach Benitez, had teams playing quality possession football. The Championship is the 6th richest league in the world, but tactically, and in terms of style of football, it was generally useless for developing players who reach the last 16 teams of the World Cups. Australia has achieved a lot reaching the last 16 in Qatar. Playing against teams like Argentina, France and even Denmark in World Cups, and reaching the last 16 is a far higher standard that most players club scenario play against - even in the 6 big World Powerhouse leagues. One issue is that UEFA football prepares players to play well in Europe. Many UEFA national teams, highly ranked is world rankings, choke playing in Asia, the Mid East, Africa, or Asia. Despite our modest playing resources, Aus are able to produce a battle hardened football team used to playing in countries with unfamiliar cultural phenomena. Maybe it is time to rethink where our Aussie players play overseas club football to be the best players they can be at international level? Is it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I've always maintained that the best league for players to play in are determined by a number of factors (not in order of precedence): 2. The position of the player (some leagues are better for honing defensive rigour whilst others suite more technical players) This is a really good point. However, whereas it was considered to be a terrific education to play in Italy as a defensive player, their national paradigm can be considered problematic at this point in time. They have failed to qualify for the last two World Cups. Their average current Italian domestic players one would assume to be inferior to what the Italians used to be - relative to the rest of the national teams in UEFA. Switzerland topped their UEFA WCQing group for Qatar, and Italy were knocked out by North Macedonia, who failed to qualify themselves. Italy are the current Euro champions. Not to mention Decentric's new obsession with Italy/Serie A bashing is misguided at best. Even if the national team managed to lose a game (with 37 shots to 1) and miss the world cup, the league itself still had a huge representation at the world cup. I posted the stats here a few weeks ago of which leagues are most represented at world cups in the last 20 years and even with Italy missing two world cups they were third. Would have been second had they made it.
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Davide82
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 12K,
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And before he says the last 20 years isn't a valid unit of time, let's look at 2022 alone. Serie A had the 4th most WITHOUT Italy being there. Add 20-26 serie a players onto this list if they did make it and see what happens too | Premier League | England | 136 | | La Liga | Spain | 83 | | Bundesliga | Germany | 75 | | Serie A | Italy | 68 |
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BrisbaneBhoy
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 2.9K,
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+x+x+x+xIs it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I know we had a 'good world cup' but this post 'reeks' of blind bias - we have won 3 games in the world cup since joining Asia, drawn 2 and lost 10...... Take away the rose tinted glasses and it does bring the performances in to respective. The only 2 teams that beat Australia are now in WCUP final 😉 Yep, and there is really no shame to losing to those teams (performance wise I cannae comment as I didn't watched any of the matches) as both Argentina and France a fine teams. Argentina was my pick at the beginning of the Tournament, but either of the teams could win the whole thing. My comment about Davstar's was he brought in some perspective, nothing more, nothing less. Side Note... Is it just me, or do things feel kind of weird that we are both being civilised towards one another (and have for a wee while)??🤔😄
🇮🇪Hail Hail🇮🇪
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Davide82
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 12K,
Visits: 0
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+x+x+x+x+xIs it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I know we had a 'good world cup' but this post 'reeks' of blind bias - we have won 3 games in the world cup since joining Asia, drawn 2 and lost 10...... Take away the rose tinted glasses and it does bring the performances in to respective. The only 2 teams that beat Australia are now in WCUP final 😉 I cannae comment as I didn't watched any of the matches Not even the one at 9pm? Not even a mini-match? Aha that's almost impressive! If I lived in Scotland and (I assume) moved my entire life there, I'm pretty sure I'd have watched ONE of their games at a world cup.
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bettega
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 4.8K,
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If you're happy with being a middling football nation, then yeh, Scotland's great.
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Balin Trev
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 3.7K,
Visits: 0
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+x+x+x+x+xIs it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I know we had a 'good world cup' but this post 'reeks' of blind bias - we have won 3 games in the world cup since joining Asia, drawn 2 and lost 10...... Take away the rose tinted glasses and it does bring the performances in to respective. The only 2 teams that beat Australia are now in WCUP final 😉 Yep, and there is really no shame to losing to those teams (performance wise I cannae comment as I didn't watched any of the matches) as both Argentina and France a fine teams. Argentina was my pick at the beginning of the Tournament, but either of the teams could win the whole thing. My comment about Davstar's was he brought in some perspective, nothing more, nothing less. Side Note... Is it just me, or do things feel kind of weird that we are both being civilised towards one another (and have for a wee while)??🤔😄 A Celtic player was playing for Roos - and played well - so you missed out not watching 🙁 but yep I’m trying to be less of a dick on forum these days (but doesn’t always happen 😆)
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TheDjentleman
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 362,
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Scotland is mid AF But that's ok because we are mid AF
Everybodys favourite lurker.
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BrisbaneBhoy
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 2.9K,
Visits: 0
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+x+x+x+x+x+xIs it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I know we had a 'good world cup' but this post 'reeks' of blind bias - we have won 3 games in the world cup since joining Asia, drawn 2 and lost 10...... Take away the rose tinted glasses and it does bring the performances in to respective. The only 2 teams that beat Australia are now in WCUP final 😉 I cannae comment as I didn't watched any of the matches Not even the one at 9pm? Not even a mini-match? Aha that's almost impressive! If I lived in Scotland and (I assume) moved my entire life there, I'm pretty sure I'd have watched ONE of their games at a world cup. Yeah, I've not watched any of the matches period. I've checked the results, but that's it, I haven't seen any of it.
🇮🇪Hail Hail🇮🇪
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Decentric 2
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 3.1K,
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+x+xIs it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I know we had a 'good world cup' but this post 'reeks' of blind bias - we have won 3 games in the world cup since joining Asia, drawn 2 and lost 10...... I mean Mitch Ditch Duke plays in the J2 League..... settle down now. A point I'm making, is that some of those UEFA leagues where we are pleased our players play club football, don't even make World Cups or Euro Champs, or rarely qualify for them. So despite us having a moderate record at World Cups, we are becoming a battle hardened, respected international team by teams who play against us. Argentina's Messi, their coach and keeper, said we were the toughest team they had played, and that we were a quality international football team in the Argentinian English language media - although they had a tougher quarter final against the Dutch. Looking at Mexico, Japan, South Korea and the USA, apart from Japan, most of their players played domestic club football. And of the South Koreans who played abroad, most played in the J League. The question has to be asked, are the mid-ranking European leagues where our Euroroos play, and whose national teams rarely qualify for Euro Championships and World Cups, better than both the two big North American leagues and two successful East Asian leagues? The four leagues I've mooted are regular qualifiers for World Cups and their Continental championships. Mitch Duke has scored a superb headed goal at the World Cup, despite playing in J2. Even Saudi A, who beat Argentina in Qatar, and outplayed the Socceroos in WCQs, have all their players playing domestically. The Saudi league may be superior to the A L. Is it a better option than the mid ranked European leagues?
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roosty
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Group: Banned Members
Posts: 758,
Visits: 0
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+x+x+x+x+xWith our thread on Aussies Abroad, there is an inherent assumption that many leagues overseas are better for Socceroos to play in than the ALM. There are some extremely knowledgeable posters on this forum who know a lot about where our Aus players play overseas football. I'm not one of them. What has changed in this World Cup, is that with us reaching the last 16, no longer can accusations be levelled at the Socceroos, or Asia in general, for qualifying in a weak Confederation. Hence, denigrating our quality. Pertinently, we were only 5th ranked in Asia in the WCQ campaign. Yet since we've qualified as 5th ranked Asian team, beating the UAE, we've: *Beaten the 5th ranked South American team in WCQs - Peru. *We've beaten one of only 5 African nations to qualify for the WC - Tunisia. *We've beaten the 10th ranked team in the world in the WC, Denmark, where quite a number of our players play football. Looking up Denmark, the three teams our players have played for are the three best teams in Denmark, with one of them having significant Champ League/Europa league pedigree - FC Copenhagen. *We've also pushed Argentina to the limit in the round fof 16. The current problem is that many overseas leagues where our players play club football are usually playing with and against domestic players in those leagues who have no experience in international football. Or a failed experience in international football. Many mid ranked UEFA leagues have teams who regularly don't qualify for Euro Champs and World Cups. These are leagues that our club players play in. They are also often coached by coaches who have no direct experience of international football and international football trends, depending on their domestic football federations. A few leagues where it might be better for the development of international players outside the European big four, who our players are rarely good enough for, supposedly, could be Croatia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the USA. I'm surmising they redress the phenomenon that is our major problem in Aus - the short 26 games home and away season. In ALM there are a few Football Aus Cup games, and, at least ACL games for one/ two clubs. Which is close to ideal if a club is in the ACL. With Croatia as a league, it is dominated by two big clubs, with European Champ League and Europa League pedigree - Dynamo Zagreb and Hadjuk Split. Croatia national team comprises players generally from the UEFA big four, or they play for Split and Zagreb. Of course, Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal are desirable locations, if players can gain a contract. These are constant solid performers in World Cups and Euro Champs. The also have 2-3 big clubs, who provide a lot of national team players, along with domestic players who play in the big four UEFA leagues. I have not watched much English Championship League for a while, but there were some awful hoofball, second ball teams in that league who played football dross a few years back. Which is useless to develop international players. At the same time when I was watching the Eng Championship, there were an increasing number of teams who like Coach Benitez, had teams playing quality possession football. The Championship is the 6th richest league in the world, but tactically, and in terms of style of football, it was generally useless for developing players who reach the last 16 teams of the World Cups. Australia has achieved a lot reaching the last 16 in Qatar. Playing against teams like Argentina, France and even Denmark in World Cups, and reaching the last 16 is a far higher standard that most players club scenario play against - even in the 6 big World Powerhouse leagues. One issue is that UEFA football prepares players to play well in Europe. Many UEFA national teams, highly ranked is world rankings, choke playing in Asia, the Mid East, Africa, or Asia. Despite our modest playing resources, Aus are able to produce a battle hardened football team used to playing in countries with unfamiliar cultural phenomena. Maybe it is time to rethink where our Aussie players play overseas club football to be the best players they can be at international level? Is it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I've always maintained that the best league for players to play in are determined by a number of factors (not in order of precedence): 2. The position of the player (some leagues are better for honing defensive rigour whilst others suite more technical players) This is a really good point. However, whereas it was considered to be a terrific education to play in Italy as a defensive player, their national paradigm can be considered problematic at this point in time. They have failed to qualify for the last two World Cups. Their average current Italian domestic players one would assume to be inferior to what the Italians used to be - relative to the rest of the national teams in UEFA. Switzerland topped their UEFA WCQing group for Qatar, and Italy were knocked out by North Macedonia, who failed to qualify themselves. Italy are the current Euro champions. Not to mention Decentric's new obsession with Italy/Serie A bashing is misguided at best. Yeah he's a strange one. In another post he advocated he would pick players like Duke, Irvine, Goodwin and Leckie over Viduka, Culina, Cahill, Bresciano, Emerton and Grella. I was really shocked to read that, but then when I read that he was a member of the Labor party and union movement it all made sense.
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roosty
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Group: Banned Members
Posts: 758,
Visits: 0
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Hey Decentric, does the fact that morocco and croatia made the semi mean that their leagues are better then england and spain? Germany couldnt even get out of the group but Ghana did maybe we should send players to Ghana instead of la liga.
Duurrrrr
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Decentric 2
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 3.1K,
Visits: 0
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+x+x+x+x+xWith our thread on Aussies Abroad, there is an inherent assumption that many leagues overseas are better for Socceroos to play in than the ALM. There are some extremely knowledgeable posters on this forum who know a lot about where our Aus players play overseas football. I'm not one of them. What has changed in this World Cup, is that with us reaching the last 16, no longer can accusations be levelled at the Socceroos, or Asia in general, for qualifying in a weak Confederation. Hence, denigrating our quality. Pertinently, we were only 5th ranked in Asia in the WCQ campaign. Yet since we've qualified as 5th ranked Asian team, beating the UAE, we've: *Beaten the 5th ranked South American team in WCQs - Peru. *We've beaten one of only 5 African nations to qualify for the WC - Tunisia. *We've beaten the 10th ranked team in the world in the WC, Denmark, where quite a number of our players play football. Looking up Denmark, the three teams our players have played for are the three best teams in Denmark, with one of them having significant Champ League/Europa league pedigree - FC Copenhagen. *We've also pushed Argentina to the limit in the round fof 16. The current problem is that many overseas leagues where our players play club football are usually playing with and against domestic players in those leagues who have no experience in international football. Or a failed experience in international football. Many mid ranked UEFA leagues have teams who regularly don't qualify for Euro Champs and World Cups. These are leagues that our club players play in. They are also often coached by coaches who have no direct experience of international football and international football trends, depending on their domestic football federations. A few leagues where it might be better for the development of international players outside the European big four, who our players are rarely good enough for, supposedly, could be Croatia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the USA. I'm surmising they redress the phenomenon that is our major problem in Aus - the short 26 games home and away season. In ALM there are a few Football Aus Cup games, and, at least ACL games for one/ two clubs. Which is close to ideal if a club is in the ACL. With Croatia as a league, it is dominated by two big clubs, with European Champ League and Europa League pedigree - Dynamo Zagreb and Hadjuk Split. Croatia national team comprises players generally from the UEFA big four, or they play for Split and Zagreb. Of course, Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal are desirable locations, if players can gain a contract. These are constant solid performers in World Cups and Euro Champs. The also have 2-3 big clubs, who provide a lot of national team players, along with domestic players who play in the big four UEFA leagues. I have not watched much English Championship League for a while, but there were some awful hoofball, second ball teams in that league who played football dross a few years back. Which is useless to develop international players. At the same time when I was watching the Eng Championship, there were an increasing number of teams who like Coach Benitez, had teams playing quality possession football. The Championship is the 6th richest league in the world, but tactically, and in terms of style of football, it was generally useless for developing players who reach the last 16 teams of the World Cups. Australia has achieved a lot reaching the last 16 in Qatar. Playing against teams like Argentina, France and even Denmark in World Cups, and reaching the last 16 is a far higher standard that most players club scenario play against - even in the 6 big World Powerhouse leagues. One issue is that UEFA football prepares players to play well in Europe. Many UEFA national teams, highly ranked is world rankings, choke playing in Asia, the Mid East, Africa, or Asia. Despite our modest playing resources, Aus are able to produce a battle hardened football team used to playing in countries with unfamiliar cultural phenomena. Maybe it is time to rethink where our Aussie players play overseas club football to be the best players they can be at international level? Is it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I've always maintained that the best league for players to play in are determined by a number of factors (not in order of precedence): 2. The position of the player (some leagues are better for honing defensive rigour whilst others suite more technical players) This is a really good point. However, whereas it was considered to be a terrific education to play in Italy as a defensive player, their national paradigm can be considered problematic at this point in time. They have failed to qualify for the last two World Cups. Their average current Italian domestic players one would assume to be inferior to what the Italians used to be - relative to the rest of the national teams in UEFA. Switzerland topped their UEFA WCQing group for Qatar, and Italy were knocked out by North Macedonia, who failed to qualify themselves. Italy are the current Euro champions. Not to mention Decentric's new obsession with Italy/Serie A bashing is misguided at best. Even if the national team managed to lose a game (with 37 shots to 1) and miss the world cup, the league itself still had a huge representation at the world cup. I posted the stats here a few weeks ago of which leagues are most represented at world cups in the last 20 years and even with Italy missing two world cups they were third. Would have been second had they made it. The point is Italy haven't made the last two World Cups, not just Qatar. Switzerland topped their group. Italy then lost to North Macedonia in a play off. I've been a huge admirer of ltalian football. I love the tactics of the national team. I'm not Italy bashing. If Spain, England, Germany, France or Netherlands ( who missed out on qualifying for WC 2018), failed to miss out on one, let alone two successive World Cups, it would be considered a crisis. When Netherlands failed to qualify, the KNVB sent Ed Ten Kate into France, Germany, and Belgium, to see what they were doing that the Dutch weren't . They revamped coaching practices immediately in the Netherlands.
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Decentric 2
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 3.1K,
Visits: 0
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+x+x+x+xIs it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I know we had a 'good world cup' but this post 'reeks' of blind bias - we have won 3 games in the world cup since joining Asia, drawn 2 and lost 10...... Take away the rose tinted glasses and it does bring the performances in to respective. The only 2 teams that beat Australia are now in WCUP final 😉 Quite an achievement!
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Decentric 2
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 3.1K,
Visits: 0
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+xHey Decentric, does the fact that morocco and croatia made the semi mean that their leagues are better then england and spain? Germany couldnt even get out of the group but Ghana did maybe we should send players to Ghana instead of la liga. Duurrrrr This is a wind up! Of course they aren't. Croatia in particular, who are frequently performing well in senior international football, are doing something right though. I have read they have a very good football academy at Dynamo Zagreb.
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Decentric 2
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 3.1K,
Visits: 0
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+x+x+x+x+x+xWith our thread on Aussies Abroad, there is an inherent assumption that many leagues overseas are better for Socceroos to play in than the ALM. There are some extremely knowledgeable posters on this forum who know a lot about where our Aus players play overseas football. I'm not one of them. What has changed in this World Cup, is that with us reaching the last 16, no longer can accusations be levelled at the Socceroos, or Asia in general, for qualifying in a weak Confederation. Hence, denigrating our quality. Pertinently, we were only 5th ranked in Asia in the WCQ campaign. Yet since we've qualified as 5th ranked Asian team, beating the UAE, we've: *Beaten the 5th ranked South American team in WCQs - Peru. *We've beaten one of only 5 African nations to qualify for the WC - Tunisia. *We've beaten the 10th ranked team in the world in the WC, Denmark, where quite a number of our players play football. Looking up Denmark, the three teams our players have played for are the three best teams in Denmark, with one of them having significant Champ League/Europa league pedigree - FC Copenhagen. *We've also pushed Argentina to the limit in the round fof 16. The current problem is that many overseas leagues where our players play club football are usually playing with and against domestic players in those leagues who have no experience in international football. Or a failed experience in international football. Many mid ranked UEFA leagues have teams who regularly don't qualify for Euro Champs and World Cups. These are leagues that our club players play in. They are also often coached by coaches who have no direct experience of international football and international football trends, depending on their domestic football federations. A few leagues where it might be better for the development of international players outside the European big four, who our players are rarely good enough for, supposedly, could be Croatia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the USA. I'm surmising they redress the phenomenon that is our major problem in Aus - the short 26 games home and away season. In ALM there are a few Football Aus Cup games, and, at least ACL games for one/ two clubs. Which is close to ideal if a club is in the ACL. With Croatia as a league, it is dominated by two big clubs, with European Champ League and Europa League pedigree - Dynamo Zagreb and Hadjuk Split. Croatia national team comprises players generally from the UEFA big four, or they play for Split and Zagreb. Of course, Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal are desirable locations, if players can gain a contract. These are constant solid performers in World Cups and Euro Champs. The also have 2-3 big clubs, who provide a lot of national team players, along with domestic players who play in the big four UEFA leagues. I have not watched much English Championship League for a while, but there were some awful hoofball, second ball teams in that league who played football dross a few years back. Which is useless to develop international players. At the same time when I was watching the Eng Championship, there were an increasing number of teams who like Coach Benitez, had teams playing quality possession football. The Championship is the 6th richest league in the world, but tactically, and in terms of style of football, it was generally useless for developing players who reach the last 16 teams of the World Cups. Australia has achieved a lot reaching the last 16 in Qatar. Playing against teams like Argentina, France and even Denmark in World Cups, and reaching the last 16 is a far higher standard that most players club scenario play against - even in the 6 big World Powerhouse leagues. One issue is that UEFA football prepares players to play well in Europe. Many UEFA national teams, highly ranked is world rankings, choke playing in Asia, the Mid East, Africa, or Asia. Despite our modest playing resources, Aus are able to produce a battle hardened football team used to playing in countries with unfamiliar cultural phenomena. Maybe it is time to rethink where our Aussie players play overseas club football to be the best players they can be at international level? Is it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I've always maintained that the best league for players to play in are determined by a number of factors (not in order of precedence): 2. The position of the player (some leagues are better for honing defensive rigour whilst others suite more technical players) This is a really good point. However, whereas it was considered to be a terrific education to play in Italy as a defensive player, their national paradigm can be considered problematic at this point in time. They have failed to qualify for the last two World Cups. Their average current Italian domestic players one would assume to be inferior to what the Italians used to be - relative to the rest of the national teams in UEFA. Switzerland topped their UEFA WCQing group for Qatar, and Italy were knocked out by North Macedonia, who failed to qualify themselves. Italy are the current Euro champions. Not to mention Decentric's new obsession with Italy/Serie A bashing is misguided at best. Yeah he's a strange one. In another post he advocated he would pick players like Duke, Irvine, Goodwin and Leckie over Viduka, Culina, Cahill, Bresciano, Emerton and Grella. I was really shocked to read that, but then when I read that he was a member of the Labor party and union movement it all made sense. If I left Cahill out it was playing as an attacking mid, but Bresciano would get a starting position in the current team. Go back and have look at the footage in 2006. You might not realise it, but this Socceroo team in Qatar, has been the best performed we've ever had, results wise, at a World Cup. They are our greatest ever Socceroos. They accrued 6 points, two wins, in the group stage. The only two teams who beat the Socceroos are playing in the World Cup Final.
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Decentric 2
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+xAnd before he says the last 20 years isn't a valid unit of time, let's look at 2022 alone. Serie A had the 4th most WITHOUT Italy being there. Add 20-26 serie a players onto this list if they did make it and see what happens too | Premier League | England | 136 | | La Liga | Spain | 83 | | Bundesliga | Germany | 75 | | Serie A | Italy | 68 |
I'm not biased. Thanks for posting this, Davide. It is very, very useful data. For Italy not to qualify for Qatar, yet for Serie A to have the 4th highest number of players playing in Qatar, is salutary and very impressive. It also completely refutes any of my previous views (with a bit of tongue in my cheek) about Italy being a less worthwhile destination, relative to what it was, for Aussies. It must be very frustrating for Italy - Coverciano and Italian fans - to see so many Serie A imports playing in the World Cup.
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Bunch of Hacks
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+x+xI don't like our players going to Portugal or Greece as they seem to go missing and are hard to track. Th EFL provides plenty of games and has smaller benches. The holy trinity is still there. Switzerland is a good place to be. It's really not.. Bundi 2 (and 1), Belgian and Swiss leagues have fallen away a lot since we made that. Only really the Dutch league has come on since then. At that time I think it was around the 10th best league now is ranked 6th. Leagues such as the Danish, Norwegian, Scottish and especially the Austrian league have jumped up in that time. I'm basing these comments off the UEFA Coefficient league rankings btw as well as ClubELO. Scotland has risen a lot in the last 5-7 years, so too Austria and netherlands. I stand corrected about the swiss and belgian leagues though they are still quite high after looking at coefficients again now. Scotland are actually 9th!! No doubt helped by rangers Europa league run last season
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dirk vanadidas
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Portugal is the best stepping stone and relatively easy for visas for non euro heritage nationals. All the big clubs keep tabs on Portuguese football.
Europe is funding the war not Chelsea football club
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Decentric 2
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+xPortugal is the best stepping stone and relatively easy for visas for non euro heritage nationals. All the big clubs keep tabs on Portuguese football. I know Portugal is a good destination, but how seriously would they look at Aussie players? Portugal has quite a number of very technically adept players. I suppose finishing in the last 16 in Qatar might have raised the status of Aussie players - a bit. Hopefully, Aussie mental strength, attitude, tactical acumen, communication on the ground skills, and football conditioning might help, given the technical chasm between most Aussie and Portuguese players. I think Portuguese is one of the harder languages to learn too. Italian, Spanish and French are easier. It would be terrific for Aussies to play against clubs like Benfica, Sporting Lisbon, Porto, Braga and Boavista. The first three clubs feature in big European comps and often do quite well. Portugal also has a climate where it is easy to produce good pitches in winter, particularly in the south. They are comfortable conditions for players too.
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Decentric 2
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Deleted.
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Decentric 2
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+x+x+xI don't like our players going to Portugal or Greece as they seem to go missing and are hard to track. Th EFL provides plenty of games and has smaller benches. The holy trinity is still there. Switzerland is a good place to be. It's really not.. Bundi 2 (and 1), Belgian and Swiss leagues have fallen away a lot since we made that. Only really the Dutch league has come on since then. At that time I think it was around the 10th best league now is ranked 6th. Leagues such as the Danish, Norwegian, Scottish and especially the Austrian league have jumped up in that time. I'm basing these comments off the UEFA Coefficient league rankings btw as well as ClubELO. Scotland has risen a lot in the last 5-7 years, so too Austria and netherlands. I stand corrected about the swiss and belgian leagues though they are still quite high after looking at coefficients again now. Scotland are actually 9th!! No doubt helped by rangers Europa league run last season Interesting?
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Decentric 2
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+xAnd before he says the last 20 years isn't a valid unit of time, let's look at 2022 alone. Serie A had the 4th most WITHOUT Italy being there. Add 20-26 serie a players onto this list if they did make it and see what happens too | Premier League | England | 136 | | La Liga | Spain | 83 | | Bundesliga | Germany | 75 | | Serie A | Italy | 68 |
To augment this table. French Ligue 54 MLS ( USA) 35 Saudi Pro League 33 Qatar Stars League 33 English Championship 26 Liga MX (Mexico ?) 23 It is easily the big UEFA five leagues that provide most players to the WC. I thought the Brazilian and Argentinian Leagues might have more players? Have not checked, but I thought a few more Ecuadorean and Uruguayan players might play in them, as well as a few domestic players playing for the two South American powerhouses in Qatar. I also thought the Dutch and Portuguese leagues would have provided more players for the Qatar WC too?
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riquelmes_laces
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+x+x+x+x+x+xWith our thread on Aussies Abroad, there is an inherent assumption that many leagues overseas are better for Socceroos to play in than the ALM. There are some extremely knowledgeable posters on this forum who know a lot about where our Aus players play overseas football. I'm not one of them. What has changed in this World Cup, is that with us reaching the last 16, no longer can accusations be levelled at the Socceroos, or Asia in general, for qualifying in a weak Confederation. Hence, denigrating our quality. Pertinently, we were only 5th ranked in Asia in the WCQ campaign. Yet since we've qualified as 5th ranked Asian team, beating the UAE, we've: *Beaten the 5th ranked South American team in WCQs - Peru. *We've beaten one of only 5 African nations to qualify for the WC - Tunisia. *We've beaten the 10th ranked team in the world in the WC, Denmark, where quite a number of our players play football. Looking up Denmark, the three teams our players have played for are the three best teams in Denmark, with one of them having significant Champ League/Europa league pedigree - FC Copenhagen. *We've also pushed Argentina to the limit in the round fof 16. The current problem is that many overseas leagues where our players play club football are usually playing with and against domestic players in those leagues who have no experience in international football. Or a failed experience in international football. Many mid ranked UEFA leagues have teams who regularly don't qualify for Euro Champs and World Cups. These are leagues that our club players play in. They are also often coached by coaches who have no direct experience of international football and international football trends, depending on their domestic football federations. A few leagues where it might be better for the development of international players outside the European big four, who our players are rarely good enough for, supposedly, could be Croatia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the USA. I'm surmising they redress the phenomenon that is our major problem in Aus - the short 26 games home and away season. In ALM there are a few Football Aus Cup games, and, at least ACL games for one/ two clubs. Which is close to ideal if a club is in the ACL. With Croatia as a league, it is dominated by two big clubs, with European Champ League and Europa League pedigree - Dynamo Zagreb and Hadjuk Split. Croatia national team comprises players generally from the UEFA big four, or they play for Split and Zagreb. Of course, Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal are desirable locations, if players can gain a contract. These are constant solid performers in World Cups and Euro Champs. The also have 2-3 big clubs, who provide a lot of national team players, along with domestic players who play in the big four UEFA leagues. I have not watched much English Championship League for a while, but there were some awful hoofball, second ball teams in that league who played football dross a few years back. Which is useless to develop international players. At the same time when I was watching the Eng Championship, there were an increasing number of teams who like Coach Benitez, had teams playing quality possession football. The Championship is the 6th richest league in the world, but tactically, and in terms of style of football, it was generally useless for developing players who reach the last 16 teams of the World Cups. Australia has achieved a lot reaching the last 16 in Qatar. Playing against teams like Argentina, France and even Denmark in World Cups, and reaching the last 16 is a far higher standard that most players club scenario play against - even in the 6 big World Powerhouse leagues. One issue is that UEFA football prepares players to play well in Europe. Many UEFA national teams, highly ranked is world rankings, choke playing in Asia, the Mid East, Africa, or Asia. Despite our modest playing resources, Aus are able to produce a battle hardened football team used to playing in countries with unfamiliar cultural phenomena. Maybe it is time to rethink where our Aussie players play overseas club football to be the best players they can be at international level? Is it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I've always maintained that the best league for players to play in are determined by a number of factors (not in order of precedence): 2. The position of the player (some leagues are better for honing defensive rigour whilst others suite more technical players) This is a really good point. However, whereas it was considered to be a terrific education to play in Italy as a defensive player, their national paradigm can be considered problematic at this point in time. They have failed to qualify for the last two World Cups. Their average current Italian domestic players one would assume to be inferior to what the Italians used to be - relative to the rest of the national teams in UEFA. Switzerland topped their UEFA WCQing group for Qatar, and Italy were knocked out by North Macedonia, who failed to qualify themselves. Italy are the current Euro champions. Not to mention Decentric's new obsession with Italy/Serie A bashing is misguided at best. Even if the national team managed to lose a game (with 37 shots to 1) and miss the world cup, the league itself still had a huge representation at the world cup. I posted the stats here a few weeks ago of which leagues are most represented at world cups in the last 20 years and even with Italy missing two world cups they were third. Would have been second had they made it. The point is Italy haven't made the last two World Cups, not just Qatar. Switzerland topped their group. Italy then lost to North Macedonia in a play off. ... I think you're conflating the performance of a National Team with its domestic league. France has a striker and its right-back playing in Serie A. Deschamps became a successful national team manager only after conquering the Serie A with Juve. Half of Argentina's front 1/3rd play in the Serie A and Parades whose performed well for Argentina this WC also plays there. You see what I did there? We can spin narratives any way we like. The fact is, we should want BOTH a strong domestic competition AND aspirations for our best graduates to move to one of the Big 5 leagues.
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dirk vanadidas
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Group: Forum Members
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+x+xPortugal is the best stepping stone and relatively easy for visas for non euro heritage nationals. All the big clubs keep tabs on Portuguese football. I know Portugal is a good destination, but how seriously would they look at Aussie players? Portugal has quite a number of very technically adept players. I suppose finishing in the last 16 in Qatar might have raised the status of Aussie players - a bit. Hopefully, Aussie mental strength, attitude, tactical acumen, communication on the ground skills, and football conditioning might help, given the technical chasm between most Aussie and Portuguese players. I think Portuguese is one of the harder languages to learn too. Italian, Spanish and French are easier. It would be terrific for Aussies to play against clubs like Benfica, Sporting Lisbon, Porto, Braga and Boavista. The first three clubs feature in big European comps and often do quite well. Portugal also has a climate where it is easy to produce good pitches in winter, particularly in the south. They are comfortable conditions for players too. English is the language of football even on continental Europe
Europe is funding the war not Chelsea football club
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Decentric 2
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 3.1K,
Visits: 0
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+x+x+x+x+x+x+xWith our thread on Aussies Abroad, there is an inherent assumption that many leagues overseas are better for Socceroos to play in than the ALM. There are some extremely knowledgeable posters on this forum who know a lot about where our Aus players play overseas football. I'm not one of them. What has changed in this World Cup, is that with us reaching the last 16, no longer can accusations be levelled at the Socceroos, or Asia in general, for qualifying in a weak Confederation. Hence, denigrating our quality. Pertinently, we were only 5th ranked in Asia in the WCQ campaign. Yet since we've qualified as 5th ranked Asian team, beating the UAE, we've: *Beaten the 5th ranked South American team in WCQs - Peru. *We've beaten one of only 5 African nations to qualify for the WC - Tunisia. *We've beaten the 10th ranked team in the world in the WC, Denmark, where quite a number of our players play football. Looking up Denmark, the three teams our players have played for are the three best teams in Denmark, with one of them having significant Champ League/Europa league pedigree - FC Copenhagen. *We've also pushed Argentina to the limit in the round fof 16. The current problem is that many overseas leagues where our players play club football are usually playing with and against domestic players in those leagues who have no experience in international football. Or a failed experience in international football. Many mid ranked UEFA leagues have teams who regularly don't qualify for Euro Champs and World Cups. These are leagues that our club players play in. They are also often coached by coaches who have no direct experience of international football and international football trends, depending on their domestic football federations. A few leagues where it might be better for the development of international players outside the European big four, who our players are rarely good enough for, supposedly, could be Croatia, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the USA. I'm surmising they redress the phenomenon that is our major problem in Aus - the short 26 games home and away season. In ALM there are a few Football Aus Cup games, and, at least ACL games for one/ two clubs. Which is close to ideal if a club is in the ACL. With Croatia as a league, it is dominated by two big clubs, with European Champ League and Europa League pedigree - Dynamo Zagreb and Hadjuk Split. Croatia national team comprises players generally from the UEFA big four, or they play for Split and Zagreb. Of course, Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal are desirable locations, if players can gain a contract. These are constant solid performers in World Cups and Euro Champs. The also have 2-3 big clubs, who provide a lot of national team players, along with domestic players who play in the big four UEFA leagues. I have not watched much English Championship League for a while, but there were some awful hoofball, second ball teams in that league who played football dross a few years back. Which is useless to develop international players. At the same time when I was watching the Eng Championship, there were an increasing number of teams who like Coach Benitez, had teams playing quality possession football. The Championship is the 6th richest league in the world, but tactically, and in terms of style of football, it was generally useless for developing players who reach the last 16 teams of the World Cups. Australia has achieved a lot reaching the last 16 in Qatar. Playing against teams like Argentina, France and even Denmark in World Cups, and reaching the last 16 is a far higher standard that most players club scenario play against - even in the 6 big World Powerhouse leagues. One issue is that UEFA football prepares players to play well in Europe. Many UEFA national teams, highly ranked is world rankings, choke playing in Asia, the Mid East, Africa, or Asia. Despite our modest playing resources, Aus are able to produce a battle hardened football team used to playing in countries with unfamiliar cultural phenomena. Maybe it is time to rethink where our Aussie players play overseas club football to be the best players they can be at international level? Is it time to give Scotland, Austria, Norway, Austria, Israel, Greece, Turkey, and lately, Italy, plus any national second divisions, the flick? I've always maintained that the best league for players to play in are determined by a number of factors (not in order of precedence): 2. The position of the player (some leagues are better for honing defensive rigour whilst others suite more technical players) This is a really good point. However, whereas it was considered to be a terrific education to play in Italy as a defensive player, their national paradigm can be considered problematic at this point in time. They have failed to qualify for the last two World Cups. Their average current Italian domestic players one would assume to be inferior to what the Italians used to be - relative to the rest of the national teams in UEFA. Switzerland topped their UEFA WCQing group for Qatar, and Italy were knocked out by North Macedonia, who failed to qualify themselves. Italy are the current Euro champions. Not to mention Decentric's new obsession with Italy/Serie A bashing is misguided at best. Even if the national team managed to lose a game (with 37 shots to 1) and miss the world cup, the league itself still had a huge representation at the world cup. I posted the stats here a few weeks ago of which leagues are most represented at world cups in the last 20 years and even with Italy missing two world cups they were third. Would have been second had they made it. The point is Italy haven't made the last two World Cups, not just Qatar. Switzerland topped their group. Italy then lost to North Macedonia in a play off. ... I think you're conflating the performance of a National Team with its domestic league. France has a striker and its right-back playing in Serie A. Deschamps became a successful national team manager only after conquering the Serie A with Juve. Half of Argentina's front 1/3rd play in the Serie A and Parades whose performed well for Argentina this WC also plays there. You see what I did there? We can spin narratives any way we like. The fact is, we should want BOTH a strong domestic competition AND aspirations for our best graduates to move to one of the Big 5 leagues. There was a bit of tongue in cheek about Italy, because axiomatically the national team, The Azzurri, is considered to be a world powerhouse. Also, the Serie A league is considered to be one of the big five in Europe. From the data that Davide provided, and I found the extra numbers to 10, Serie A has provided 68 players for the Qatar WC, despite not having their national team playing in Qatar. If one added at least another 20 odd players from The Azzurri, Serie A would have more players than any other league outside the EPL, playing in Qatar. Until I saw that data, I thought maybe Serie A and The Azzuri, could both be declining relative to other leagues and football nations. The Azzurri could be, but Serie A probably isn't. They still recruit many foreign imports of high quality to Serie A. Many have played in Qatar for other countries outside Italy.
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