They both learned their coaching in Oz didn't they?

Certainly LM did.

Haven't read the entire thread yet so others may have responded.

You are very sadly deluded (and probably a Jets fan). Fazz will play for the NT for much of the next 10 years. He's always had ability but tended to be a ball watcher and occasionally went to sleep when the ball was on the other side of the field - like the time about two seasons ago when he didn't see Nabbout coming on his blind side for an easy far post header. 

He has learnt from the past and is now one of the first picked for the CCM. Nothing gets past him. Nothing. But you'll tell me defensive play does not involve skill...

He is also superb going forward and plays a very mean cross. Add to that his natural speed and athleticism - and the fact that he's only 22 - I'd say his ceiling is pretty damn high. He's exactly the sort of player Ange would like but I suspect Monty will get him first.

I saw that game, so can verify that Bresciano scored from a free kick. Surely he got more though? He had great skills, so dont' know why he is consdered not technical.
What the hell does "technical" mean anyway?
Bres got the vital goal against Uruguay after Kewell took an airswing.

Agree about Farrell- he is a good player and should be a future socceroo left back.

Some people can't see their noses in front of their face, or are too obsessed with "only Europeans can play tecknical
not Anglos".

It is quite fascinating how the Scots sneer at the AL and at Oz players while endlessly raging at the way English fans sneer at the SPL. It's a form of bullying when you think about it - abusing those you think weaker after being abused yourself.

At the same time the Scots are constantly ripping the shit out of their own league. On any forum - even Celtic or Rangers - you'll find them bemoaning how shit their league is... until someone compares it with the AL. Suddenly they're united - adamant that the AL is crap and less than English L1 quality.

As for Australian players, Celtic have had Viduka, MacDonald, Rogic, Mooy (and Ange). All of whom are regarded as legends at the club. Rangers have had Moore, Vidmar. Hearts are currently stuffed with Australians. Hibs fans love Lewis Miller (and are probably about to score one or two more Aussies). St Mirren have Strain and Baccus who (when available) are first picked. Yet most of these clubs think Oz players are rubbish and the AL absolutely dire. (That's not to say all Oz players have been successful in Scotland.)

In fact it is very difficult to compare the leagues because they're played under such different conditions. Oz players take a while to adjust to the cold weather and soft pitches - which can cause soft tissue and other injuries. Just ask Daniel Arzani.

Then finally, we are ranked 11 places higher than Scotland by FIFA at the moment. Sometimes we're more than 20 places higher. That has to tell you something about the quality of our players but the Scots won't have it. When confronted with that reality any Scottish fan will tell you not one Oz player would make their national team - thus the FIFA rankings are wrong.

Clutching at straws much?

You just clearly don't watch football. You're arguing "how you know this and where's the proof" when you are making the exact same statements based on your subjective bias with no proof. I have proof because I watch these players and we are talking about technical ability not impact. They are too young to be judging them on their impact but on technical ability the eye test shows how technically good some of these young players are. McGree and Metcalfe made an impact from the A-League. Mooy and Rogic did. Bos is making an impact now. 

And btw, Bos is very technically sound. Has a great shot, and is a great dribbler. How can you claim that a left footed left back who constantly takes on players and created chances is hopeless technically? Bos was very successful against Argentina. But you have outed yourself "I don't watch Serie B", I'm sure realistically you aren't watching any of these players because you have a preconceived hate for the younger kids. Just a sad old man.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. It will be shown in 5 years' time who was right. If we have a whole squad of players playing in top 4 leagues, I will gladly admit I was wrong. Personally, I don't think I'm going to be. 
Also, the argument these players are better because they play in a more competitive era of football is so dumb it brings all your other arguments down. With that logic Mitch Duke is superior to Pele. You can't compare between generations like that, you can only compare the players and their impact at the time.  

Not saying that. Just saying that people now say he was a free kick specialist when he never hot a barn door when taking free kicks (at goal)

He was a very good, and very skillfiul player. And yes, technical. 

The point is though, our golden gen were not creative technical geniuses. A handful were. Most were grafters - watch some the play in old games. It's hard on the eye 

Going complete strawman with that "these players are better because they play in a more competitive era of football" is not at all what I said. 

I was replying to you saying that because we have less players in top 5 leagues we must considerably worse, but the reality is it's a way more competitive era but that does not mean these players are better because of it, I'm playing devils advocate to your assumption. Yes, you can't compare generations like that, that's why this whole thing shouldn't have started in the first place with your original comment. It's was very unnecessary negative assumption with no evidence to back it up. 

Jackson Irvine and Metcalfe are about to be promoted into the Bundlesliga, the third best league in the world. Does your opinion change on them now that they are playing in a top 5 league opposed to a top 10. Reality is, you can't pass judgement on them until they've made their impact and it's not a healthy way to judge success whether or not they're in a top 5 league or not, especially considering most of them are sub 23 and having had a chance yet. 

I went back and watched the 2006 World Cup games, specifically against Japan and Italy and to say that they were more technical is wild. It's not true and it's proof of rose tinted glasses. Like they definitely had good attributes, solid passing, good set pieces, good hold up play but generally it isn't anything out of reach. Have some optimism about the young players coming through, anything we did in the past was sustainable and what we are producing now is and hopefully it will lead to more years of success. 

Trained in the old system. 

McKinna was a very good player manager, but played trad football.

Merrick evolved to counter the post 2010 Aus trained coaches. 

Monty is definite  product of the contemporary coach education system in Aus. 

Bresc is a highly technical player. 

As soon as he played for the Socceroos he had faster handling speed than other Socceroos, until Culina and Grella joined him - handling speed  being the speed of a player  to receive and pass the ball on.

Barca tiki taka players and Spain had the fastest handling speed, with Germany devising a special machine for their players to use to catch up to Spain - but they couldn't quite catch them!

Tech skills - handling speed, first touch, striking the ball, running with the ball, 1v1 defensive and attacking skills. 

Interesting?

I've been reading a fair bit of data from Opta about comparisons between EPL, Championship, Leagues1 and 2. 

I've just started to watch the English lower leagues again, after a few years break. There has been  a pleasing improvement in style.

You make good points about tempo of leagues being different, with salient weather conditions ( played in heat or cold). When Han Berger was identifying flaws of Aus players, it was they played at the same tempo too much, without rhythm changes, like Continental teams.

EPL used to be flat out in intensity, but the Opta data shows, the EPL has increased the length of  time teams possess the ball, with slower periods of play interspersed with faster phases of tempo. England did this against the Socceroos in September.

It appears that Man City's success  has influenced the others in the Big Six in particular, to try and emulate City. 

Stats would show that most AL teams tend to have long phases of play before teams lose the ball. I watched CCM in particular, and Glory, play an open ended game at fast tempo game last week - the AL exception, not the norm.  The distance between the lines was stretched ( Pim's major criticism) - not like most other current A L games.

Generally, though, the Scottish fans colluding to disparage the A L is perplexing, because most of the teams in the Big Five UEFA leagues, play like A League teams, but at a higher standard. That is, long, sustained periods of possession before a turnover occurs.

Ditto the big clubs adopting similar style in the lesser  UEFA leagues outside the BIG Five - Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark.

For the Socceroos at international level, despite Duke mainly playing in the A League, and J2, his performances and skill set have proved successful at international level. He scores goals at a rate of 0.37 per game, with  a 12 goal return from 37 games. Yet he has never played UEFA Big Five football.

Mark  Viduka, a UEFA Big Five star, who reached a UEFA Champ League semi-final bal with Leeds, only scored 11 goals from 44 Socceroo games. His  Strike Rate of goals played per Socceroos game was 0.25 -much lower than Mitchell Duke.

I think Josh Kennedy (a small proportion of his career playing Big Five) and John  Aloisi ( mainly played Big Five football over his career)  both had a SR  of over 0.40 per Socceroo game played.

 Cahill had the incredible record of a SR of close to 0.50 per game over a sustained period in intentional football. I think 1 goal scored every second game is considered a very good return for strikers. In Cahill's case he played a lot of Big Five football, but later in his career, after he wasn't wanted at that level, he still had an astonishing SR as an international Socceroo footballer.

I think the aforementioned numbers suggest Duke should be more respected as an international striker for the Socceroos than he has received from Aus fans. His work rate off the ball is tremendous too. Plus he is a very intelligent player. It is sad when a player who has more than held his own at the highest level, like Duke, isn't  respected as a  footballer in his own country by fans because he hasn't played UEFA Big Five club football.

Good post.

You and I can go back far enough to remember that Alex Tobin and Paul Trimboli never played club football outside Aus. Definitely not  UEFA Big Five, but they were still invaluable players for the national team. They often kept Euroroos out of the  Socceroo line up.

I haven't seen Farrell enough to see him jockey, show and delay strikers 1v1, or really analyse his first touch under limited time and close space pressure, but in most other aspects of technique, endurance, energy,  he looks to be a fantastic LB prospect.

HTF can anyone process/present stats driven by todays game compared to players/game around 06 for eg astounds me.......

Yes Muz here we go again, not my fault :)

Its like comparing a same model car produced back then to one today, there just is no comparison like Barca has quoted, just unrealistic !
So data isn't irrefutable in the above circumstances its more so a huge example how times change and not to judge but admire.

Funnily D2 keeps banging on about Dukes poor SR way back then the same would apply for Farina < hey D2 Frank is at 37 games for 11 goals/Aloisi/Mitchell the only exception is Cahill because also not to mention he played over 100 NT games !! a outlier imo (never was a 9 and we had bugger all options) a opportunist more than anything (great reader of the game) so many times our backs to the walls he went for it, why some wonderful worldys came to be god bless him.
MDuke is a hard slugging runner (33 games for 12 goals) and the mould of todays demands incl defending from the front, I like what I see about him but I'm not going to over rate him as well.
Dukes (43 games for 11 goals) a utterly skilful big man suited very well to the game back then and defending wasn't part of the process specifically but his club record goal return says it all taking on backlines and putting them away.
Like seriously looking at the above figures doesn't make Dukes look ordinary to me, there is so much behind the scenes and what occurs on the pitch and from the bench that stats can't or doesn't bring to life.....
Our NT was no where to todays Arnie process that is available, in most case's turning grafting players into good working soldiers as a unit.
Thats a Team in anycase.
We lack a couple/few "stars" like every team needs be it in a Big5 league or not but we need scorers always have.

Yes D2 Asia is improving, thank goodness for that but I doubt I'll live to see the day a NT wins a WC without any Big 5 players.
The Big 5 league players/NT's always go through gen cycles world over and to date every single WC winner has alot of Big5 players.
Going back say the last 6 WC's won by Arg/France/Germany/Spain/Italy/Brazil - 24 yrs and you can go back deeper.
You can see the good and smaller Euro NT punching above their weight in 3/4 play offs, ie Cro/Belguim/Turkey/Sweden/Morroco of late.
IF we can ever get to that level I'll be tickled pink.
Thats irrefutable stats I expect but go ahead do your homework.

By the way, I still live by that we punch above our weight.

If we compare Australia and Japan in terms of the number of players getting starts in the Big 5, over the period from 2006 Golden Generation till now in 2024, Australia has gone down, while Japan has gone up.

So many Australian players are now in Scotland, which is often assessed as being inferior to the Big 5 leagues.

If anything, the regular appearances of Australia in the World Cup since 2006 till now would have shifted the acceptance level of Aussie players ever so slightly positively. In recent months, a few overseas friends told me how impressed they were with the skill shown by the Socceroos in the World Cup.

There are so many players who got into the European leagues, but didn't quite make the impact:

- Mabil in La Liga
- Mat Ryan in La Liga
- Arzani
- Hrustic in Serie A
- Luongo before he came back with Ipswich
- Armini

And where's Adam Taggart gone, faded after being Korean golden boot?

Outside the Big Five there must be some other clubs of similar standard, or close to it.

1. The top ranked clubs on the table at the end of the season in the second divisions of the Big Five.

2. The big clubs   in the next UEFA ranked leagues outside the  Big Five, who play a lot of Champ and Europa League football. These being:

Netherlands - Ajax, PSV, Feyenoorde, AZ Alkmaar.

Belgium - Anderlecht, Standard Liege, et al.

 Portugal - Benfica, Sporting, Braga, Boa Vista, Porto.

Switzerland - Grasshoppers, FC Zurich, et al.

Denmark - FC Copenhagen, et al.

Croatia - Dynamo Zagreb, Hadjuk Spit.

Serbia - Red Star Belgrade.

Greece - PAOK, AEK Athens, Olympiakos, Panathanaikos.

Turkey - Galatasaray, Fenerbace, Besiktas. 

Scotland - Rangers, Celtic.

Poland - ?

Formerly:

Ukraine - Shaktar Donetsk, Dynamo Kiev.

Russia - Locomotiv Moscow et al.


Playing in some of these clubs would possibly be a bit like playing in the better clubs in the Big Five. If they play plenty of UEFA intra-continental football in a season?

Scored a few  excellent goals in the AL in the last few weeks.

D2, look at the winning Clubs of Europa.
All in the Big5 leagues finishing out of the Top 4.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UEFA_Cup_and_Europa_League_finals#By_club

Conference League started 2015 below Europa to give Clubs more matches for more clubs and more associations.

Thanks a bunch for posting this stuff, LFC! 

Love looking at raw data, that substantiates opinions. I didn't think it was until  Feyenoorde at 8th on this table, a Netherlands club, that any in the top seven were outside the Big Five.

What Craig Foster used to say, was that the  Europa League demonstrates the different relative  strength  of the mid-table teams in different  UEFA national leagues.

I've never quite understood what the criteria is for clubs to play Europa leagues? Do you know what they are?

This article makes some very good points whilst many/some keep going on about stat driven ways.....
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2024/jan/06/jurgen-klopp-man-management-liverpool-premier-league-data
The game itself and the world is being driven so much by the $$$$ it will be dog eat dog all over in the end.

Good author - Jonathon Wilson.

Along with Simon Kuper, Michael Cox and Ralph Honigsten, a lot of stuff I present on here comes from the books I've read by these authors. They augment what I've learned in formal coach education courses, conferences and workshops.

The EPL clubs all use stats in 2024. They  didn't used to.

There are a number people on this forum who know how to interpret football stats from long term familiarity. One poster rubbished one  young Aussie  defender  in the AL. Another responded he made 6 intercepts per game. If  this is solely intercepts, and does not include blocks, it is really good!

The highest I've recorded is Kevin Muscat averaging 7 per game when he played for Victory as their sweeper. Higher than any Socceroo - the best averaging 4-5 per game - Milligan, Mooy, Jedi, Grella, Culina. These guys read the game well, anticipating when and  where the ball is going well ahead of when it  gets there.

Arsene Wenger used to show Denis Bergkamp  as he aged,  at about the 60-70 min mark, why he subbed him.  AW said to DB that the stats showed he didn't run as much as he used to, to  open passing lanes to support the ball carriers, or to close down opposition space when they had the ball late in the game, like DB did when he was younger.

Sir Alex Ferguson sold Jaap Staam, because the data showed he was  not winning as many tackles as he was  earlier in his Man U career. However, the data was wrong. Staam  was sold on and starred elsewhere! SAF made a huge mistake relying on stats!

they didn't long ago D2, ofcourse its used everywhere today.

Are you not surprised by Muscats results, I'm not, he came here with farfar more experience than the bulk of the fresh newbie AL players were of those days.
Thats where I don't care of stats, his interceptions I expect that kind of return let alone the rest of the players you mentioned.
They all were another level to local players and facing attacks or defense's.
Christ even ol man ADP as AL matured made them all look sub standard - you expect that from experienced travelled players.

Its also not rocket science seeing X player your example Bergkamp fatiguing 60/70 mark, a good gaffa/coach reads that without stats.
Naturally provides good data looking over all the players performance over the 90mins for tech is our friend :).

Not sure where you got your Stam intel for it was known what actually occured and at that time having won 3titles on the bounce came back from achilles injury, this comment was more so Fergi's red herring about him saying thought he had slowed up a little, christ your not bouncing back form immediately from a achilles, Fergi hated with a passion anyone breaking his bubble in public, he was a control freak, when Stam quoted in his book they were instructed to fall over in the box like Euro players he was done in Fergi's eyes.
The same he tried ruining Beckhams United career worrying Posh was a destraction.
It had nothing to do with stats.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/jaap-stam-ferguson-man-united-25718036

D2 always misses the big picture when it comes to football.

The obsession with stats and technical blah blah blah is quite scary.

Read Simon Kuper, Soccernomics.

Most of the aforementioned came from his books.

One of those comments Kuper made is that SAF, Arsene Wenger and Sam Allardyce used stats before the rest  of the EPL did. It gave the former two an edge for some time.

The Stam and the Bergkamp stories came from Kuper. 

It is how the modern game has evolved.

When I've done workshops/training sessions with Ange /Muscat, Victory/ Phil Moss ( presenting Hiddink/Arnie stuff), Mariners, et al, most A L coaches use what you call technical and tactical blah, blah, blah. It is why Aus has improved. 

It is also a significant why the Socceroos punch above their weight.

Why do you think Aus punches above its weight with  no Big Five players, or  only a couple in the 30 odd  UEFA Big Clubs playing in more modest leagues,  Localstar?

In terms of goals scored per game, unless the number has increased/decreased per game decidedly over the last 3 decades,  surely average goals scored by a central striker per game is comparing apples with apples, oranges with oranges?

no it doesn't but gives a roughi guide from todays outlook.
Game was played totally different to the modern game, you need to open your mind just that little bit and not be so dog headed.

Put it this way....
We ALL know how the game has evolved - you keep coming from your pov (admitted hardly watched games till of late finally getting P+ and relied on old replays) and that none comprehend or understand because we're not qualified coachs or done course's.
I think many here are quite/very experienced in the game, from playing, reading, maybe some Jnr coaching (I know some are) blahblahblah......
Then you expect data from some to prove their comments, get over it and lighten up.

Here's another outlook we punch above weight with no big 5 players - many games its not about how much intel the coach and team have being prepared, they just keep plugging away even though we hardly look like the team that is going to score, in the meantime the opponent has blown countless chances, over the bar, hit the bar, gone wide etcetc, scrambles in the box, they blew it, not because of our brilliant data and analysis but because we got lucky so so so so many times.
We're damn lucky how we got to R16, we're damn lucky making whatever WC's to date last 2 longest routes you can imagine.
Thats walking the plank kind of stuff, not how much intel the staticians and team have available today.