The U16s v Switzerland had some very good dribblers, Treffiletti in particular. Irankunda's power, pace and striking would have been handy. 

Wow i just watched Vidmar in post-game interview say that ‘he couldn’t fault the way team played’.
So he has no problem with the lack of ball possession & control in midfield, the lack of scoring chances created, or the lack of defensive organisation for set pieces that led to Indonesia goal?!
he is absolutely clueless. It was Indonesia FFS - not likes of Argentina or France!! Not even scoring against Jordan or Indonesia is atrocious Tony.

I bet even Vidmar isn't that dense. He's putting a positive spin on it to protect himself/the players. 

Really? You’re saying that about a coach that waits til very last minute to ask likes of Irankunda to join squad?! If he had more balls he would admit his tactics and player selections are poor and that he needs to improve quickly 

Does anyone remember what style we played with arnie in 2020? Was it more pragmatic. Can only watch the sk game

Given we cant get our euro players and a league budgets are too poor to retain players who can play proactively in asia should we try and have a coach that qualifies for the olympics by any style necessary going forward?

Asian champions league teams that dominate possession have historically struggled in australia

I remembered the game vs  Thailand in the 2nd game of the group. The host Thailand just beat Bahrain 5-0 in the 1st game.

The firrst 30 minutes we were outplayed by Thailand with many turnovers by us and they lead us 1-0.

Agostino scored just b4 half time and then we outplayed them in the 2nd half.

After the game in the press Thailand accepted they were totally outplayed by Australia in the 2nd half.

Arnie changed the tactic in the 2nd half to press high and pressed hard and was more physical which tired the Thais. Gerbach was fantastic at the LW and Agostino did well as a central striker.   Thomas Dang was RB running  up & down and closed down their winger he did well both offensively and defensively.  And the core of that team is Piscopo as AM.  All of the creativity came thr him.

Interesting playing gersbach at lw like bos at lw for the nt or shannon cole at lw for popa, spira at dm under holger, franjic at rw under ange, guus playing culina high up against uruguay

It seems a common tactic to put technical defensive players higher on the pitch than they are used to

I dont think the issue is the players, it's how you use them and how they are coached when facing this problem.

Yes it was far more pragmatic. Honestly all the games in the olympics were shameful, yes we beat Argentina but we parked the bus and used Lachie Wale's pace. I know it doesn't look like progress as we are 1 point from 2 games in the asian cup but we have a lot more players out than last time and our technical ability on the ball has come on a lot.

I guess we have to decide what we want, unless we have a bunch of players have a break through year at once it is hard to see us qualify through asia using possession football as we dont get the euro players. Even if we get better at youth development that just means more players overseas

But that doesnt mean this lot are crap. Farrel is defensively good enough to make the big 5 one day imo, milanovic and brook are as good as silvera was when he left and are a year younger, holman looks strong enough to go to buli 2 next season and this is just our a league based olyroos. Still it hurts to be out of the olympics....

All the games are accessible on the Olympics Archive website. I watched a few those games back in preparation for these tournaments and yeah despite some of the would-be Socceroos names, we weren't good at all. Happy to have Souttar at the back but honestly even this team performing the way they are would run a good contest against that 2020 team. 

Yes, in the future we won't be able to use our best European players which is a good thing because it means we are progressing through Europe as you remember that most top European nations and been going through the same thing for decades and they just have insane depth that it doesn't matter if their top players never play for age-group teams. 
Should also remember that we aren't the only country in Asia that faces this problem, any country with notable European talent from Asia suffer the same, with a lot of countries having this issue and it'll only get worse as more Asian based youth talent transition to Europe. But we should still be able to qualify with our domestic talent as nearly every other nation is currently using full domestic league talent and still beating us. We aren't as handicapped relatively as we think we are. It comes down to consolidation of talent with coaching and dispersing that talent onto the field correctly. Australian football coaching and identity is way behind with junior football, the values we have, the way we setup and what we find as important attributes to possess is so outdated. The whole Aussie DNA is stupidest thing I've ever heard from Arnold. 

What is the wage budget of the k and j league tho?

In future we should indeed be able to get past the next teir with domestic talent tho. Think we should have dones so convincingly this time with a coach with club experience

Personally I think U23 is a waste of time and money.
To assume we should beat Indonesia is simply arrogance. Why should we be better at football than Indonesia? They have more than 10 times our population and are becoming a powerhouse economy. Football is their number one sport. They have the pick of the best athletes. We don't.
So why the assumption of superiority in football? Fact is that all the south East Asian countries are catching up. Fast. 
We are small country where football is sport number 3 or 4 for the best athletes. It will be more difficult for us to compete as time moves on, and we are seeing that now. These U23 performances are not some kind of glitch after which normal service will resume. 
And you what? That's a good thing. Strong regional football equals meaningful competition and more interest and hopefully a genuine ACL that means something... If our clubs are ever good enough to compete. 

Game-changer!
Just going further than that...
Couldn't find any 2000 Australia games
Seems like all the 2004 games are there (Olyroos and Matildas), and just the Aus v Serbia for 2008

Its not all about population. Its the quality not quantity. Otherwise China would have won the world cup. In terms of football they are still C class nation in Asia.  Right now Indo are using many mixed blood players. These players grew up in Europe.

Indonesia never made it to this last stage of U23 Asian cup b4 and this is their 1st win in their history. They beat the Oz cuz this Olymroos might be the worst team not because Indonesia is any good.  You will see they will get trashed by Jordan in the last game.  ASEAN teams are still far  behind many arab nations.

Yes was more pragmatic. Played what I would call a balanced style, not counter attacking but not direct either. Pressed hard though in a 442 out of possession which has become a hallmark of the socceroos. I remember anytime they managed to beat our press, Bacchus being an absolute beast at covering ground and mopping up. I remember being like "who is this guy he is going places" and turned out right. Having said thought Piscopo was unbelievable but hasn't really kicked on. Deng played well at rb and souttar of course at CB with Dylan Ryan. Seemed to be a real spirit in that group with some strong personalities who have gone on to form the basis of the current overachieving socceroos. 

Just watched Spain v Brazil friendly from last month on Paramount. Two of the best players on the pitch are younger than Nestory Irankunda - Lamine Yamal (Barcelona, Spain) and Endrick (soon-to-be Real Madrid, Brazil). Yamal is 16, Endrick 17. Oh Aussies, ye of little faith in youth. We'll never know what Irankunda could have done v Jordan and Indonesia
https://www.goal.com/en/lists/brazil-player-ratings-spain-endrick-lamine-yamal/blt3cdb0aeb1f5fa82d

Gersbach most definitely played LB that tournament albeit with License to get forward so looked like a 5 in midfield when we had the ball

You know what's fucked about our imminent non-qualification for the Olympics?

People will just say 'Oh well if only we had Irankunda' to not have a good hard look at where it's all going wrong. As if the one player would make up for what's been dished up. 

Remember Fornaroli getting picked for the Asian Cup. Was going to win the golden boot according to some here.

What happened? Zero impact.
 

I'm not defending Vidmar's performance as coach. I just reckon those comments are motivated by arse covering. 

That's a fair call. 

I'm pissed we didn't select Irankunda but it's clear more went wrong than just selection. Vidmar had a shocker and should get replaced. 

Was this qualifers or the olympics itself?

This squad is as good as ccm who breezed past indonesian squads in the afc cup and might face a jordanian team in the final. So u would think with proper coaching in the future we can do better than this with similar quality players

Yeah im leaning towards coaching being the issue. I think vidmar has potential based on how good we looking is friendlies and mini tournaments but lack of experience mattered as friendlies are different to proper matches. This squad based on fotmob ratings would be equal first in the a league and ccm did well against the best teams in south east asia during the afc cup. Its possible the teams we are facing are a bit better rhan afc cup sides, but i think we should be able to manage the second teir with better coaching

And to be fair this goes at all levels too especially with the Socceroos asian cup campaign,  where not a single comment about Arnie's tactics or approach I wont forget Ernie Merrick's comments saying the playing quality isn't there but no word on the tactics or player selections.

Its so frustrating when the coaching and selections never get questioned when it's always we lack the cattle comments gets put on notice more.

Irankunda is just a whole other level of impact and especially at this level. Not sure how much you watch of Nestor but really when he is on the pitch your best move is to just give him the ball or keeping counter attacking and playing through balls. Irankunda would seriously have like 15 shots a game at this level and would be hard to not believe he would also score multiple goals on top of that. Very evident one of our biggest issues at this tournament has been finishing and wing-play. We wouldn't be in this situation if he were here but it's it doesn't matter now, all that matters is we beat Qatar and Jordan beat Indonesia by one goal.

final xi

-----------------beach------------------
-italiano---popa---jcp---farrel------
-------------teague-holman---------
-----------------youlley---------------
-brook----toure---milanovic

weird jcp isn't first choice for his club over jgr but is selected here. 

if youlley is good enough to keep jelacic out at 18 then he needs an a league loan (unless he plays for westerlo next year)

in any case might as well watch

Hollman injured and being substituted off?

He's back on now?