Yes we did.

They missed an open goal.

And then the disallowed goal that should have been given which would have made it 3 early in the second half.

So it's only down to a lack of finishing and bad refereeing that we didn't concede 5 today.

I "have" faith that Pim can get us 2nd spot - statistically our best coach, during a period were we played harder opposition then any period before.

I "have" faith that key members of the team will drag us through to the second round.

I "have" faith that Kennedy will score a few (especially as the team looked more comfortable crossing this 'ball'

I "HAVE NO" faith in Craig Moore at this stage. 4 years ago - wondeful. He should of stayed retired after winning the opening Qualifier all those games ago.

Wasn't that disallowed goal offside? :-s

Grella had his chance to prove himself now he can fuck off. Valeri's pass was magic and he doesnt give away stupid fouls.

Kennedy wasnt completly useless - he did manage to hold up a few balls and play in some others - the only thing hes guilty of is not being a Cahill and jumping on those balls in the box.

NO it wasn't. The player that was judged to be offside wasn't interfering with any AUstralian player and the guy that out it in came from an onside position.

the disallowed goal was offside, as the usa striker was between i think it was wilkshire and the ball, preventing him from making a last ditch challenge. therefore he was interfering with the play and was offside.

No he wasn't. The offside player Budden I think it was walked across the front of the goal basically on the goal line not preventing any player getting to the ball from the rebound.

Its time to call a spade a spade guys - the USA was a step up & a fair class above us (they didn't even look to have hit their full stride, yet they scored 3 goals. We may have had had more possesion of the ball, but if your oposition can play without the ball & still score 3 goals, serious questions need to be asked of our system, coach & players. Especially as our next game is a further step up in level.

As for the posts from a few, I agree Grella & Moore looked out of their comfort zone.

Australia (FFA) should look closely at the USA's Major Soccer League and try replicate their model. The depth in their team & the advancements the US teams have made since 1994 are nothing short of AMAZING...

McDonald left at home and Garcia taken...to me this is th ebiggest blunder of all. Garcia just doesnt cut it at this level. We move to a 442 and he is at the top with Jesus and was missing. He was missing on the right as well.

No Plan B when we dont have Scoty Mac.

It was a training game, it mean nothing, BUT Moore im sorry but its time he is dropped.

If Patty was fit, he would have been there with Neil. Thats the thing, if Spira has been playing more he would have been partnering Neil but he is not.

God help us if the Germans devide to start fast against us and run at moore in the first half as the Yansk did. If that happens, I am worried. BUT, lets hope they sit back.

HOPE HOPE HOPE they sit back and go for a draw.

Im just going to throw this out there.

I love Josh as our striker, but the 3? chances he missed today were poachers goals, if only we had a good poacher in our team like that guy from Middlesbrough that I can't remember his name. I mean we were playing a 4-4-2 ffs, I seem to remember a player who was good at that formation.

Or God forbid they watched our last half a dozen matches and just drop all there corners and frees towards Moore. They will have a shooting Gallery!!!!

If we go 442, then Ruka should be subbed on straight away.

In-fact start him with Kennedy in a 442.

Did anyone feel sorry for scotty Mac, when they went to 2 strikers. He would of been in his element finally ;(

I loved it when chippers pushed up. Kennedy couldn't get to the ball or do anything with it. he should have got that header, he practically had no pressure.

grella had a forgetful game. I was happy to see ruka come on only to realise he left kennedy on - oh what now? that meant to two genuine attackers :P


the recurring theme in this game was that the socceroos seem a little afraid to push forward on the counter and preferred to hold onto the ball til we got players in front of the ball - our percentage of the ball justifies that.

You could see that the defence of the americans weren't all that great when we pushed a long ball up the field and got a lucky foot onto it. We had plenty of chances and I believe some real opportunity to get more than one on the board - its promising but just a little more effort and we'll get more than just the crowd ;)

I really wished we didn't lose to USA but they did have better touches when pushing forward - I sure hope pim has a good look at those through passes and our man-marking/running back. Sure we attacked more but not marking our opposition when they go on a counter is not good enough.

Hopefully come germany we have a good balance when we see cahill, emo, kewell getting into it (and hopefully a full game). Looks like there was a still a bit of experimenting going on so even though I hate the result, im not particularly worried. If we do play like this against germany then we won't have much luck getting any points from it.

I enjoyed vidosic input and ruka added a bit of run near the end.

On a side note, looks like both keepers were having problems judging the flight of the ball still but luckily for us we wont have to worry about any long unpredictable shots from the germans when we play them at sea level

Great hit out, end to end is what the team needed. The team knows what to look out for next time, so hopefully no repeats of the sluggish moments. Australia will be ready come match day. They have just been awoken!

obviously it was just a training game shown by the fact he didnt risk kewell and took cahill off. Also, the fact he experimented with a 4-4-2(still cant believe he did that after cutting the perfect goal poacher from the squad due to the fact he doesnt suit the lone striker role!).

However, in saying that we got completely whipped tonight. Yes we missed a few chances and could have had a couple but USA could have had 5 or 6. They ripped apart our defence and was a stern reminder of how aging and slow our defence is. Not sure how pim is going to conquer that but hopefully he can cook something up.

Beauchamp in for moore and Valeri in for Grella would be great but not sure if Pim would have the balls to do it. We are definetely underdogs to qualify but it is possible. A win against ghana is a given if we hope to get through and we are just going to have to hope Serbia is having an off day as they are sometimes inconsistent. Getting really excited for the first game now!!

Kennedy was just hopeless tonight! didn't commit to one passage of play and couldn't get control of the ball at his feet...never has been able to. He just looks so unsure when he has the ball and lacks composure. his positioning was horrific and he just looks so lazy out there!

Grella's idea of controlling the game is taking out as many players as he can! foolish mistake by him which cost us that first goal and really blew the game open.

There were more holes in defence than there are in a piece of swiss cheese...the Americans dominated us on the counter attack and we payed for it!

It was good to see Australia actually trying to attack, and they held possession well which was promising, but nobody seemed to back themselves in front of goal. Rukavytsya's shot on goal and Wilkshire's early strike were the only 2 clear examples of Aussie players actually backing themselves...I don't know if it's just me but i would rather see a player have a shot from outside the box than play a crappy 50/50 ball into the box which will most likely be cleared anyway!

If we play like this against Germany, we are screwed!!!

If Pim has a brain, he will line the side up like this (if Emo and Kewell are in shape)

--------------------Schwarzer----------------------
---Emerton-------Neil--------Moore------Chipperfield--
---------Wilkshire-------Grella------Bresciano---------
-----------------Cahill-------Culina----------------
----------------------Kewell----------------------
* Kewell is the only player Aus can put up front who can actually finish consistantly!

The Socceroos were very,very,very POOR! TERRIBLE in fact.
One dimensional rubbish!
Dont know if it was fatigue from the intense training or
what?
Must do Better or start packing now.
That was Embarassing actually!!!
"CHIPPER" looked good though.
Im feeling extremely anxious and scared now,after that performance.

ill have to watch the replay again but my initial reaction was it was the right call

USA won 3-1, but really I was pleased with the performance by us, abit slow to start with and USA got an early goal. but I thought we controlled most of the game.
Kennedy missed afew chances, didn't think he was that great.

The two full backs were good Wilkshire , and Chippers.

I'm more happy with how we played than the game against the Danes, just didn't defend very well.

Well thats it now, next game is a World Cup match against the Germans.

we were really poor, our best opportunities again coming mainly from corners, they were just sitting back waiting for us to cough it up and off they went, our defence got destroyed by 2 mls strikers! its simply not good enough, credit to the americans for not playing a rubbish sideways/backwards style of play, the american midfield always looks to go forward and as rubbish as they are in defence at least they are entertaining and link well in the attacking third and actually play to a style that allows them to score plenty of goals, we on the other hand dont have a plan B, we bombarded them with corners but in open play they sliced us in every area whether it was punishing us for cheap turnovers like the 1st goal or whipping in crosses like the 2nd goal...not to mention all those through balls to the quick strikers behind our backs, they have variety and we dont its that simple.

When I first saw I thought it was the right decision as well. On closer inspection the camera angle from the sideline shows it best. Schwarzer is on the ground after saving the shot and Budden walks basically along the goal line while the player who was onside comes through to put the header in. Budden doesn't interfere with any Australian player doesn't stop anyone from getting to the ball and doesn't touch the ball. Therefore isn't offside.

I think my thread sums up my thoughts.

Kennedy I'm not too concerned about - you're not going to fling yourself around after crosses in a match like this that means nothing. He would have gone harder at a lot of these if this was the real thing, and probably converted one or two of them.

Fullbacks, excellent. Culina, good (much better than previous games). Garcia anonymous but hopefully shouldn't start based on that - since Vidosic showed more in 20 than he did.

the Danes didnt press us in any way they were just prepared to keep the ball and that kept our defence fine, tonight we had the chance to show what we could do when the opposition allows us to dominate possesion, somehow despite having more of the ball we should have copped at least 5 goals and gave away double the amount of chances compared to what we created, all of this came about because the opposition came out and attacked us with genuine speed...we simply werent up to defending that.

this is the fucking problem... we controlled the game but lost 3-1... that shouldn't happen if you control a game

thinking about it, I guess playing with 1 up front its kinda hard to have a counter when you have no one up front fast enough to get the ball. I do think kennedy needs to run a little more or work on his positioning - he did seem a little tired which showed in his first touches. In saying that, It might be easier when you have ruka up there running around. I agree that we need a few more "selfish" shots as it seems we were taking far to many touches around the box... either that or the US were able to pile on the pressure but their defence was nothing crash hot so it couldn't really be that.

Probably why pim pushed for a 4-4-2 because with the many chances to bomb it forward (and unfortunately we had no macca to put on but when the majority of your formation is 4-3-2-1...).

I still think the US are not going to qualify out of the group stages but they are lucky to have howard in goals.
If england are smart enough they will get them on the counter and will box out any of USA's chances of quick forward plays which they did well against australia today.

Like I mentioned earlier, im not worried. The great thing about this is that we were not that afraid to attack (though kennedy really needs to work on his positioning skills) and our defence can hold up (as seen during the denmark game). these cracks will certainly be worked on during the next week.

have a little bit of faith :) I'm excited for some World cup action now... NOT LONG NOW :D


Edited by Bryan: 6/6/2010 02:16:27 AM

we do need to remember that we have been in a heavy training phase for the last week or so...

Yeah true, but we passed the ball around alot better, and created more chance, and didn't have everyone falling asleep.

You'll rather the chances not go in, in these matches, but hope they go in when they count.

The scoreline looks worse than it really was. If you look at the stats Oz matched the Yanks in every dept. The worrying thing is that we can't convert REAL goal scoring chances. I thought Oz looked more effective when Pim changed it 4-4-2 in the second half.

What's bad is the scoreline should have looked a lot worse than it was.

I have said it once and I will say it again: 1 up front does not suit us.

To those saying Kennedy was useless... The most stupid statement ever. If Kennedy had anyone backing him up then the score would be 6 up our favour. The USA teamed up on him with the goalie and a central defender. It left the goal wide open for a fucking tap in a hundred times!!! Even if that person wouldve been marked it still wouldve created some trouble.