Come on everyone and unite.

We are Australian football fans forever!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ErEk2720CA

"yes, lets be happy we beat or drew with all the little Asian teams during qualification"

The "little Asian teams" seem to be doing pretty well in this World Cup so far!

Whoever said where there is smoke there is fire is dead right.These things dont just come about out of nothing. Verbeek is narrow minded and will be as boring as watching paint dry to get a result.The problem is that just about goes against every natural instinct australians have.Where taught to never say die and always get on the front foot no matter what the situation in life is.Clearly Pims boring negative tactics go against everything that is australian.

I had confidence in Pim until he came out and said we CANNOT
WIN the world cup before the Germany match, and he and Neill had no confidence we could beat Germany despite the NT in the past having had a very good go at Italy, Netherlands, Brazil, England etc. If your coach has no confidence in you to win why would you have confidence in him? Journeyman has found his natural level coaching the Morocco youth team. Good riddance to the box-ticker. Give me Maradona any day: even Craig Foster, mental as he might seem on SBS, would at least have brought some belief if not better results.

Not true at all, we have a list of quality players there. But a poor coach who doesn't know how to get the best out of them.

Agree 100%

The media blowing things up. No surprises there.

I actually think that the Australian football media and fans have been very effective acting as a fifth column to undermine the Socceroos and their staff. We aren't the best team in Asia even though we are ranked #1. It speaks volumes of the Socceroos set up that they have achieved above their collective abilities in qualifying "easily" for the World Cup and, with a big struggle, for the Asian Cup. Since they achieved this, however, there has been this constant haranguing of the staff and team about style. We expect a bunch of middle range internationals to play and achieve like the better credentialed teams. Its time to be realistic about the quality of our team and our football and just tell them to go out and do their best and we will be proud of them for doing it.

We don't expect to play like the better credentialed teams. We expect to go out like we believe we can win a game and with a formation and tactics that will allow us to do so. Playing like that and preparing like that and surrendering like we did in the media... all down to Pim and the management of the team - I can't remember any side playing a 4-6-0 formation to avoid defeat - even Andorra and San Marino play with one striker.

I don't expect us to play the best stuff out there, but I expect us to attack, at the very least, have a go - something we showed no intent whatsoever of doing against Germany, and it's all down to Pim.

Actually if you read or listen to many of the so called experts they do expect us to play like and match the better credentialed teams and too many of our fans have believed the hype. We are still learners at international level and we have a team that is the shell of the 2006 team on the way down near the end of their careers.

I don't believe that Pim got his tactics right but he didn't put a 4-6-0 on the pitch to avoid defeat he put a 4-4-2 on the pitch to try to take the game up to Germany and to snatch a result. Unfortunately the players were outskilled to a man (except maybe for Emerton) and were not up to the task they had been set. That we could have chosen more suitable players for this formation is a very valid thing to argue but to suggest that we played with a midfield of 6 is an utter nonsense. We started the game with 2 up front and it didn't work because we were not able to move the ball to them effectively.

Edited by gyfox: 18/6/2010 10:11:48 AM