I gotta agree with ya there Joshy


What do you think about the FourFourTwo article Kennedy Blames German Tactics?
SOCCEROOS striker Joshua Kennedy believes Pim Verbeek got his tactics wrong in the Germany defeat which ultimately led to Australia's early exit from the 2010 World Cup.

Have your say.

I guess we'll see alot of the players having their say now as there will be no repercussions from Pim.

Yes, we all agree with you JOSHUA !

Josh we were all surprised when he left you out. But not surprised that he would end our World Cup dream prematurely in some other way. I for one am glad we are rid of him.

While Pim was generally no good for Australian football he did get an ordinary team to the world cup and they played well 2 out of 3 games. More than I was expecting.
If Josh had'nt played SO badly in the trial games Pim may have been more inclined to pick him for the first game. And what was he doing with the tap in after Wilkshire missed against Ghana? You could argue his miss there cost us a victory.
Its not all Pim's fault as much as we dont like his last two years.

I blame you Josh, you looked way out of your league when you did play.

Josh, I am a fan of yours but despite you trying your best you have not played well for the past few months. Now you may have been injured, I heard reports that you had a back problem, fair enough.
But had you been able to play better in the lead up games & no doubt in training also then I am sure that Pim would have started with you in the Germany game.
The fact is that you are a one trick pony, that trick is you are tall & good in the air. Unfortunately for you the German centrebacks are also tall & good in the air, this cancelled your advantage out.

Pim needed someone more mobile than you were at that stage, to run & hassle & pressure the German defence so they couldn't build up play from the back easily. For this reason I believe Pim played Garcia up front, with Tim behind.
Culina was moved over to the left because Chippers had bad games against USA & Denmark. Culina was there to help Chippers to deal with the speedy & skilful Lamm.
Bresciano came good later in the tournament but he is not much cover for Chippers defensively against Lamm, also he was underdone & performed rather ordinary in the three warm up games.
( Our other left back, Carney. As we saw in the Serbia game, Carney is not much defensively. Against Krasic he looked like he had won a competition to play in a World Cup game with the Socceroos. I noticed afterwards that he had his back or ribs strapped & so it seems like he was carrying an injury into that game).

So Pim played with the cards he had chosen. Those cards were his choice & his responsibility. But to be honest he did not have have the same luxuries of Guus. Guus had most of the same players 4 years quicker etc, he also had Viduka, Skoko, Lazaridis, Aloisi. Pim's top players were older & injured or out of form & rusty. Only Cahill & Schwarzer had improved.

Pim's papering over the cracks worked for about the first ten minutes & we attacked them until everyone in defence including Schwarzer & midfield were found to be either asleep or suffering from stage fright.
Except for Emerton, Valeri & Wilkshire.

Kewell obviously wasn't ready to play a full game & Josh wasn't up to playing a pressing game at the front, at that stage of the tournament, due to injuries.

Two goals down, Cahill got himself sent off with an hour to go.
No sense bringing Harry on now as originally planned. He would have to race around & work even harder, it was too risky. So Pim does the wise thing & brings on our two fastest, most mobile players, Holman & Ruka to try & get 10 men to cover the same area as 11 men.
Keep Harry now in cotton wool for the Ghana & Serbia games.
End result 4 - 0.

Craig Foster says to attack & play for the shirt but he does not say what moves he would have made (even with hindsight ) for the Germany game or what players & positions he would have used or even what Pim should have done because Fossie can't. It is much easier to blame the foreigner that is leaving soon than to admit our players, who we can't swap easily, let themselves down.
It is just a vague statement that he would have attacked them. With what Fossie? Who? Where?

Don't forget, our players at the start of the tournament were not all ready to go & perform at the same level they did for the Serbia game, despite the best efforts of our medical & fitness staff.

Yes, those players can play really well, but only under certain circumstances. Pim had much less margin for error than Guus because of the state of the players fitness & form.

Also it was a tougher group than four years earlier as we didn't have a Japan equivalent.
Had we played Ghana first, Serbia second then Germany in the third game we would have had our best result & performed much better against Germany with the same squad of players & got a result.
We also played Serbia with 11 players including one of our star players Cahill for the entire game, first time in the tournament. Don't underestimate the importance of that.




Edited by Damo Baresi: 26/6/2010 06:52:55 PM

Josh Kennedy needs to grab a couple of videos of his recent efforts an take the rose coloured glasses off when he's watching them.
He honestly couldn't truly believe that he would have had a positive impact on changing our fortunes against Germany.
He's lazy, slow and technically inferior to 99 percent of the players at the World Cup.
Send him back to Japan and when we are trying to qualify for the Asian Cup - leave him there.

I'm sure he's just saying what the team thought. Josh didn't really impress me when he was on the field though, Germany would've ate him up if he was on. Still, the team for that game was just plain wrong.

Couldn't help but think if we had a top notch striker (Dukes-like) during all games we really could have impressed more.

Best post I've read regarding the German game. Bresc, Kennedy and a few others were absolutely woeful in the lead up games so to a certain extent the players were to blame. Who is to say that we wouldn't have been beaten by more if they would have started and he kept to his normal formation. However Verbeek's ommission of McDonald was inexcusable especially in context of him complaining to the Dutch press about having to pick Ruka who was struggling to get a gig in the Eredevise.

And so it begins. Much more to come, me thinks...

Josh and Bresc were shit in earlier games.
Don't expect more then you give fools.

Damo, that was a near perfect analysis of Pim's dilemma. Do you have a blog, I want to bookmark it. If you don't please start one!
Areslicking over, I still think that although you picked Pim's dilemma perfectly he still failed against Germany (although to be fair, most would have). No way in hell would I have started Garcia and Cahill as strikers. Just no. He could indeed have brought the underperforming Sterjovski, McDonald or Bruce Djite or even included Tommy Oar. But in the absence of Harry to work upfront and with Josh's poor form this tournament his best choice for forwards from the 23 was... Chipperfield, Emerton and Holman. As he eventually found out. But Chippers should have started in the Viduka role if he wanted a 442. We could have taken something from the match if he'd parked the bus and we'd hoofed it up to Chippers and Jesus with Tim or Holman in the hole and Valeri and Culina intercepting crosses at the other end. And you know what, maybe the backs-to-the-wall 4-2-3-Jesus the boys were used to might have been the simple and effective answer?

Thanks neverwozza & Neasden Rovers. I don't have a blog but I post on here often.

I forgot to add a couple of other points. Something strange happened before this game with Kewell & Bresciano leading to their failure to warm up with the team on the pitch. I dont know what happened but I don't buy the explanation that Harry gave - eg it was on his physio's instructions. Bull. Also that still doesn't explain Bresch's absence. I don't know if they had a fight between themselves or it was coincidence or what. I subscribe to the Harry Bosch ( detective ) theory ie there are no coincidences. Both players being senior players & proud, I suspect that they were probably told by Pim that neither of them were starting the game & spat the dummy big time, maybe refusing to warm up. Like I said, I don't know but that seems the logical explanation.
After the German game Harry's comments were Pim's the boss & it was his decision I didn't play, I wanted to play & felt ready to play, words to that effect. Bresch's mate Vinnie had a training pitch argument with Pim.
Bresch later played against Ghana & set up the goal with a great free kick. He was shitty when he was subbed off & refused to shake Graham Arnold's hand, ( you gotta admire him for that, at the least he has good taste ).
Harry was saved until the second game & before it he had an incident with the press, Mike Cockerill specifically. Then he got sent off but gee he looked the goods until then.

I have heard rumours from a few different sources that two star players don't get on with each other, won't talk to each other & wouldn't be photographed together. This rings true with my observations of what is said & done & what is not said & done with the squad. Sorry to be cryptic. Pim had to manage the group & keep everyone working together with this unfortunate rift. We may hear more about this later but the rift, as I understand it was not between Pim & the players over tactics but rather between two players over other stuff.

After the media frenzy of the Germany game which galvanised the whole group & then the second sending off & an improved showing in the Ghana game it is possible that they banded together more.

Also Pim has said it was difficult to give instructions on the pitch in the first half of the German game with the din of all of the vuvuzelas. So he was able to do that at half time in the dressing room.

Finally an objective, intelligent analysis of our World Cup campaign.

I agree entirely with your assessment of Verbeek's reality. i do find him at fault for not taking Mac. I also suspect that Arnold had a lot more influence on team selction and tactics then we is generally ackowledged.

As far as Kennedy goes, he IS a one trick pony, but he didn't even do that well, especially against Serbia. I can't recall a single header troubling the keeper, or being knocked down for anyone to pounce on. On the ground, aside from one turn on Vidic-who got the ball back two steps later- I can't recall anything useful he did.

Carney is a very poor left back, as the Serbs showed. Both Krasic and later Tosic could have score from Carney's side. I can see him back in the A-League sooner rather than later.

Once you learn how to pass a ball and develop a first touch better than that of a baby giraffe, play the blame game.

Agreed stefcep ( good avatar by the way ).

In fairness to Carney, Krasic does seem like a fine right winger but defensive is not Carney's strong point as we saw with the cracker of a goal he scored against Ireland.
I am a Josh fan but he seems to have struggled lately, perhaps he is carrying a back injury, perhaps it is the step up in class of the opposition defenders from Asian qualifiers. Ivanovic & Vidic are star defenders in two of the biggest clubs in the world.
Josh almost had a goal against Serbia but it skewed slightly wide. But apart from that he didn't seem energetic enough in chasing or holding up the ball. I'm not 6ft 6 but if I was I reckon I wouldn't be much of a runner either. Conversely when he did use body position to advantage in the Serbia match, to shield the ball he was unfairly penalised by the referee in my opinion, when it was just good work on his part. I guess it was because he is tall, rather unfair on him though, he plays fairly always.
Him as a tall target attracts the best defender in the air, which opens up heading opportunities for Cahill. I suppose that's what Kennedy meant.
He's a nice guy & just wanted to play all of the time, as you would expect. Roller coaster of emotions for all of our team. Still he did get a fair run of the friendly games & the World Cup games. I think Pim actually showed plenty of faith in him, ( no pun intended ) & gave him lots of opportunities.
I really feel for Dario Vidosic who I reckon was quite unlucky not to get some game time at the World Cup after his performances in the friendlies. But his time will come.

None of us are perfect but I think any errors Pim made were in the choosing of his squad, not at the world Cup itself.
Truthfully Scott McDonald has played crap in all of his games for Australia, ( not his club ) so far. Pim also gave him a number of opportunities, as he did with Nicky Carle.
( Carle has played crap for us so far, so did Holman pre tournament but his running at defences panics them).

As most people predicted I think Pim got it wrong choosing Moore & Milligan over Ogenovski, Colosimo or Bosnar. I would also have liked to have Brosque in the squad instead of Garcia.


To me Pim picked Milligan & Garcia out of a love of their versatility, jack of all trades but master of none.
He picked Moorey out of a misguided sense of loyalty. Moore should only have been called into the squad as strongman & organiser if Neill got injured before the games started & had to miss the tournament. Neill & Moore together were too much the same.

Moore first game was awful as were all of his warm up games. Perhaps Pim felt he owed him something. He did improve, through sheer will & pride, in the Ghana game. Still one of the other three I said should have been in the German game instead, or even Beauchamp, whose tackling against Serbia was surprisingly top notch.

On the subject of Nicky Carle, I can not for the life of me remember anyone in our team playing a single defence splitting through ball, not in the friendlies or the World Cup itself. Sure we overloaded them on the wings sometimes with two on ones but we didn't open up anyone's defence. Shots from distance, headers from distance but no turning their defence around. Amazing.


Jason Culina is not nearly the player he was when he played in Holland. Grella played barely average. Looking back we would have got a higher standard in this tournament from Valeri & Jedinak instead of Jason & Vinnie. Sad but true.

Bresciano is a class above & a true professional, a valuable asset in attack not defence, he improved as the tournament went along, following being injured & unable to play most of 2010.
He obviously wasn't ready to go in the Germany game, his form in the lead ups was average but his determination & pride shone through in the 2nd & 3rd games.

Pim is a realist & just didn't have the talent ready, able & available.
He didn't want to attempt it with A League players & rightly so.

Imagine the difference minus Moore, Milligan perhaps Grella & Culina.

Who was injured? Who wasn't? Missing from our squad through injury, Kisnorbo & Williams. they would have made a big difference to our defence.

As I said, Colosimo & Brosque would have been really handy to have.

Our players in the squad that were semi injured, recovering from injury, carrying injuries, out of form or generally rusty were : Grella, Moore, Bresciano, Emerton, Chipperfield, Carney, Kennedy & Kewell.
Apart from Vinnie who got injured, the rest got physically better the more it went on.
Kewell was out with suspension. Against the odds they still performed admirably through pride & guts & determination.

Cahill was unavailable for one & a half games. Kewell unavailable for one & a half games. We played two out of our three games with just 10 players.

If not in the Group of Death, we were in the group of Near Death ( or chronic injury, pun intented ).

World FIFA Rankings - Germany ( Ranked 6th ), Ghana ( Ranked 32 ) & Serbia ( Ranked 15 ) Australia ( Ranked 20th )
Considering all of the above it's little wonder we didn't attack our opposition more.

When the performances are analysed along with the circumstances at the time it's actually damn impressive that the team lost one, drew one & won one game.

At the World Cup the coach did not have the necessary quality of cattle fit & available for all three games.




Edited by Damo Baresi: 27/6/2010 01:32:24 AM

you mean Pim got the tactics wrong for the Germany game...?!!
news to me!

Looking at the result as a whole, Verbeek got as many points as Hiddink with a weaker squad and tougher group.

exactly last wc we got 4 points, this year we got 4 points.

i would say the two red cards this time affected us the most, and to still get 4 points is a good achievement. if harry wasnt red carded, we might have won and pim would be a hero, now hes a villian.

and josh kennedy didnt do shit all world cup so i dont care what he says.

also we were in teh only group where the bottom places team had 3 points (ie a win)

Edited by beersandwich: 27/6/2010 12:58:46 PM

Totally agree with your assessment, pim may have screwed but I could see what he was trying to do but it backfired horribly and salvaging it from the red card was made harder.. as for those those two stars. Im curious. who are these two stars you speak of? Did i miss it somewhere?

Stefcep you got that right about verbeek.

I thought it was pretty common knowledge that Kewell and Cahill don't get on. I gotta say every time I see Cahill in an ad I think of the dollars that Kewell is missing out on. Money is the root of all evil!!

Personally I think Josh is shit and I think he thinks too highly of himself. I never rate the guy. He's good at header but not as good as Cahill. For a striker, he can't shoot unless he is 6 metres from the goal line. He can't dribble, clumsy on the ball and very slow.

I'm over in SA, and have not checked this site for a few weeks. Just to clarify the speculation, Harry was told well before the match that he was going to play no part in it. My source? One of the guys I chatted with after the game had seats next to Harry's kids and ended up babysitting them a bit during the match. He was told 30 minutes before the game that "daddy has been told he is not playing today".

Take that as you will.

Damo, I can't say I agree with you re: Kennedy. He played in the Bundesliga for 8 years and scored against several of the defenders in the germann squad. Not to mention he'd have brought other players into the game.

Josh is jsut reiterating what fans have been saying for the last three weeks. That Pim's tactics against germany were niave and let us down horribly.

David Davutovic Article which ran on Sunday. Kewell confirms.


THE CAHILL RIFT

Kewell admitted that he was upset with Tim Cahill in the aftermath of a story relating to an alleged incident at a nightclub.

"Look, I was upset with Tim when there were allegations that I leaked something to the press about him," Kewell said.

"I have never in my life done anything like that to a player. It's an unwritten rule.

"I was on his side and when that came out, I was disappointed.

"He did apologise personally but I didn't want my name to be associated with that, because I had nothing to do with it.

"But what's done is done.

"I do regard him as a good friend and as a good player. He does well for his club and country.

"We are on speaking terms. We all get on well with each other.

"The only problem with Tim is that he can't play Hearts. I think he's a bit cut that I've beaten him a few too many times."


http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/world-cup-2010/harry-kewell-opens-up-about-pim-tim-and-the-germany-debacle/comments-fn4l5n4r-1225884740968


So there you go, it confirms some of what I had heard.
I reckon Harry is downplaying it a lot. Harry is just being professional about it.
What would you expect him to say about it?
It can't have been easy being in camp like that.


Consider also this quote from Pim Verbeek in amongst an article that was publish on the 7th June - before the World Cup started & before the Germany Game.

"They are so professional, they do everything they can, and as a group they are fantastic also.

"They don't have to be friends, but they look like friends, and that's necessary. When you stay for five or six weeks together in camp, that's very important.

"There's a lot of respect for each other, they work very hard for each other - they all want to play."


http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/world-cup-2010/pims-plea-to-senior-socceroos-dont-all-quit-at-once/story-fn4l5n4r-1225876617471


I thought it was a strange thing for him to say at the time. Obviously there was a reason for it.




Then there was an article in Early June 2010, in the Sunday Herald Sun written by a journalist named Paul Kent. I read it in the newspaper but I can't seem to find it on the internet now.

The heading of the article was something about leadership. it was at the training camp in South Africa. The journo asked to get a photo of a few specific players together.
Lucas Neill refused & told him " no group photos, that's the rules
" He replied " that's not the rules". Lucas reiterated " no group photos, that's the rules " WTF??

It sounds to me like a "rule " the team decided on to avoid the awkwardness of Harry or Tim refusing to be photographed with each other.


Also neither Tim or Harry played a single minute in the same game together that I can recall in the " friendly games " (no pun intended), nor in the World Cup.
Tim played first game, Harry sub, second game Tim suspended but Harry played, third game Tim back & played but this time Harry suspended.
I think that is just coincidence but it is strange the way it worked out, isn't it.

Also who got red cards? Tim & Harry. ( Tim also nearly got sent off in the friendly against New Zealand ).
So, did the tension between the players, (that Harry has now confirmed) contribute to them both in separate games getting themselves sent off? I reckon the answer is yes.

Then there is their opposite reactions after we didn't make it through to the second round.
Tim tells newspaper reporters that he's proud.
Harry tells newspaper reporters admitting Socceroos are ashamed of their early exit & feel they let the country's fans down.

Tim has not said anything publicly on the subject of a rift with Harry.
Harry only said so this week, in a Davutovic article on that and other topics, that was published Sunday just gone.

I wonder what it is like for Lucas Neill, Captain of Australia, best mates with Timmy, plays at Gallatasary with Harry. Wonder what it was like for the other players in the camp too?

It sounds like a most unfortunate situation but from the outside looking in, it seems that the players did their best to get on with the job at hand.





http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/jesse-fink/blog/1010979/Where-does-the-buck-stop

Jesse Fink HTO SBS wrote 27th June.

"But the players have to accept their own responsibility for some aspects of the campaign leading up to and during the Cup – such as poor on-field discipline (Vince Grella, Tim Cahill), an unbecoming propensity to verbally harangue referees when things aren’t going our way (Harry Kewell, Lucas Neill) and, most troublingly of all, personality conflicts within the team itself.

No one within the game bought Ben Buckley’s assurances during the Cup there was nothing amiss inside the dressing room. All the anecdotal evidence I have heard from well-placed figures suggests otherwise.

Within those four walls, where only the privileged have access, there has reputedly been discord for some time, going back to when the Socceroos played Uzbekistan and Japan at home last year. It was nicely kept under wraps with everyone all hush-hush but suddenly, spectacularly, exploded publicly in the wake of the Durban disaster.

As we have seen with England, Italy and France at this World Cup, a team squabbling among itself is not a team primed to perform at their best."



Most journos I guess did not know, because all of the questions after the German game were aimed at a supposed rift between the players & the coach.

There are a few journos here that knew of this but held off writing about it deliberately, until after the World Cup had finished for our team, to let the players stay focussed on their job. They showed restraint for the bigger picture. Well done to those journos. =d>



I want to know what part the rift between Tim & Harry played in our squad at the World Cup, if it affected the team & player's performances & how it affected their performance?




Edited by Damo Baresi: 30/6/2010 03:20:32 PM

You're reading too much into it Damo.

Everything prior to the red cards and not playing together makes good sense to me. The way they phrased those things is very odd.

=d> =d> =d> =d>
Exactly what I was thinking!