Once again, I'm looking forward to Ned Zelic being amongst the expert comments team - He will bring a well informed and up to date perspective, aswell as from his cultured playing career. He, like he said on SBS, actually spent 5 years under, now Swiss coach, Ottmarr Hitzfeld, as a Dortmund player in the 90s, for instance. So when he talks, HE KNOWS. Looking forward/hoping to hear his analysis, observations, come our first match against Germany, aswell as some of the other matches in our group.

BTW I know Zelic has a air of arrogance about him, but hey that's Zelic and that's likely one of the reasons why he fell out with Farina and Okon over that Captaincy thing when Farina became NT coach back in '99, which led to Zelic prematurely, and very controversially, retiring from the NT soon after. But personally I sympathise with Zelic somewhat there as I'm sure a more pro coach, like the guys both Zelic and Okon were playing under at the time, would've handled that scenario far better to the extent that a Zelic would not have retired. Farina was no perfect man manager, as we saw with Milicevic, Kisnorbo, Bosnar and a number of others, during his 'reign.' And FTR Farina was our NT's coach far too long, post that 01 Uruguay qualifying failure, but the fact was we were in no position to suitably replace him, which reflected the very, very poor state of the game's administration, at the time.

Edited by GloryPerth: 11/6/2010 01:37:57 AM