Socceroos seeking entrance into 2020 Suzuki Cup

That's about our level right now. Go for it, should be a bit of fun, maybe we could host our home games up north (Townsville, Darwin, Cairns) to keep in the spirit of the comp.

It would be good to cap players like Pasquali in this. 

That would be good for the Socceroos.  The more international games the better, and there's no guarantee we'll be winning the cup that often.

Believe the tournament is held in the off-season for most Asian leagues. So could limit it to under 23's and Asian league players only. That way, no European based players (unless underage and released by club, as not always FIFA windows) and gives a chance for younger domestic player, and some fringe Asian based Aussies.

I was also unaware that AFF had blocked the Socceroos involvement in the tournament. I know that the women send an underage team to the women's tournament ... pretty sure the men could have done similar (or will be allowed in the future).

I'm highly skeptical about that claim. I've seen an FFA type (forgot which one) who when asked on this, said that we couldn't send a team because they against both the potential disruption the A-League and the idea of sending a weak team



Found it: Straight from Mark Falvo, FFA’s Head of Corporate Strategy, International and Government Relations
https://www.fourfourtwo.com/sg/features/despite-some-continued-criticism-australian-football-taking-its-asean-status-very-seriously

“Of course we would love to participate in the premier tournament in Southeast Asia and one that stirs such great passion and excitement,
It wouldn’t be appropriate for us though to send our Olympic team or youth team as that would pay a great disservice to what is such a great competition."

“Like any AFF nation there are some tournaments you may choose to take part in and others not depending on various factors and considering scheduling and conflicts with domestic competitions or budget restraints and they are decisions we continue to make year in and year out. A lot of it comes down to the calendar and on that one occasion we participated in the EAFF Cup that fell in June during the A-League off-season, whereas the Suzuki Cup being in November/December falls in the middle of the A-League season and is also not in a FIFA window. The Suzuki Cup being in November/December falls in the middle of the A-League season and is also not in a FIFA window That means that it’s challenging to make the logistics work in terms of player availability, with the European-based players not available and with the A-League in season, so they are all practical reasons that make it difficult to work.”


So to me this idea of being blocked sounds like bullshit and Bossi has swallowed it up.

Good! Hopefully it comes through, just select olyroos eligible players or something... Although at the moment even our full strength side would really struggle against Thailand and Vietnam.

Couldn't disagee with you there. Would be some really good competitive games.

Good news if it happens. I've been wanting this for a long time.

Good news! Agree, we should send a HAL or Asian based side into this tournament and build out our depth. 

Fucking Finally! I've been wanting us to play in this tournament for ages. 

Credit where credit is due, this is a good initiative by FFA.

The KPI for this is probably making the quarters.
But it will be a good opportunity for an AL squad in the non-international dates with the AL taking a break on those dates.
Is probably our standard with an AL squad.

Treat it like an Olyroos squad should be sufficient - good news. Another commercial shot in the arm as well if we can get a slice of TV money.

That too.
Can still include some overage players if we want.
Only thing is, any results would impact on the FIFA rankings.

I think, in order to continue to foster our good relationship with the AFC and AFF, so I think we need to accept that we need to play in this tournament, even if it means players miss a month of the A-League.

In order to reduce the impact, you can have some of the following 'soft' rules when selecting the Socceroos squad:

>Only U23's from the A-League
>Maximum of two players called up from each A-League club
>European based players who are in youth or reserve team action (no age limit, but probably slightly biased towards youth players)

Would you include any players in SE Asian leagues, or potentially even East Asian leagues that would be close to finishing?

lmao - talk about a complete mindfuck, completely forgot about them ha. Yes of course, you'd include players in Asia who have finished up or close to finishing up. Should be a more than competitive squad.

Send the U23's over. The only other side anywhere near our level is Thailand.

The gap is probably closing in a bit now to be honest. Our U23  side didn't make it out of the Group stage of last year's U23 Asian Cup, losing to Vietnam along the way.
But still I do agree with you in sending mostly young players, and a few experienced ones playing in Asia.

I agree it's about time we joined this tournament. But the issue is we would need to take a weak squad. Which doesnt worry me too much except for the possible effect it could have on our ranking if we lose a few games against what are some pretty good teams. I know the rankings are bullshit but they are also important

As they would be classified as non-window friendlies the impact on rankings would be negligible. It could even be possible our games could be classified as non "A" internationals and therefore not count at all towards the rankings.

Have the previous matches in this tournament been classified as ‘A’ internationals?

That makes a big impact on squad selection for me.

I'm pretty sure they have been A internationals, but outside window friendlies. I'm just saying we could designated our team as U23 or "B squad" then matches involving Australia wouldn't count towards rankings.

They were always "A" internationals in terms of first team national caps right from the start, but furthermore from the 2016 edition onwards the competition was ranked by FIFA as a "category A competition" which other than prestige, in practical terms means more points for FIFA rankings like in the Asian Cup or World Cup finals and qualifiers and unlike ad hoc friendly tournaments or other friendlies. Not all that many competitions boast that distinction, in fact I can't think of any.

Great news!

it would be great if an all a league or all asia team could play in this.  imo an A team and a B team would be good for us - considering travel and the need to better develop youth and players outside of europe

Yaay some good news for once.

Look at Japans 2019 schedule:

1 February 20192019 AFC Asian Cup (Final)

Japan

v

Qatar

showAbu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

22 March 2019Kirin Challenge Cup 2019

Japan

v

Colombia

showYokohama, Japan

26 March 2019Kirin Challenge Cup 2019

Japan

v

Bolivia

showKobe, Japan

5 June 2019Kirin Challenge Cup 2019

Japan

v

TBD

showToyota, Japan

9 June 2019Kirin Challenge Cup 2019

Japan

v

China PR

showRifu, Japan

17 June 20192019 Copa América (Group C)

Japan

v

Chile

showSão Paulo, Brazil

20 June 20192019 Copa América (Group C)

Uruguay

v

Japan

showPorto Alegre, Brazil

24 June 20192019 Copa América (Group C)

Ecuador

v

Japan

showBelo Horizonte, Brazil

[citation needed]7 December 20192019 EAFF E-1 Football Championship

Japan

v

Hong Kong

showUlsan, South Korea

[citation needed]11 December 20192019 EAFF E-1 Football Championship

South Korea

v

Japan

showSeogwipo, South Korea

[citation needed]14 December 20192019 EAFF E-1 Football Championship

China PR

v

Japan

showGoyang, South Korea

Now Look at ours:
Nil

I hope they just send HAL players. HAL players are lucky to play 30 games a season so to give the best an extra 5 or so games a year at hopefully a greater standard is excellent news.

This will be very good for us, even our best possible team might struggle to win it. Vietnam with a pretty much u23 squad looked really good at the Asian Cup and they'll only improve. And Thailand can easily beat us in their conditions which we've struggled in before. Hopefully a couple other South East Asian nations can make a step up

Really hoping this isn't a one off. Can just see the prospect of A-League clubs losing their shit if this is permanent and they find out they'll potentially lose players from November to January for this and the Asian Cup in one season.

FFA needs to have the balls to hold the line. HAL clubs should also harden up and learn to use their reserves. We complain about not having enough youth players coming in but this is a legitimate reason for mixing up the HAL and not seeing the same people week in week out. That said, agree that it might make sense to limit the squad to having 2-3 people per club. 

Yeah I think the only way you can do this and not destroy any goodwill is by limiting it to a maximum of two players from each team and perhaps U23's from the A-League only. Combine that with Asian based players who have finished their seasons and fringe Euro players and I believe we can still send a competitive squad.

It is mostly only for domestically based players. I remember last time we tried to call up Josh Kennedy who was playing in Japan and the club wouldn't release him. All HAL clubs would be equally affected over time so big deal. The squad should have a strong emphasis on youth anyway and I'm sure the HAL can do some creative scheduling. 

I don't care about HAL clubs complaining.

It is time to use their squad players.

oh yay, as if the asian cup isn't shitty enough...

Gee it must be hard being a football fan when you hate it and it's fans so much.

Something something effnik something something Nuevo dawn fraser

Yea put that stupid and arrogant thought away please.
You are saying as if we could win the Asian trophy easily.
Senior team went to WC through inter-continential play-offs, could not even get a win over the past 2 World Cup tournaments, got humiliated by Jordan and the UAE, struggled against Syria and Uzbek in recent Asian Cup while junior teams kept being defeated by the Viets and now there are still people like you who think we are sitting at the top in Asia, how ridiculous.

I can't believe I'm reading this from a supposed football fan who  participates in an Aussie football forum!

Outside the World Cup , the Asian Cup is the biggest event  that Aus plays in.

He isn't a football fan

people actually WANT to play the Japanese.

Not many want to play Australia. They don't take us seriously.

:D:w00t:

Even in the recent Suzuki Cup,   some of the Philipine and Thai players had to return to the clubs after the group stage.  Probably a pre agreement between club and country

As long as we don't send our best squad it sounds like a good idea.

It wouldn't be ideal to win the comp either, we don't really belong in it and it would only be good to give fringe players exposure to international football. Winning it would piss off the rest of the teams who would see the tournament as purely a SE Asian tournament 

Except we do belong in Southeast Asia as we are part of the AFC and that is our region of the AFC. For all intents and purposes Australia is much closer to being an Asian country than we are to Oceania.  

We belong in it. We're part of the SEA group within the AFC. The others being West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and East Asia. 

The reality is we need a confederation. The Europeans have the League of Nations now so we shouldn't be expecting too many friendlies with them anymore.  We don't want to go back to Oceania because the weakest confederation will drag us down. I don't think too strong a relationship with the West Asians is ideal for many reasons. The obvious choice going forward is close relations with the East Asians. With the League of Nations the Europeans have basically said we're going to look after each other in this confederation.  We should do the same with the East Asians. Japan and S Korea are in the exact same boat as us struggling to find similar competition. We need to form close ties with the Vietnamese and Thais on many levels and then the rest of East Asia. Asia is a really big place so I think a more localised option is possible. Most importantly we must fully commit. Not some half arsed we're just here because we can't beat Uruguay approach.

I just feel that because the teams in SE Asia  have not and might not ever qualify for a world cup and the Suzuki cup is their version of it that they might prefer it to be a tournament for SE Asians to play in. 

We're pretty much a European team in Asia, if we were to somehow win it I think they would rather we fuck off and play somewhere else. 

Like I said they don't have a world cup to look forward to and this is their tournament.

The Suzuki cup hardly means anything to us but for them it's their world cup. 

I just think it could potentially backfire on us if we managed to win it. I really don't think they would be happy if we did and we would hardly give a shit about winning it either compared to them. 

I wouldn't be so confident about us winning, we've had enough problems against Thailand with our full team, let alone with who'll be available.

In any case, I've already banged on here that involvement in the Suzuki Cup could be even more resonant in Australia than the Asian Cup, against real countries that Joe Aussie can actually find on the map let alone the large local populations from those countries here that would certainly turn up, in contrast to Bahrain v Qatar lighting up our home Asian Cup. We didn't even face a country from the Eastern half of the AFC this time around.

Broadcasters might be cold on the A-League and 3am Asian Cup games in the Middle East, but home competitive games for the Green and Gold against countries their audience has actually heard of and away games at friendly hours would probably have them pretty keen.

Agree. Imagine if we take either Vietnam or Thailand or Indonesia at our home in Sydney or Melb, we can see a huge flow of their fans turning up. For sure the Viets and the Indos will not let the stadium quite, considering the fact that there are hundred thousands of their people living here in Aus.

I'd say Vietnam and Thailand would be competitive. If we field a HAL based side, we will get a run for our money. 

Our full strength side would get a run for their money. Thailand outplayed us when we played away to them in qualifying, while Vietnam with an incredibly young squad seem to be a better side based on recent results. We might not win it full strength, we probably won't win with a full HAL squad.

Very true.

Agree, against Aus at full strength .

In recent times, they've caught up to us, whilst we have such a weakness in the attacking third .

I hope the perceived superiority was not from us. That would just be sheer arrogance.

Personally I would like to sent the Under 19s or Ollyroos. It makes more sense than sending A league players who when a squad is announced would not even get a look in to a starting position  

U16 Aussie - U16 Vietnam : 2-3 in 2016
U19 Aussie - U19 Vietnam : 1-5 in 2014 and 0-1 in 2014 also
U23 Aussie - U23 Vietnam : 0-1 in 2018
Therefore, I dont think sending our U19 to face their Senior team is a good idea if you dont want our young player get humiliated, tbh.

Well I think having them play high quality competitive competition will help their development and actually assist in the Olympics qualifying, no? Obviously our under 19s wouldn't win it

Do you think sending U19s is such a disrespect to SE Nations?

@Davide82

But deep down you know I'm right.

@Decentric

Qatar just won the asian cup. Freakin Qatar.

Let that sink in for a moment.