Socceroos

[Rob]

Have we even got the cattle? It's not like the good old days when half the team were walk up starts in the premier league. Best we've got now (outside of the 63 year old in goals) is a bloke from Crystal Palace. Half the starting 11 the other night came from various 3rd rate Asian leagues, including the A-League FFS.

[yob]

Have we even got the cattle? It's not like the good old days when half the team were walk up starts in the premier league. Best we've got now (outside of the 63 year old in goals) is a bloke from Crystal Palace. Half the starting 11 the other night came from various 3rd rate Asian leagues, including the A-League FFS.

Jedinak was a regular A-League player before going to CP while they were competing in the Championship. He applied himself well enough to make captain. He has only been in the premier league for a few weeks now so we still haven't seen how high his ceiling is yet. Farkn proud of him though.

There's no doubt we have almost cycled through our golden age for individual talent. Unfortuantely we hadn't reformed the game's governance until the window had nearly closed. A missed opportunity but that's okay.

The thing I'm most worried about is the rise of the middle eastern leagues. IMO they're overpaying which has a negative effect for countries like us which exports its squad to develop its talents. The players go where the money is, but they don't play in the best (or most suitable) leagues.

Will another window open? Definitely. Robbie Cruise is smashing in Germany. Langerak will be good (we always do well for GKs). Rogic is on the rise. We will build a good squad. But maybe not the outright elites this time round.

[dibo]

There are a bunch of kids coming through who are around 23 or younger:

GK: Langerak, Ryan, Birighitti

DF: Zullo, R. McGowan, D. McGowan, Sainsbury, Good

MF: Bozanic, Holland, Mooy, Amini, Rogic, Antonis, Irvine, Malik

FW: Oar, Bulut (*masses* of raw talent; needs to stay out of jail), Gameiro, Leckie, Juric

The quality of these kids is good, but they need time to play together and develop a style. Holger is not the man to give them that style, and 2014 is too soon. We should essentially be writing off 2014, and looking to make the semis in the Asian Cup at home in 2015 and then making the quarters of the World Cup in 2018.

2022 on and we'll have kids coming through who have only ever played under the new curriculum; the face of Australian football will be very different and the quality will jump scarily fast.

[Simmo79]

See I'd much rather take a squad built on Dibo's list to the WC and then to the Asian Cup. We have a team of complacent, entitled guys who are living off past glories dominating the team right now. It's a sh*t state of affairs. If Holger was going to blood the younglings he would have done it by now, ideally back after South Africa like pretty much everyone wanted him to. Instead his attitude to the team is exemplified by choosing established players for the game against Brazil when they are out-of-season, out of form and out of fitness in favour of giving the next generation a sniff. f***ing clueless.

From the FFA's perspective they need to become more willing to pay extra money for higher quality coaches. Both Verbeek and Osieck have been mediocre managers with short horizons.

[Simmo79]

How much of this still rings true 3 years later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xPDG-Lo7hc

[yob]

On the measure that matters most, our horrible performance at WC2010, Verbeek was mediocre. Overall though I feel we got value. He took the time to involve himself in domestic football. We hadn't had that from a foreign coach in my memory. Guus was parachuted in, and Venables was the sort of coach who wouldn't roll out of bed for less than a million.

I don't think our medium term prospects (5-10 years) are that exciting for our elite prospects. This is more a period of consolidation. We will develop a lot of depth in this period, but won't break out on the up side. It's not for naught though. Once we have consolidated our domestic game we will be in a position to allocate resources to elite players. Hopefully this takes some of the risk out of relying on overseas clubs doing the work for us.

On balance it sounds a little on the negative side. But let me say this - it's football. Any individual is capable of being brilliant, and football is a game where there is no ceiling on talent. The standard just keeps on improving beyond what would have been fanciful the generation before. One of those 23yos is welcome to make an arse out of me.

[yob]

Again on Mile Jedinak.

Barring some circumstance I'm not aware of, he makes the trip to Old Trafford this week to take on Man U. So proud of this bloke.

Most often when our top players play this fixture we're talking about players that jumped ship at 15 and spent their football life in development academies for overseas power clubs. In Jedinak we've got a bloke who spent 2001-2009 playing either professional football for Central Coast, or semi pro for Sydney United. He's earned his spot the hard way, and without the wealth of resources our other internationals have received.

I reckon I'm more nervous for the guy than he is right now Go and fukn get 'em.

[Simmo79]

6-nil. Again.

[Simmo79]

And Holger was fired at the stadium by Gallop. Saves some bitching. Who do we want as next coach?

[gyfox]

Who would want to coach us? Old players are well and truly past their best and not many of the younger players look like they will be international standard. I'm not sure a coach like Hiddink would want to tarnish his reputation but maybe if he or someone like him was given the brief of using Brazil as a development opportunity for the Asian Cup in Australia 6 months later then they might be interested.

[yob]

I want Arnold. And I want our kids playing.

[RobertHeatleyStand]

If we're going to lose heavily I'd like to think we're blooding kids at least.

For that we need an understanding coach without the 'results' burden of a big paycheck that usually comes with an international ego.

But with the WC and the attention it will command (especially bogan OZ)... I don't think Lowy has the kahunas.

[yob]

Gallop has approached Guus.

This isn't what we need. It's a bit like going for Kevin Rudd. It will help us get less slaughtered.

[yob]

not many of the younger players look like they will be international standard.

This is what we signed for when we reformed the game's governance.

When we were a joke our best players left early for the elite football academies of European clubs. They built our elites for us.

It will take us a while to have the resources to develop our own players in the same manner. In the short term it sucks, but we hope it will benefit us in the long term.

Also we should just bring in to perspective the fact that we haven't even had a local professional league for 10 years. We are punching above our weight just to get to a World Cup.

[yob]

Schwarzer has retired.