Quote Originally Posted by londonboy View Post
The point was that the country needed to rebuild the sporting structures in the country after the break-up, and over the 30 years have managed to do this successfully through a systemic approach. Japan has been pushing football hard for a similar period of time (with much greater resources) and what have they achieved? The difference, I think, is that football is cultural in Croatia - kids just go out and play it - whereas in Japan and Australia that doesn't really seem to be the case. Where are places which encourage kids to just go along and kick a ball around with other kids for free?
i mean, you just repeated my point.

we cant start at Croatia because we dont have the culture they do.
We need to build that first before kids automatically choose to head out and kick a ball around vs a swim/netball/AFL etc.
Japan/USA/China are all in a similar position to us.

I just think Japan has made the better forward progress.

Their league is now at its most popular.
their mens team has consistent (if not spectacular) results on the world stage.
Their womens team has easily been one of the best 3 in the world over the last decade (rebuilding now though tbf).
their 17's have missed only one WC since '05.
Their 20's havent been as successful, but have made rd 16 last 2 world cups.

their national teams at all levels are way ahead of Australia, whereas 30 years ago they werent.

Again, they are going forward we are going backwards.

we've gotta aim for something, but we've also gotta be honest as to where we are at the moment.

once we are 'good' at football then id be thinking about being 'great' at football.