Crossing from Croatia has been terrible all game.
Croatia are playing much better now.
England are panicked.
Croatia with momentum.
Be interesting to see what happens here.
Gotta see Loftus Cheek don’t you? Midfield hasn’t offered that much.
Henderson was giving the ball away for fun in first half.
How cool. "Come on, come over". Jaco Pastorius used on a SBS WC match.
Fk yeah!
Wonder how Cro`s will handle another 30min...
maybe knackered after the previous games going to extra time
this isn't as fun to watch anymore
Damn!
Was looking forward to being in London for the final.
Now I won’t be able to watch it anywhere. “What World Cup?”
Thank Christ. So do I stick with my money on Croatia or cashout?
Thought Harry Kane was pretty honest in the post match interview. Knew Croatia played better.
Also, my distaste of John Stones has been well documented, but if you need convincing please go look at his defending for the winning goal.
Even Stannys man Gary Cahill wouldnt have been so lazy.
Really looking forward to the final. Hope Croatia win for multiple reasons (mostly money related) but France winning with that team would be understandable.
Watching that game today immediately got me thinking that Englands performance this WC is the ceiling of what Australia is currently trying to do.
However good we get it will only ever look like what England showed these past few games.
Problem is as 'good' as that may ever get, the second they run into a Hazard, a Modric or a Coutinho, it wont matter, we will lose.
It's why we should be aiming higher than this.
But we arent, are we.
Imagine a Ronaldinho or a Ronaldo trying to make it as footballers in Australia.
The elite junior squads would have looked at their parents lack of income and told them to piss off - so they could replace them with less skilful players with cashed up parents.
This has been the way in Australia for as long as I can remember.
Considering the NTs failings in Russia exactly what do you think is going to change with the game in this country??
We can see soe easily identifiable issues
But the FFA seem to either not see them or just dont care to address them
Make no mistake we have issues to address
Yet there is no intention of deviation on our current path to somewhere better
So so true. AFL goes through the same thing, Paul Roos ( ex Swans coach ) was saying just recently he attended a so called program for elite kids in Sydney and there was about 800 kids and he just thought to himself somebody is having a lough and taking the piss. They are only elite if there parents are cashed up enough and the number of elite kids is only exhausted when the money runs dry. It has been a dead set rort for ages and only those paying it or charging it try and tell you differently to make themselves feel better. It is why Gallop and co start getting very anxious around WC qualification time.
No qualification no dream to sell to the masses of average kids with my kids the best cashed up parents.
I think i have said this before but i was once present at a selection trial for a rep team and this indigenous kid was absolute miles ahead of any other kid there, he absolutely killed em and most of us were certain he would be one of the first picked but he wasn't. As i was walking with a few other parents back to our vehicles at the completion of the trials we were absolutely convinced his non selection would have had something to do with him being attired in a shirt that looked like a third generation hand me down and what looked like a old pair of Dunlop Gold Cups, I kid you not.
I know its a big call but the costs of being selected for that team were going to be quite significant and to this day i truly believe the kid was stereotyped. Sad bit IMO true.
That was about 7 years ago now and who knows where he could have been if money was not the be all and end all. He dead set ran rings around most other kids that day.
For Pele, Maradona and others becoming a footballer kept them alive and put food on the table for their family.South America gets it.
In our sterile world, kids with pandering parents play these elite things till they get bored. Then the olds buy them a surfboard or a guitar or uni course.
They forget about football. There would be so much talent untapped around Australia right now.
yeah look this has been discussed in the other thread but the new program being implemented is designed to weed a lot of that out.
but again, the running of these programs is through the clubs, not the associations. i think its a important distinction.
but also again, its year one, and even though it is light years ahead of whats gone before it, there is still a lot of shrugging of shoulders about where the next year goes. if the same ideals are focused on, the kids will be sweet. but yeah, we can all dream huh.
and again again, this is for 9 yr olds. even if this is the answer, its another decade before we even know if these kids are going to be competative. hopefully we all have some patience.
anyone interested should look up Japans 100 year program, which is about a 1/4 of the way through. they just held their own on the world stage, and are only going to get better.
Right on time too!