Socceroos Friendlies

[pv4]

my full-strength squad:

-----------------langerak-----------------
mcgowan--spira--williams(c)--davidson
------------holland--paartalu------------
ruka-----------holman---------------oar
-----------------babalj-------------------

bench: ryan, good, marrone, behich, goodwin, sarota, rogic, leckie, joel griffiths

wilkshire is an old man nowadays, and imo isn't an auto selection. same goes for bresc. i daresay the likes of these guys will need to be in & around the squad to guide the youngsters, but above is just my preferred lineup that i can see taking us to, and not embarrassing us, at brazil & onwards.

just give the young guys a chance ffs. the more exposure they get to NT, the more clubs interested in them & the more chance they get for first-team-regularity at their clubs. just ask david carney - without his socceroos appearances, he'd have no bargaining power with any of his petro-dollars-clubs.

edit: valeri changed to paartalu. but i'd really want someone else there, just can't think of who. even though i'm worlds biggest fan of paartalu, i think we should have better than him there. i think back to the vince grella days & i want the next him there.

edit edit: can add in troisi, lowry, herd, luongo, tombides, and probably heaps more into that future squad (which imo should be our current squad).

[pv4]

also, anyone else losing so much respect for schwarzer now its clear he'll do anything to improve his cap count? the dude seems driven solely by how many caps he has, to beat some record. also feels like he's holding our several other potential replacement keepers (langerak, ryan, federici, not-bk, etc) from getting their opportunity to impress & get match experience because he's demanding to be played in any & every game.

do you know what i feel when i hear of guys in my local league team "only playing 2 more seasons so they can get their 200 games & life membership"? i think - good effort & all, but fxxx me you're doing this for the wrong reasons. be there because you want to be there & play!

[Blackmac79]

Babalj was great when he came on. All the subs were really. I was sitting in my lounge room begging holger to get the likes of valeri, brosque, Thompson off.

[russjaybee]

f*@!ing osieck is a joke. Would love to hear his reasoning for leaving brosque on for nearly an entire game also playing Schwarzer for the entire match. We know what they can bring to the team (in brosque's case, not much imo). He's dragged the likes of Bablj and Leckie there from their euro clubs and gives them all of 10 minutes game time.

Did he understand that this match was a friendly? He's actually making his job harder for himself. Now he still does not know what Leckie and Babalj could offer the team. We've seen brosque and archie plenty of times. This was a chance to have a look at the others.

IMO ruka did really well and was a good target man and threat up front, did some great running and I think was possibly a little unlucky with some of his deliveries. Andy harper has somethign against him as he struggled to say anything positive about the player.

Oar was ok, was a little disappointed overall, but thats only because I expected a lot. He was solid though I would have like to see him try and beat his player a bit more as a few of his crosses were blocked by the defender. Great ball in to Ruka though.

Archie is in a purple patch at both club and country at the moment. In the first half I thought he was pretty solid and honestly looked like one of the sharpest players on our team when he touched the ball etc.

Behich wasn't beaten once at LB when he came on, would have like to have seen him played there from the start.

Holland started very poorly giving the ball away several times but slowly got in to the match. In the second half he was great, moving the ball around quickly and lively in CM. Would like to see him there with someone like Kilkenny or Matty McKay.

Valeria was poor imo, he is SO negative when we have the ball. You can tell he plays in Italy. He receives the ball, holds on to it for a few seconds then knocks it back slowly. Move him on.

I cannot stand Osieck. Our national team is so far behind we need someone to come in and shake it up, not just pick the "safe" options and hope we can scrape through qualification for things. These friendlies are so important and we need a strong leader that's ready to bring new blood in, if we get beaten who cares, giving them a shot is necessary.

[belchardo]

agree completely russ.

That performance gave me a lot of hope actually.

I think it proved that our youngsters aren’t far off international standard, and would probably be selected were it not for a seeming culture of favourites within the current squad. I think Ruka offers more off the bench than Archie. I think the potential of Spira should see him selected above Neill (although I wonder if Holger is punishing him for going to a dodgy league), and I think the current form of both of them should see Spira chosen as well. I reckon Holland showed enough to at least be in the squad and on the bench, and inspired more confidence than Jedinak (even if he was sporting a dirty hipster beard).

And the only way our youngsters will reach international level is by PLAYING THEM AT INTERNATIONAL LEVEL. So do it holger. I want to see at least one of the players from last night getting a start in the next qualifier. Not only that, I want to see pretty much that exact squad playing in the East Asian comp coming up next month, but without Schwarzer, neill, archie and valeri. This might be tough to do though, as I don’t think this is on during a FIFA window. Arnold will certainly scream like a banshee about losing his star players for two weeks.

[pv4]

isn't the east asian comp in an asian window though? that's what i'm led to believe. so your neill's, spira's, og's, etc of the asian world should be available.

[q-money]

The chick in the Instant Windscreens ad has that Steph Rice/Veronica's sluttiness about her. Pwhoooaaarrrrr.

jiah

[sh10]

Also, Fox Sports man of the match voting.
3pts-Allesandro Del Piero.
2pts-Tommy Rogic.
1pt-Robbie Slaters 1994 season for Blackburn (he played with Alan Shearer you know).

fvcking lol

[q-money]

[plague]

There it is.
She sings too*








*singing may be dubbed.

[Buddha]

my full-strength squad:

-----------------langerak-----------------
mcgowan--spira--williams(c)--davidson
------------holland--paartalu------------
ruka-----------holman---------------oar
-----------------babalj-------------------

bench: ryan, good, marrone, behich, goodwin, sarota, rogic, leckie, joel griffiths

wilkshire is an old man nowadays, and imo isn't an auto selection. same goes for bresc. i daresay the likes of these guys will need to be in & around the squad to guide the youngsters, but above is just my preferred lineup that i can see taking us to, and not embarrassing us, at brazil & onwards.

just give the young guys a chance ffs. the more exposure they get to NT, the more clubs interested in them & the more chance they get for first-team-regularity at their clubs. just ask david carney - without his socceroos appearances, he'd have no bargaining power with any of his petro-dollars-clubs.

edit: valeri changed to paartalu. but i'd really want someone else there, just can't think of who. even though i'm worlds biggest fan of paartalu, i think we should have better than him there. i think back to the vince grella days & i want the next him there.

edit edit: can add in troisi, lowry, herd, luongo, tombides, and probably heaps more into that future squad (which imo should be our current squad).

If you are going to have herd in the team it better be as a CB. Everytime he plays Cb for Villa he does pretty well and to be frank it scares me when he's in the middle of the park. Wish he'd stop being injured every camp ffs, he'd be perfect for our CB problem (that being neill is too old and slow)

[MFKS]

Holland started very poorly giving the ball away several times but slowly got in to the match. In the second half he was great, moving the ball around quickly and lively in CM. Would like to see him there with someone like Kilkenny or Matty McKay.

Valeria was poor imo, he is SO negative when we have the ball. You can tell he plays in Italy. He receives the ball, holds on to it for a few seconds then knocks it back slowly. Move him on.

Best thing I have seen about this game.

Everytime Valeri got the ball his first instinct is to play backwards then play sideways to retain "possession" but basically pass the buck to someone else and rarely looks to play forward

Everytime Jimmy got the ball his first instinct is to play forward then play sideways to create something and refused to pass the buck to someone else to do it and rarely looks to play backwards

I know what the **** I want in my National Team.

I am not saying Jimmy is the answer but FFS pick positive players. End of the game last night we had Rukya Balbalj Leckie Oar Rogic etc on there and it was the first time since we played American Samoa or something that we have actually picked more than 1-2 players who are attacking minded rather than this steady as she goes mentality we have

[Grimario]

If the focus was on youth, why was Cornflakes called up over DeVere? He plays in South Korea as well... or is he injured?

[MFKS]

As for the where was Spiranovic queries I heard he wasn't 100% fit that is why Cornflakes and Lucas got the gig

[q-money]

yanking valeri was the best thing we did

holland was ten times better when carl went off

i can't think of a more uninspiring midfielder really, maybe terry mcflynn or something

[belchardo]

yanking valeri was the best thing we did

holland was ten times better when carl went off

i can't think of a more uninspiring midfielder really, maybe terry mcflynn or something

hutcho?

[parksey]

If the focus was on youth, why was Cornflakes called up over DeVere? He plays in South Korea as well... or is he injured?

I read somewhere that he was indeed injured. Cornthwaite did quite well really.

[Grimario]

I read somewhere that he was indeed injured. Cornthwaite did quite well really.

Aye, apart from the first goal where everyone was pretty much shit, he wasn't as awful as expected.

[russjaybee]

Osieck has absolutely no balls or guile. This game was not even a risk for him to pick youngsters ffs.

[Retro Jet]

Hello all

Does anyone have a copy on DVD of the Sth Korea friendly? Or can get one easily?
Muz has accidentally gone to the UK and is stranded...suffering massive Socceroo withdrawals.
He’s see the goals on UToob but wants to see the game in full.

I have a friend who's saved it on Fox IQ. Is it possible to get it onto a DVD recorder and burn it from there? I don't have Fox and I’m not up
with the technicalities of what IQ is and connecting from the Pox Box to his DVD recorder. Whirlpool had a thread that mentioned a SCART cable?

Hilfe!

Retro & Muz