2010 Football World Cup Qualification

[BigPete33]

That's an awesome draw!

Japan will be haunted by that 3-1 in the World Cup and if they even lay eyes on Josh Kennedy they'll run away like frightened children!

I'm confident we can beat all of the other teams in our group both home and away.

Top 2 in the group is looking very nice indeed.

[Caleb]

Japan will be haunted by that 3-1 in the World Cup.... yada yada yada

Not to rain on your parade Pete, but the last time we played Japan was during the forgettable reign of Graham "Absolutely Hopeless" Arnold. Need I remind you of the Asian Cup?

I still think we'll whip all of em though....

[krunchie]

[quote="Caleb Rybalka
Not to rain on your parade Pete, but the last time we played Japan was during the forgettable reign of Graham "Absolutely Hopeless" Arnold. Need I remind you of the Asian Cup?

-)[/quote]



I have to agree with your assesment of Mr Arnold

is it me or are our boys at the olympics the only team that cant actually hold onto the ball, our possesion figures are some of the worst in the competition, the other night against argentina we didnt have the ball for 10 minute periods at a time and when we did we kicked it long and gave it back to them,
now dont get me wrong im proud of our boys and thought they did a good job but i just dont like the way we play and i put that on mr arnold

we didnt look like this under a certain dutch coach

[BigPete33]

The Olympics is a different kettle of fish, but I do tend to agree to a large extent about GA.

Having said that, one thing that keeps getting brought up is how the guys from the 2008 World Cup team were from the 'golden generation'. That really is fairly accurate. It also means that some of our young blokes are on a hiding to nothing unless they get some super quality coaching. Players like Burns, Djite and Zullo would really benefit from that.

I got to see most of the game against the argy bargies on Sunday night, for the 1st half it really did look fairly even but the 2nd half was horrible.

[bennymacca]

I got to see most of the game against the argy bargies on Sunday night, for the 1st half it really did look fairly even but the 2nd half was horrible.

i thought they got smashed from go to woe.

having said that though, there were a few golden chances that we muffed, and if we had a bit of quality up front we might have scored - this seems to be a common theme in all australian teams - fairly well organised, and can compete with pretty much every team on the planet, but in those games when it takes 1 single moment of brilliance, it never seems to be the aussie bloke (possible exception is tim cahill against japan)

[BigPete33]

I completely agree with that.

If there's a weak point in our side it's our strikers. Playing with 1 up front is fine as long as it's Viduka because that's what he's good for, just don't expect him to actually score himself. He does do a really good job of holding the ball up and letting our attacking midfielders run onto it though.

So if he's not playing.... who on earth do we use up front? I don't think Archie Thompson is the answer as he tends to go missing in internationals. I do like Josh Kennedy and also Scott McDonald and I'd like to see them both playing but have no idea if they could form an effective partnership.

[bennymacca]

i am not sure why pim didn't play mcdonald in the last few asian cup qualifiers.

u reckon dukes will play again? prolly when the asian cup finals are about to start he will suddenly come out of international retirement and play again

[BigPete33]

I'm not sure I want Viduka to play again to be honest. There's just so much 'oh I don't know if I want to play' going on which to me means his heart isn't in it and he should stay away.

We really, really need more goals from up front though (or at all really) and I think our best chance of that is probably with Kennedy and McDonald. That means changing the system we use to something that allows 2 strikers up front.

Anyone know why Burns and Djite aren't in the Olympic squad?

[Bacon]

Anyone know why Burns and Djite aren't in the Olympic squad?

Because Arnold felt they were too young and inexperienced. But they can get a run in the Senior side.

Djite getting 6 goals in 3 games for Genegbleilfirhnerkache shows he can score. He would've been a handy inclusion. Not convinced that Burns would've made a huge difference (based on the tactics employed).

[BigPete33]

That's probably the dumbest reason I've ever heard.

Those 2 guys are clearly some of our best prospects and if they're not going to be picked for something like the Olympics then somebody needs their head read.