Disgraceful that the Olyroos fail to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics

[Con M]

Disgraceful by the FFA not to demand that A-League clubs release players to the National Olympic team.

Disgraceful by the Coach not to initially pick Irankunda in the Squad given that the Olyroos failed to score in their 3 Group A games against Jordan, Indonesia & Qatar.

Disgraceful by Adelaide United not to release Irankunda to the National Olympic Squad.

Awful by Irankunda himself to decline the belated invitation to join the Squad. He obviously had NFI how much the general Aussie public want to see the Matildas & Olyroos on a World stage like the Olympics.

And awful to hear that Tim Cahill became an employee of the multi-billionaire Qataris as technical advisor in their game against Australia.

[Midfield Maestro]

Blaming Irankunda.

I'd tell Vidmar to stick it up his muscat too.

[SP999]

Irankunda is not to blame for the debacle.

He wasn't selected in the first place.

Adel United would have pressured him not to go when he eventually got a call-up.

Red faces all around, as AU still failed to get anywhere.

[Con M]

Blaming Irankunda.

Get fornicated, self-titled “Maestro” m*l#ka.

He would have made the difference and scored for sure in one or more of those games in Qatar.

You don’t come to the games at Hindmarsh so you don’t know how the crowd lifts when he scores or comes off the bench. All those people aren’t dumb like you, m*l#ka. He would have been the X-factor.

[eagleboy]

AUSTRALIAN MEN SLIPPING BEHIND
NEAREST RIVALS
ROBBIE SLATER SOCCEROOS GREAT
Alarm bells should be ringing
at Football Australia head-quarters today.
The Olyroos’ failure to qualify for the Paris Olympics not only ensures
another eight-year black hole for Australia’s emerging male players, but
demonstrates how quickly
Asian nations are overtaking
the game here.
Graham Arnold has been warning for a while now that we are quickly
falling behind in the region, as rival nations pour investment and
resources into their football departments while Australia fumbles around
with the A-Leagues and struggles to attract government support. That
prophecy is real now.
The Indonesia result is evidence of that.
Most people in Australian football would have looked at the Indonesia
game as a certain three points ahead of these Olympic qualifiers.
Instead, Indonesia won and leapt ahead of us into the semi-final. The
Olyroos, meanwhile, failed to score a goal in any of their three matches.
Tony Vidmar, Ernie Merrick and the Football Australia apparatus can point
to the unavailability of overseas-based players and Nestory Irankunda’s
absence as a reason for Australia’s lack of impact in the front third.
However, the issues run deeper than that.
Young Australian A-League players don’t play enough games relative to
other leagues around the world.
Add to that the fact that local squads contain too many run-of-the-mill
overseas players and the problem is apparent.
Clubs should be following the lead of the Central Coast Mariners – the
team with the lowest budget but the highest-performing in the league.
The Mariners are in the business of developing and selling local players,
then replacing them with the best from their academy system.
I’m not against A-League clubs recruiting marquee players, but they need
to be good ones.
So, while we keep tripping over ourselves, Asian football is on a relentless
rise.
It’s not just the likes of Japan, Iran, Korea and Saudi Arabia we have to
worry about. Nations across the region are investing heavily and reaping
the rewards.
The FA needs to wake up and make some tough decisions.
That starts with taking back control of the A-Leagues

[eagleboy]

NO GOALS AND NO PARIS FOR
TOOTHLESS OLYROOS IN ASIAN CUP
FLOP
MARCO MONTEVERDE
The lack of goals that has cost the Olyroos the chance to play at this year’s
Paris Olympics has the nation’s football boss demanding that strikers be
allowed to play to their strengths rather than be “coached like defenders”.
Australia’s limp AFC under-23 Asian Cup campaign came to an end on
Monday, following a 0-all draw against tournament host Qatar.
Needing a win to have any hope of reaching of the quarter-finals and
keeping their slim chance of Olympic Games qualification alive, the
Olyroos again shot blanks to finish the tournament without scoring,
having drawn 0-all with Jordan and lost 1-0 to Indonesia in their previous
two Group A matches.
The Olyroos’ failure to score a goal in three games again raises questions
about the decision not to pick Adelaide United A-League prodigy and
Bayern Munich-bound teenager Nestory Irankunda in the squad.
But Football Australia’s chief football officer Ernie Merrick said the
absence of goals was due to the way emerging strikers were being coached.
“We don’t produce the strikers that we used to,” he said.
“We need to improve the way we coach strikers more than anything.
Strikers are very creative players, but we coach them like defenders.
“When you’re working with creative players you’ve got to give them the
opportunity to be creative, and say ‘we want you in the box when the ball’s
in there, but how you get there’s up to you, whether you dribble or play a
wall-pass, or something else’.”
“That’s an area we really have to improve our player development in.”
The closest the Australians came to scoring against Qatar came in the 75th
minute, when substitute Keegan Jelacic had a shot tipped on to the post by
the goalkeeper.
Olyroos captain Jacob Italiano also had a good chance, but his shot flew
over the crossbar.
“It’s very frustrating,” Italiano said. “We fought until the very end, we
pinned Qatar back the whole game, but sometimes that’s football and it
didn’t fall for us today.”
The Olyroos came third in their group with two points.
The nations that finish the tournament in the top three will qualify for the
Olympics, while the fourth-placed team will meet the fourth-ranked
African nation in a playoff for a spot.

[Midfield Maestro]

Blah blah blah....