Asian Cup post mortem

[limozeen]

I think a few critical things have come out of this comp.

1) We as a community and as a football side underestimated the opposition.
2)Preparation for the comp was soft .
3) The socceroos are playing poorly and have lost the spark that Hiddink created.
4) Arnold needs to be removed from the postion based solely on the fact that the side have gone so far backwards since last year.
5) The A-League players played excellently and showed that enthusuasm and passion can outplay skill.
6) Support for the Asian Cup by the host nations was poor. A-League games get higher attendances.

[joker]

7) Maybe australia is not as good as most people think it is, especially in technical and tactical department,there for need new coach.


agree with other of your points. At elast we are competing with asian teams and not island teams, step forward and we can learn from this experience.

[Rocky10]

Bye Bye Arnold. On ya bike mate. cya latter

[limozeen]

7) Maybe australia is not as good as most people think it is, especially in technical and tactical department,there for need new coach.


agree with other of your points. At elast we are competing with asian teams and not island teams, step forward and we can learn from this experience.

You're right as a raw bunch of players we are not a super national team, and as you say we need another super coach to get them to play to their absolute best ability like Guus did.

It's not the results that bother me it's the way they played. If we played like the world cup and still got the same results you could be pleased with this Asian Cup adventure.

[joker]

agree.

[admin]

We lost the tournament in the first two matches.

Finishing second turned a semi-final berth into a lottery. It was always going to be tough to beat Japan in Asia and we should have avoided them by finishing top of our group.

It was a good wake up call for everyone involved. Asia is going to be tough particularly when playing away from home.

The mistakes from this tournament include:

1) Need an experienced international coach - not a former Australian player with limited prior coaching experience. (Farina and Arnold).

2) Need to prepare for a tournament properly and give far greater consideration to the location and conditions and adjust accordingly. What works in Europe does not necessarily work in Asia. This is more than just preparing the players - this is also about preparing the tactics and the squad selections.

3) Need to select a versatile squad of players - they need to be in form, fit and sharp. Dont just picked the biggest names in the order of their pay packet.

4) The squad needs to have some decent hit-outs before the tournament with the fringe players given adequate opportunity.

5) Dont expect any favours from referees in Asia. The benefit of the doubt will tend to go against us because we tend to be viewed as Anglo Saxon bullies.

6) Give up on the theory of peaking mid way through a tournament - it is a sign of arrogance (and stupidity) - you need to be peaking at the start of the tournament and only tweaking things as you go along.

The referee tonight was the same referee for the Olyroo game v Iran in Adelaide. He had a shocker in that game - sent off Mark Bridge after some play acting behind play by one of the Iranian players - it was a very very very soft red card. The Olyroos were grabbed, chopped and fouled by the Iranians and the referee ignored most of it except to be quick to give fouls and cards against the Olyroos. So history has repeated itself tonight.

I suspect the Socceroos must have known about this referee because their fouling was much reduced compared to previous games - they looked like they were trying to avoid fouling Japan - maybe a combination of knowledge about the referee and Japan's record of scoring half their goals from set pieces.

Anyway its not the referees fault we are out of the tournament - cant blame him for our first two matches or the silly goal we conceded against Japan or the two missed penalties. The referee just made the job a little harder.

[ozzie owl]

We can scream about the appalling red card on Grella, but in reality we are no way near as good as we think we are.

In terms of techinque, flexibility and tactics we are well off the mark.

When it came to the penalty shoot out Kewell and Neil had appalling body language and my wife said they would both fail as they walked up.

Time to replace Arnie he simply is not upto the mark.

[TheInterMan]

God Neils one step penalty pissed me off. He made it so obvious which side he would go and it had no power. Unlike japans first penalty which had power but still got through even though schwarz got a good hand to it.

[Piola]

God Neils one step penalty pissed me off. He made it so obvious which side he would go and it had no power. Unlike japans first penalty which had power but still got through even though schwarz got a good hand to it.

agree, i knew exactly where it was going. he did the same penalty vs uruguay in 2005.

[Reggina10Cozza]

it is just plain stupid to pick on ppl 4 missing the penalties..... like they wanted to miss..... taking a penalty in a shootout like that consistes of dealing with emotional and physical fatigue.... pressure and expectation and you really need to still have the strengh mentally and physically to take a perfect penalty and at that stage of the game in those conditions it is sometimes down to super human strengh.... admin i disagree that you are saying ppl are played for the name they have, these players have the names they have through playing in the best leagues in the world and under the best coaches in the world, I have seen some of these players play for there clubs and they look like super stars, they can do the same for there country with a better tactician as they did with Hiddink.... so they should be playing coz u r blind if you say they dont put in the effort, but at the end of the day it is the coaches role to create a system to encorporate the strenghs of the groups and individuals to field a side that can exploit the abilities of individuals in a systematic group.

[BAGGIO 15]

I don't think it was a red card. It was decision that changed the game.
All this talk about the first 2 games leading to use playing Japan, forget it, if we were going to win the tournament we would of faced them eventually. The facts remain we went out with a poor decision being the catalyst. It was a great fight in the end, sad for Milligan to be at the centre of their goal, but these things happen under pressure.
I do agree though that we aren't a great side and we lack tacticaly and technically. We struggled to consistanly beat a man out wide and get balls in. Harry and Emmo afew time, but our play is to slow so we don't often get the chance to create the wide 1v1. Japan's ball movement aswell as movemnet off the ball was great to see. They ranout of leags and only late in extra time did they cause alot of problems for us.

[robinfriday10]

lost in first 2 games..
4-5-1 wont work in these comps, its too negative..
striker too isolated..
goodbye graham...

[admin]

admin i disagree that you are saying ppl are played for the name they have, these players have the names they have through playing in the best leagues in the world and under the best coaches in the world, I have seen some of these players play for there clubs and they look like super stars, they can do the same for there country with a better tactician as they did with Hiddink.... so they should be playing coz u r blind if you say they dont put in the effort, but at the end of the day it is the coaches role to create a system to encorporate the strenghs of the groups and individuals to field a side that can exploit the abilities of individuals in a systematic group.

Yes but you also need to pick a balanced squad and a balanced starting line up that can play well together. Having the 11 most expensive players on the park will not necessarily be the best team.

In the first three matches Australia started with 7 midfielders players in the various positions on the park and only two recognised defenders.

[BAGGIO 15]

admin i disagree that you are saying ppl are played for the name they have, these players have the names they have through playing in the best leagues in the world and under the best coaches in the world, I have seen some of these players play for there clubs and they look like super stars, they can do the same for there country with a better tactician as they did with Hiddink.... so they should be playing coz u r blind if you say they dont put in the effort, but at the end of the day it is the coaches role to create a system to encorporate the strenghs of the groups and individuals to field a side that can exploit the abilities of individuals in a systematic group.

Yes but you also need to pick a balanced squad and a balanced starting line up that can play well together. Having the 11 most expensive players on the park will not necessarily be the best team.
In the first three matches Australia started with 7 midfielders players in the various positions on the park and only two recognised defenders.

This is very true, balance is the key to a good side.

[Googes]

With my expectation that Arnold will step away from Australia all together to work on his coaching career. Basically he should not have been in charge with his expirence in coaching. Also, I believe Kosmina is the best choice for Olyroos coach. Reason that he understands the game better than Arnold and he is type of coach they need for younger players.

[BAGGIO 15]

With my expectation that Arnold will step away from Australia all together to work on his coaching career. Basically he should not have been in charge with his expirence in coaching. Also, I believe Kosmina is the best choice for Olyroos coach. Reason that he understands the game better than Arnold and he is type of coach they need for younger players.

Not sure I agree with your analysis on Kosmina.

[getborn]

imo the public has over estimated australia.

we qualified for the world cup through oceania which is a regulation

achievement, then managed to win via a shootout against uruguay after

having been outplayed over two legs.

we won 1 game in the wc, in that game we were behind for 85 minutes.

since then guus and neeskens have left and were replaced with arnold

and kosmina who with all due respect arent in the same class as most

national team managers.


imo arnold makes the perfect assistant for australia working under a

higher profile manager, he will never command the respect of our higher

profile players and for that matter nor would kossie.

with the current national team set up i dont not believe we are as good as

we think.

[limozeen]

imo the public has over estimated australia.

we qualified for the world cup through oceania which is a regulation

achievement, then managed to win via a shootout against uruguay after

having been outplayed over two legs.

we won 1 game in the wc, in that game we were behind for 85 minutes.

since then guus and neeskens have left and were replaced with arnold

and kosmina who with all due respect arent in the same class as most

national team managers.


imo arnold makes the perfect assistant for australia working under a

higher profile manager, he will never command the respect of our higher

profile players and for that matter nor would kossie.

with the current national team set up i dont not believe we are as good as

we think.

Pure stats tell us that we didn't achieve much in the world cup, but it's not the results that were important, it's the way we played.

It was the best an Australian team has ever played and 1000000000 times better than we played over the last 2 weeks.

While we didn't get many "results" in the world cup, we actually looked like a football playing nation for a change.

[Rodger-k]

Spot on Limo............winning is important always but sometimes it how you play that counts, even in the Brazil game I thought we held our own as did many neutrals.

I think we did not have enough respect for our opponents in the Asian Cup and we were caught out.

[Piola]

imo the public has over estimated australia.

we qualified for the world cup through oceania which is a regulation

achievement, then managed to win via a shootout against uruguay after

having been outplayed over two legs.

we won 1 game in the wc, in that game we were behind for 85 minutes.

since then guus and neeskens have left and were replaced with arnold

and kosmina who with all due respect arent in the same class as most

national team managers.


imo arnold makes the perfect assistant for australia working under a

higher profile manager, he will never command the respect of our higher

profile players and for that matter nor would kossie.

with the current national team set up i dont not believe we are as good as

we think.

despite the fact that australia did play better than ever before at the WC i agree. the overall squad and current coaching staff isn't as good as we think. hopefully this was the wake up call becasue the next one will be failure to reach 2010.