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Group C: France, Australia, Peru, Denmark

Pommy

Pommy

Coach
Messages
14,657
Wizardman said:
The organisation that killed interest in the premier league for me. Once fox lost the rights, I lost interest.
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I’ve had zero issues with their EPL coverage and actually prefer it as the Foxtel IQ3 was a steaming pile of shit. The World Cup however has been really bad
 
BranVan3000

BranVan3000

Coach
Messages
12,215
Smack said:
In order to play like Barca, you need a squad of Barca, not A leaguers
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Yeah which is fair but you’d hope 12 years on from 2006 we’d have a generation of players even better than we had then. Especially with soccer being such a major junior sport now

There is some disconnect between taking talented kids and making them word class adult players
 
Smack

Smack

Coach
Messages
15,099
BranVan3000 said:
Yeah which is fair but you’d hope 12 years on from 2006 we’d have a generation of players even better than we had then. Especially with soccer being such a major junior sport now

There is some disconnect between taking talented kids and making them word class adult players
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When we have a domestic league that has a salary cap, how can we grow our game here and attract talent to play with our domestic players? Other leagues are not handicapped so why are we? We have the facilities. The only option is our talent being exported but it's not enough, we need a strong domestic league. Asia will grow and we will get stuck behind.

But regardless, our boys played their asses off and almost drew against one of the favorites and superpowers in world football when everyone expected us to get thrashed 5-0. We were $13 lol.

I'm proud of them and this is exactly the start we were after. We can beat Denmark and Peru.
 
Twizzle

Twizzle

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
150,959
that was a lot closer than I expected, dont know how France can be one of the favourites after this effort
 
G

GC_Gladiator

Juniors
Messages
1,508
We were good at disrupting the French attack and getting a lot of bodies back. Don't see where the goals will come from in open play though.
 
age.s

age.s

First Grade
Messages
7,009
Smack said:
When we have a domestic league that has a salary cap, how can we grow our game here and attract talent to play with our domestic players? Other leagues are not handicapped so why are we? We have the facilities. The only option is our talent being exported but it's not enough, we need a strong domestic league. Asia will grow and we will get stuck behind.
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It's pretty easy to tell when someone doesn't watch the A League. They talk about the standard being poor when it's actually better than it's ever been.

The salary cap in the A League is fine. There's a marquee player clause (one player per team exempt) which allows teams to attract the Del Pieros of the world and the arguments for it are the same as they are in RL. A team like the Jets or the Mariners would be perennial cellar dwellers without one and the sport has enough trouble attracting crowds without having the table determined before a ball is kicked. Soccer in Australia isn't setup even close to the same way it is in Europe, it'd be stupid to mimic the structure of the league's there.

We're a long way from knowing how this team stacks up to other Australian squads (even to 2006). If we get out of this group, dudes like Sainsbury, Mooy, Risdon and Nabbout will be playing for far stronger teams than they are now and how we judge the strength of this squad will change. Long way to go obv but I saw enough last night to say this team is better than they look on paper*.

*I thought we'd be Saudi Arabia tbf.
 
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S

Suitman

Post Whore
Messages
55,013
age.s said:
It's pretty easy to tell when someone doesn't watch the A League. They talk about the standard being poor when it's actually better than it's ever been.
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Absolutely. The standard is very good.
For the record, every one of our starting 11 last night have played in the A-League.
 
Pommy

Pommy

Coach
Messages
14,657
age.s said:
It's pretty easy to tell when someone doesn't watch the A League. They talk about the standard being poor when it's actually better than it's ever been.
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Is it? In the three years I have lived here it feels like it has gone backwards.
 
Lemon Squash

Lemon Squash

First Grade
Messages
8,012
Really good performance, I would have taken 2-1 in a heartbeat before a ball was kicked.

Only critique I have is if Cahill was going to get any game time this WC surely that was the most obvious game to give him a run?... we were never going to beat France on the ground, our only real chance of snagging a goal from open play would be from a set piece and we had by far our best target sitting on the bench.
 
age.s

age.s

First Grade
Messages
7,009
Pommy said:
Is it? In the three years I have lived here it feels like it has gone backwards.
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It's always going to be a bit subjective but I think so. Sydney FC this year were one of the best teams I've seen in this country. Played some sparkling stuff with Mierzejewski in particular exceptional. Newcastle were up there too, dudes like Petratos and Nabbout aren't going to be in Australia for too much longer imo. The Melbourne teams and to a lesser degree Adelaide were all pretty good, particularly Victory who took the first 3rd of the season off. The bottom half was ordinary, though Popovic ditching the Wanderers so late makes it look a bit worse than it was.

I'd put it around the League 1 level mostly, with a team like SFC probably ok to survive in the Championship. Wouldn't have said that in previous years and imo that's about as good as a league in a country with our sporting landscape is going to get. It certainly better than most people give it credit for.
 
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