World Cup 2022

[Jim05]

Socceroos all over China and have a comfortable 3-0 victory. Oman upset Japan so group wide open

[Senor Moto Gadili]

Socceroos all over China and have a comfortable 3-0 victory. Oman upset Japan so group wide open

For all China's progress economically and their investment in sport overall, their natiinal football team has gone nowhere. They are seriously crap. The Japan result was a big surprise.

[RB]

Yep. China were shocking this morning. Almost reminiscent of the glory days of Oceania.

[whufc]

Japan lost their opener at this stage of the tournament last time and the went on to top the group

Great result for us against China, goal difference could play a role so nice to get +3 on them. Funny old game though with plenty to like but also a bit to think we defensively could be in trouble against the better sides

[RB]

And Australia hang on for a 1-0 win in Vietnam. Placed nicely.

[Senor Moto Gadili]

Vietnam 0 Australia 1
Now, that was a hard watch. If you like a scrappy 1 nil away win then you would have loved that.

[whufc]

Good to get the win but boy that was an ordinary performance.

I will forgive the guys for the lack of touch, the pitch was atrocious, ill forgive the guys for lacking legs at the end the conditions were tough...………………..BUT that was the biggest primma donna performance I have ever seen from an Australian football team.

-The amount of times Rogic would try and dribble through multiple defenders (that's fine, its the way he plays) but he loses the ball and then continues to run 25m up the park with his head shaking, hands in the air, back turned to the game as if he is a road train and cant stop. Lazy and selfish so he doesn't have to commit to the defensive duties.

-The amount of times Mabil thought a little flick or cross over on a cow paddock was going to work as if he was playing an under 10's side. Was almost like he was trying to play for style points rather goals.

-I couldn't believe the amount of times an Australian would make a 10m pass to a teammate but then just stand there completely flat footed. Golden rule of football is to give and go.....absolute laziness as if they were going to just pass through the Vietnamese defence.

-Don't get me started on the two Centre backs when in possession, the amount of times Soutter thought a little 30m yard dink over the top was going to unlock the defence was ridiculous. Given the ball to your midfielders FFS, no your place on the park. The bloke thought he was Kevin de Bruyne.

We play like that against the Japanese and even the Saudis and we will lose by 3 goals minimum. This is such an ordinary Australian side at the moment and I fear the big games are going to be the reality check.

[Jim05]

Tonight summed up exactly why we will never be a good soccer nation until our mindset changes.
We were 1-1 against Japan in enemy territory and a draw keeps us 6 points clear of them and in the box seat to qualify but instead of parking the bus and taking a point we had to try and somehow prove ourselves to the world by beating them. We go all out attack and leave our already weak defence exposed and get hit on the break to lose 2-1.
Then that absolute idiot Arnold says straight after the game that “we put on a spectacle which is really important”
Go and get stuffed you useless twit

[whufc]

Disagree we scored the equaliser and then he goes and takes off Rogic to bring on Jeggo which was the definition of parking the bus.

We get an amazing counter attack opportunity after a Japan goal mouth scramble and we go and amble up the park like its a Sunday stroll.

We were set up with a defensive mind frame and that carried right through until Japan scored the second. Even watching Matty Ryan slowing down the play, wasting time a minute after we scored was horrible.

[Jim05]

Disagree we scored the equaliser and then he goes and takes off Rogic to bring on Jeggo which was the definition of parking the bus.

We were pushing in waves the final 10 minutes and left ourselves badly exposed on the counter. They could have scored 3 or 4 after we equalised.
We should have just held possession and built a wall for the last 10, we didn’t need to score

[Senor Moto Gadili]

I'm with Jim. Japan were very dangerous on the counter all night. We should have sat back and settled for a draw after we equalised. Jeggo replaced Rogic at 80 minute mark, but we didn't change our formation at all. Naive. Big game next up against the Saudi's.

[whufc]

I'm with Jim. Japan were very dangerous on the counter all night. We should have sat back and settled for a draw after we equalised. Jeggo replaced Rogic at 80 minute mark, but we didn't change our formation at all. Naive. Big game next up against the Saudi's.

I don't think it was so much the counter they were dangerous on more so pretty much anything that went down the flanks, there speed killed our full backs whether it was on a counter or whether it was nice build up play with a through ball behind the defence. Throw in we played a real narrow midfield as well.

We played four at the back, two holding midfields in Irvine and Hrustic and one genuine striker. Not sure how much more you can park the bus. We then replaced Rogic with Jegoo who played a much deeper role to essentially leave Duke isolated uptop and 3 defensive minded midfielders in Irvine, Hrustic and Jegoo.

Essentially it started as:

.................................…….Ryan...…...………………...

Karacic………..Sainsbury...…...Soutar……...Behich

………...……..Irvine...………….Hrustic

......….Mooy…...........Rogic……...Boyle

………………............Taggart...……………………………...

[Senor Moto Gadili]

Oman 2 v Australia 2 ..... disaster.
Looks like Socceroos will have to take the long road to get to the world cup finals after drawing with Oman. Hard to see us beating both Japan and Saudis in our remaining two games. Once again it was a poor second half performance. Is this a result of too many players either not playing on a regular basis for their clubs or playing in 2nd rate leagues? Overall, it's probably a fair reflection on where we are at, which is pretty sad.

[whufc]

we are shit, get rid of Arnold, we wont qualify.

[Jim05]

Arnold is a dud but we all knew this before giving him the job again.
Penalty was dodgy but that’s what you cop sometimes.
Going to have to qualify the hard way now and I don’t think we get there

[RB]

We're probably in more jeopardy right now in terms of qualifying than at any other time since joining Asia.

Second half was terrible. Still, our fate is in our own hands and hopefully we can put in 90-minute performances against Japan and Saudi.

On the plus side, the serif typeface on the Oman shirt numbers was a nice touch I thought.

[Senor Moto Gadili]

There's a gulf between us and Japan. This new guy "Crossbar" goes alright for us.

[RB]

Been thoroughly outplayed but at least it's still 0-0 entering the second half.

[RB]

And for some reason we can't clear the ball and concede. Looks like it's the playoff route once again for us.

[Senor Moto Gadili]

You get what you deserve. We are pretty ordinary at the moment, so unless there is a massive improvement we won't be going to Qatar. I'm not sure changing the manager is the answer either. We just don't have the quality.