Jordan 2 Australia 1!
Paging Rebajlo for an analysis.
That's actually worse than the US losing to Jamaica. After years of slow progress for Australia and the USA followed by a few years of remaining static, both now appear to be in regression.
Jordan 2 Australia 1!
Paging Rebajlo for an analysis.
That's actually worse than the US losing to Jamaica. After years of slow progress for Australia and the USA followed by a few years of remaining static, both now appear to be in regression.
Matra2 -
Here is the "nutshell" analysis: Australian football is ****e. For a more detailed study, see below.
I previously outlined some of the A League's ills in the now-locked "2014 World Cup Qualifying" thread:
http://www.castefootball.us/forums/...Cup-Qualifying?p=253242&viewfull=1#post253242
The Australian media has revelled in lavishing praise upon the Jew Frank Lowy, often labelling him as "the man behind" Australia's 2006 World Cup qualification success. This was largely due to the recruitment of that supposed "genius" Guus Hiddink (yet another overrated, so-called "Dutch master") as Socceroos manager, something which was deemed to have only been made possible by Lowy's "connections" and "influence".
In fact, the Lowy-driven A League has served to initially halt and subsequently reverse the progress of Australian soccer. Despite the serious image problems stemming from unfortunate "ethnic" rivalries which often led to ridiculous exhibitions of crowd violence, the game had slowly developed and evolved since the immediate post-war period.
The one constant was a natural reliance on home-grown players, whose development was a necessity in our indigent amateur and semi-professional settings. The only way Australian clubs could generate substantial revenue was to
sell players to European clubs, while the only way Australian players could make a living solely from football was to
sign with European clubs. For both clubs and aspiring players this milieu therefore provided plenty of incentive to strive to reach their fullest potentials.
With the advent of professionalism, however, everything began to change. This process culminated in the launch of the A League, which profoundly altered the Australian football landscape on various levels. Such alterations, however, have generally proven to be negative...
The first thing that springs to mind is the increased recruitment of foreign players. Each club is allowed up to five foreigners, including a "marquee" player who is exempt from the salary cap (circa. $A 2.5 million). For example, Alessandro Del Piero has just signed a two year contract with Sydney FC which shall net him a staggering (by Australian standards) $ 2M per year. Now, wouldn't such a sum be better spent on youth development instead of paying a fantasy wage to a fellow who shall turn 38 in November with the hope that his presence will raise the profile of the sport in Australia? Sydney FC apparently sold 2000 memberships in the 10 days after initial rumours about the Italian's
potential signing appeared in the media but I'm curious to see just how many matches Del Piero lasts for in the A League environment of ill-timed tackles, where "star" players are afforded far less protection by officials than is the case in Europe...
The second thing that springs to mind is the level of remuneration an A League professional receives. Australian salaries are obviously nowhere near as "attractive" as those in Europe, the Middle East, Japan or South Korea but if a comparatively "competent" player can "earn". lets say, $A 100,000 - $A 125,000 per season (excluding third party agreements and match payments) in the less-than-strenuous A League, the erstwhile urgent financial motivation of securing a contract in Europe has largely evaporated. In short, Australian players are generally quite complacent.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the money offered to players of "sub-European league" calibre by Middle Eastern and East Asian clubs these days means that Australian professionals of relatively mediocre ability often have the option of signing very lucrative contracts to ply their trade in competitions which are only marginally more or no more challenging than the A League.
The (sub) "standard" of the A League - that great cradle of Australian football talent - can be verified by:
(a) putting oneself through the teeth-grinding ordeal of watching a match or, for an even scarier shock
(b) casting an eye over Australian clubs' "performances" in the AFC Champions League.
The statistics pertaining to A League representatives in the AFC Champions League are unequivocally woeful. Australian clubs have only managed to dig themselves out of the group stage on four occasions and possess the unenviable record of losing more games than they have won.
The majority of these victories have come courtesy of Adelaide United, who progressed past the group stage three times (including the current edition, which is at the quarter finals stage), even reaching the final back in 2008. It's just too bad that Japan's Gamba Osaka belted them to the tune of 5-0 over the two leg decider. The only other club to escape the apparent quick-sand of the group stage was Newcastle United in 2009 - and they were demolished 6-0 by the eventual champions, South Korea's Pohang Steelers, in the one-off second round match...
Now, here's the thing. When Australia was granted AFC (Asian Football Confederation) membership in 2006 people here were under the impression that this was some sort of passport to an "automatic" World Cup finals berth until the end of Time. After all, now that the qualification path was "through Asia", how hard could it possibly be? Being accustomed to the old Oceania routine of regularly thrashing various packs of grinning coconut heads by nine, ten or eleven goals to nil before disposing of New Zealand it was imagined that the new format would be just as easy - but without the inevitable playoff against a South American nation. Remember that in 2006 Australia had just finally qualified for their second World Cup, beating Uruguay
on penalties, so the "challenge" of "only" facing Asian opposition seemed awfully easy.
Conveniently "forgetting" that the socceroos had failed to get past Iran in the 1998 AFC-Oceania playoff, the football fraternity rubbed their collective pudgy hands in glee for, according to the "plan", Australia would effortlessly massacre various anonymous lightweights from the length and breadth of the sporting backwater that is Asia before qualifying for the finals alongside "regional powerhouses" Japan and South Korea.
It is important to note that over the past decade or so both Australian and foreign observers have tended to handily overestimate the Socceroos' abilities. Such mysterious misconceptions are beyond me, as Australia's plentiful shortcomings are painfully evident whenever one watches them play, regardless of the level of opposition.
The Socceroos have almost solely relied on the traditional "Australian way" of just getting stuck in, of playing hard but fair and giving it one's all. That's all good and fine but it doesn't cut the mustard at world level.
Australia's deficiencies were clearly visible at the last World Cup but were also present in spades during the 2006 edition, when the team managed to reach the second round despite playing poorly in all three group matches. The Socceroos received an enormous helping of good luck in that second round game against Italy when Marco Materazzi was rather harshly sent off in the 50th minute. Despite enjoying a numerical advantage for virtually the entire second half, Australia was unable to create chances and was knocked out after conceding a penalty in the final minute of injury time following a dive by Fabio Grosso.
Australia enjoys playing the role of the "underdog" and our team always performs best when doggedly defending against a superior opponent. Yet when it comes to actually possessing the tools to
win games, Australian sides have always been sorley lacking, particularly in the tactical department, but also in technical ability. Even in the early to mid-2000s, when we had the likes of Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell, Scott Chipperfield, John Aloisi, Lucas Neill, Mark Schwarzer, et cetera in their prime the Socceroos didn't have the collective nous to carve out opportunities and take the game to "serious" opposition.
Solid, yet predictable football was invariably on offer - and as we all know, solid yet predictable football gets you nowhere. The problem is that with the passage of time characterised by a deficiency of young talent, Australia's football has become more predictable and far less solid...
Look at the lineup in that bloody debacle against Jordan and note the players' ages:
Mark Schwarzer (almost 40, Fulham)
Lucas Neill (34, Al-Wasl in the UAE)
Sasa Ognenovski (33, Umm-Salal in Qatar after three years in South Korea)
Luke Wilkshire (almost 31, Dynamo Moscow)
David Carney (almost 29, plays in Uzbekistan after failing miserably in all of his attempts to make a "career" in Europe...)
Tim Cahill (almost 33, stepped away from the English Premier League to play in the MLS)
Brett Holman (28, Aston Villa)
Matt McKay (29, plays in South Korea after spending virtually his entire career in Australia)
Mark Bresciano (32, has played in the UAE and Qatar since August 2011)
Robbie Kruse (almost 24, Fortuna Dusseldorf)
Alex Brosque (almost 29, Shimizu S-Pulse in Japan)
Over half of these blokes play in Asia, five are over the age of 32, so what can one reasonably expect?
By the time of the next World Cup finals the following "stalwarts" shall be so old that they shouldn't be anywhere near international football: Lucas Neill (36 in 2014), Tim Cahill (34), and Mark Bresciano (34). Mark Schwarzer shall be 41 but, being a goalkeeper, he should probably still be available. If Schwarzer is unavailable, the backup options are rather thin and the teams competitiveness will drop drastically.
This, of course, is assuming that Australia manages to qualify - something which is far from certain. But if they do, the abovementioned "stalwarts" shall doubtlessly be in the starting lineup. Let's face it: a team has to be right rubbish if it fails to at least reach the intercontinental playoff stage. But if Australia does not finish its current group in second place behind Japan to claim an automatic finals berth we are doomed, as there is no way that the current crop of players can emerge victorious from a two-legged playoff against a South American side.
Out of interest, Australia's goal against Jordan was scored by...the almost 34 year old New Guinea-New Zealand hybrid black Archie Thompson.
Just writing this has depressed the tar out of me. I'm off...
Hell, dey didn' ev'n use Oo-say'n Bolt! Jus' 'magine how good Teem USA be if dey had all 'lev'n blacks, gnomesayin... 
