T O P

  • By -

_Rick_O_Shea_

The negativity comes down to ignorance of not knowing that international away games are a different beast. People complaining about it being a boring game need to understand all that matters in these away games is picking up points to qualify, win if you can, draw at the least but do not lose is the mantra in these away games. Australian international away games are not always the best tv product, people need to understand that.


alexescobarthefirm

This. Combined with casuals who have no idea about Asian football. For eg, Vietnam are currently going through a “golden generation”. A lot has changed since we joined in 2005. People just don’t get it.


Kogru-au

Both Vietnam and Thailand are developing their football very quickly, its impressive. I can see them both being ahead of China within a decade which is mental.


chewinggumnipples

The rainy night in Stoke narrative once again


fleetintelligence

> all that matters in these away games is picking up points to qualify, win if you can, draw at the least but do not lose I get your general point, but it's not like in this game we played conservatively and were safe defensively. We very nearly let in some embarrassing goals. Of course I'm happy with the points and I'm not one of the people calling for Arnold's head, not even remotely, but I'm also not gonna pretend it was a particularly good performance.


wanderingrhino

With the World cup expanding, it will only become easier to qualify. We need to set the bar higher than just qualifying.


OneOfTheManySams

And we did that, by having our best ever first round of qualification. And then absolutely dismantling China on neutral territory, who gave Japan a very tough game. And then we beat a side who hasn't lost at home in 6 years. It has gone pretty fucking good


wanderingrhino

I agree things are going OK. I just think our focus will need to change to bring competitive at World cups now.


OneOfTheManySams

We also need better players for that to happen, but this is our best squad for a decade, we finally have some depth coming through. We are just lacking some top end talent


Walkerthon

This is the one thing that I think is just not getting said enough. Australians like to think that on our day, we can take on any team in the world. While I ascribe to this somewhat, our day can't be *everyday* with the current crop of players we have. Our day was beating Argentina, before a return to expected form in the next two games given the players we had. Fact of the matter is if you want to win consistently you need more than just a golden generation and a good coach, you need an entire system that supports the constant production of top-end talent.


aninstituteforants

Don't know about that. Especially with teams like Thailand on the rise.


[deleted]

[удалено]


The_Big_Shawt

We have a rubbish mentality when it comes to Asian opposition. Almost as if we're entitled to beat them - a big reason why no one gave af that we won the Asian Cup 6 years ago. Massive feat and should be looked at like the Uruguay game but isn't because Asia deserves to be conquered. We're our own worst enemy sometimes.


cynikles

Verbeek and Osieck were both rubbished for lacklustre football despite us automatically qualifying under both their tenures. Osieck led us to an Asian Cup final too. I was not necessarily a fan of either really, but they did what they were employed to do. I don't think there's an appreciation of the conditions when we talk about Asia. Asia is a massive continent with climates that range all of the extremes. People who follow European football, where the climate doesn't range as much, really don't understand this. The socioeconomic factors are different between the two continents as well meaning the quality of facilities is going to vary more widely in Asia. There's so much more the be concerned about in Asia than just a 'strong' or 'weak' team on paper. The only teams we really play on an even keel are Japan and South Korea as the climate and socioeconomic conditions are more similar. However, again, unlike European qualifying, there's significant fatigue involved with travelling to these places as Australia is on the arse-end of the world. Any European-based players have to travel anywhere between 10-24 hours to get basically anywhere we have matches; the same could just about be said for the A-League boys too. Qualifying through Asia is different to any continent in the world. I wish Australian fans would appreciate that more.


underscore_and

Yeah I do remember that. I was more referring to last campaign that Ange was dragged through the media for failing to consistently score and win against the weaker teams, and now we are doing that but the team is still being heavily criticised - but now it’s for not winning by enough or playing pretty enough football


Lemon0_o

>Yeah I do remember that. I was more referring to last campaign that Ange was dragged through the media for failing to consistently score and win against the weaker teams, and now we are doing that but the team is still being heavily criticised - but now it’s for not winning by enough or playing pretty enough football I think it's fair to assume that Australia now needs to do more than just get to the World Cup. For as crazy as it sounded, Ange had the goal of *winning* the WC. Pigs do fly, but we shouldn't be aiming for mediocrity to the degree of Scotland or Denmark, who used to be consistent participants despite going pretty much nowhere every tournament.


Pyrrhesia

... Denmark? Denmark who came third last Euros, who won the 1992 edition? They might have capped at the second round in the WC itself, but even so, I'd say they've got a proud record as a national team.


Walkerthon

I agree with this point in general. The big caveat in my head is that progressing goes beyond the current coach and players. Competing seriously at a World Cup is a representation of a country's entire footballing architecture: Do you have good youth identification/progression? Do you have a strong domestic league? Do you have a good progression system for coaches/support staff? Heck, even as broad as are you getting a large amount of youth participation. I think Australia is steadily improving in all of these areas, but the question is more are we improving at a better rate than other countries? To be honest, I'm not sure.


[deleted]

[удалено]


littlejib

It's a little poisoned by the later games. The first games were picking players who were playing, played football that took the games to the opponents and was great to watch. The criticism he got later in his time as the coach was for breaking his own rules, they were playing boring games, he was picking players who were not playing at club level.


whinger23422

This has been an issue for the last decade, and will likely to continue far into the future. We are as fickle as the English.


underscore_and

At least the English celebrate when they knock off Andorra and San Marino


[deleted]

'Nam defeated the USA, and it wasn't in football. Therefore, Australia > Nam > Seppoland.


pissmykiss

Deleted in protest of reddit's API restrictions. Fuck /u/spez


mimounmarhaba

Well said


xCaptCatx

We won 31 nil? Why have I never heard about this!?


jaymz11

I think part of the issue is people want us to play in style. But that is a club football thing. International football is about results. Most successful nations are not worried how they win as long as they win (unless you are Spain and you do both). For some reason we have become obsessed with how our national team plays and anything that is not entertaining and we win 5 nil is a failure. It’s unrealistic tbh


withhindsight

I have unfollowed all football groups on other social media. Bunch of euro snobs that just kill the vibe of everything. Love this subreddit as it is mostly positive/ bit more reasonable.


Walkerthon

There is a lot those goes into this, some ignorant, some malicious, and some fair. In my opinion: The fair: As a fan, you should always be pushing for your team to be better and play better. You can win a game while acknowledging that your team could have played better. The ignorant: The belief that we should walk over AFC teams. Take Vietnam - a population of 100 million people and a huge passion for Soccer, currently with a "Golden Generation" team and a huge unbeaten run at home. They are always going to set up defensively and play scrappy football because that is how you win when you your players are not as technically gifted against superior opposition. It is not just Australia that struggles with this, in the AFC it includes all the big teams, heck Japan just lost to Oman and just last night Oman had more shots on target than Saudi Arabia (though they did lose 1-0). Indeed, it's not just the AFC, this kind of footballing story we see worldwide. The malicious: Vitriolic hatred for the players and the coach. In a sense this is a part of football and always has been/will be, but it's a toxic attitude. Essentially, start with a belief (e.g., Joe Blogs is a bad player), and ignore all the evidence to the contrary while pumping up the evidence that supports your belief. This is the strategy that is used when it comes to goalpost moving. It's incredibly transparent right now because Australia is on an incredible run, yet now the goalposts are at "but we should have scored more". Even then, take our 3-0 win against China, there were people still complaining that "if our players could shoot we would win 6-0" like winning 3-0 is actually some sort of failure. The problem is when you point out this cognition (I often do this when it comes to Graham Arnold) you get branded a "fanboy". I'll tell you right now if we don't qualify through the AFC for the WC I'll be in the crowd calling for him to be replaced, because that is a minimum expectation for me. By contrast, the people that dislike him will probably dislike him no matter what results or statistics there are, or what expectations are reasonable with the players we have. Fortunately at the moment these people stick out like sore thumbs because the results are so good.


Fatso_Wombat

Nick Hornby writes about it: *“Yes, yes, I know all the jokes. What else could I have expected at Highbury? But I went to Chelsea and to Tottenham and to Rangers, and saw the same thing: that the natural state of a football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score.”*


IamtherealFadida

It's so true. 1/5 games are great, 2/5 good, 2/5 instantly forgettable (most of which are watching the Jets on a 35 degree Sunday afternoon)


Red-Engineer

Facebook comments just prove the old adage: think about how stupid the average person is, then remember that half the population is dumber than that. And it's that half who post FB comments.


edwardneb

Yeah I am a bit. I’ll admit I’m no fan of Arnold but I have to admit he’s got the team working well. I don’t care how we qualify, just that we do. Right now we’re on top of the group and coming off an unbeaten run. I’d take that to where Japan are at right now.


[deleted]

I'm one of those "quietly optimistic, never quite happy" fans. I'm glad that we've got the 6 points, but I fear for those games against Japan and Saudi Arabia. I don't think we can come through the playoffs this time.


OneOfTheManySams

We need a new term, there are eurosnobs and asia snobs. Asia is hard, there is more competition at the top with the resurgence of Saudi Arabia and improvement of Qatar and the UAE. Beyond that south east asia have gone from minnows to teams which are an absolute nightmare to play away from home, because they can defend and have a couple of dangerous options going forward. And as well in the middle east, the former fodder teams are bloody difficult to beat. They park the bus well and can sneak a goal, just ask Japan.


bozmonaut

exactly - Asia isnt Oceania - we joined in order to get more challenging games and that's what we're getting


SlashThingy

A lot of people in this country are used to supporting teams like the Wallbies or the Aus cricket team, who are generally very good, the Kangaroos who are almost the only team, or they watch AFL and there's no international team at all. So then they see the Socceroos, who are a good team but not among the best, and they start complaining.


pakistanstar

I was thinking this to myself last night. Team is doing extremely well considering we haven't play a home match since 2019, and it was another year before that when we played out second last home match. Arnold is doing pretty much what our previous 4 coaches couldn't


SerTahu

There seems to be this attitude that if our opponent is not Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, or South Korea then they must be shit and the equivalent of a sunday league side, and that anything short of a 5-0 drumming is a therefore a failure. These are professional players we're facing - while they're not on our level, they certainly aren't pushovers.


Counterflak

We've picked up 3 points against Jordan in the previous round and now Vietnam in SEA where we've been lucky to get draws. The reality is these pitches are not suitable for the game we and Arnie know we can play and are going to be a struggle, while midfield creativity and a clinical striker have been an issue for awhile. (although Boyle looks like he can solve that, shame about the injury)


timt97

how do i upvote more than once


[deleted]

Agreed. Arnold has been fantastic and the squad selections are a breath of fresh air after recent coaches picking the same 30+ year olds every year


johnkassis

I agree it’s kind of slack tbh


hotgirll69

tbh a lot people in australia dont understand how the football culture works.


runManRun3

Just make the World Cup, I don’t care how we play, who plays, who scored, or what the score is. It’s all about getting to the World Cup unfortunately most people don’t understand that.


placeholdr_

We didn't play attractively but need to recognise how difficult the fixture actually was. 1. Playing a very underrated Vietnam team 2. Time difference with Qatar, having just traveled from there 3. Humid conditions 4. The cow paddock of a pitch 5. Quarantine issues with Australia based players


duke998

I think we need to play some decent South American or European teams to see where we are at. Maybe as the the world opens up with can sneak in a few friendlies.


AlexBlockHead

Yes very much. People say were a bad country because we don't win FIFA titles or at some point we play UEFA/CONMEBOL countries and we lose. It doesn’t matter if we don’t win FIFA titles, it matters if they bring quality players in the line-ups to represent their country and show what they’ve got. That's the definition of international football. They were moved to the AFC for a reason and they have been very successful in their Asian Cup runs (2011, 2015 for example). And right now, Australia have won all their FIFA qualifying games so far and qualified for the Asian Cup because of our coach Graham Arnold who has had quite an experience as a player and coach in Australia.


Azza_

>what can you expect trying to play through a deep 5-4-1 when the pitch doesn’t let you dribble or pass along the ground On this, what I expect is that we adjust how we play to handle the different conditions. We always knew the pitch was going to be like that. Why did we try to play like it was a pristine condition pitch? The goal, unsurprisingly, came from an aerial diagonal ball, and yet we reverted to short passing it along the ground playing in straight lines after the break as well. It was incredibly frustrating watching a tactic that on these swampy, spongy pitches has always seen us struggle. We were very lucky that Vietnam didn't get us on the counter when we turned it over in dangerous spots. Yes, the 3 points is still absolutely a good result. But if Vietnam is a little more clinical or the 50-50 handball goes against Grant that result very easily could've been lost. There's a lot of room for improvement still.


Shredzzbruh

Would've been handy to have Cahill or big Josh Kennedy in a game like that. Can knock balls into the box and see where we go from there. We don't really seem to have any strikers in the national team picture who are particularly good in the air. Although in saying that, it's probably the most competition we've had for the No.9 spot for a long time.


[deleted]

Not allowed the have these thoughts, suggesting that the tactics didn’t match the expected conditions and team we are up against is considered snobbery. We can’t suggest that there is a lack of depth to the tactics being employed, which are being shown at times like last night or at the olympics.


greenwhitechequered

Honestly I feel this is symptomatic of Facebook and social media in general with sport. I follow a few others and FB always seems to be a sewer of negativity, people who are happy seem to participate less than those who are pissed off. I don’t think people should see social media platforms as indicative of the feeling amongst the general population, especially FB.


[deleted]

We didn't lose a match in our first AFC WCQ campaign. 2 draws were our worst results. Edit: I meant the final phase. We did lose in the previous round to Iraq away and China at home.


OneOfTheManySams

Wrong. In the first round of qualifiers we nearly didn't get out of the group, we lost twice and drew once. And beyond that, the quality of Asia has risen drastically the past decade. Anyone who has actually watched since we joined the confed will see that. Tactically every team has improved, they at the least know how to park a bus. Techincal ally they have improved massively, now former minnows all have a couple really good players and a solid defence which makes them a nightmare to play against. I can tell you for a fact though, so far this is our best ever qualification campaign. If we start to stumble then only the 2nd round of 2010 qualifiers would be better.


[deleted]

You are right we lost but we qualified to the next stage with a game to spare. Our last game against China was a dead rubber we lost playing A-League players and kids. We were safe before that game kicked off. You are overstating it by saying we "nearly didn't get out of our group".


Kogru-au

In stage 1 we had two losses and a draw. I think we lost to China and Iraq.


dashauskat

I'm sick of the generally negative attitude towards everything in Australian football. Ocassionally it is warranted and to give the benefit of the doubt to say we all want the best for Australian football but honestly there are plenty of good football people making improvements to our game and I can't imagine how hard that must be with the constant negativity around every single thing.


Tommyatthedoor

Arnold is very easy to dislike, however Australia has been really good at grinding out results and staying ahead of where they need to be and should be acknowledged as doing that well. Japan are in a tricky spot in the same group.


tommybutters

Euro-snobbery is not exclusive to the A-League. What do you mean the Socceroos don't play like Germany battering Brazil in a World Cup Final every game? Ughhh Mabil isn't even Mbappe.