It is a rational, tactical decision founded in Pim’s belief that preparing to play against teams in the 2010 world cup who have at their disposal far superior creativity than our own (with or without Carle) cannot be combated with our own (inferior) creativity. It can, however, be combated with a well-structured, well-oiled machine made up of consistent players who work well up and down the pitch. We saw evidence of this in World Cup 2006 against Italy – we were not so close to victory because of a creativity that matched the class of the Italians, but because of glimses of creativity coupled with a structure and consistency that can always cause upsets.

Again, I believe Carle should be given a chance in the games to come – but I think its important not to get overly excited about how much Carle would bring to Australian football. The sort of creativity he has does not disappear in a player, so perhaps it would be a good thing for Carle to become a little more consistent and helpful in defence before he is given more time on the park. Lets leave it to Pim, yeah?!

Pim should play him sometime.

You would also remember the assists for both goals in the first playoff too, then.

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KB

The major issue is that this morning we finally got the away result we deserved. We completely gave up any intention of winning. There will be a lot of crap this week about how they grafted, how unlucky the goal was and the heat.

The facts are Pim’s team was sent out to get a nil nil draw. They only played once they went behind and then because of original line up they did not have the right players on the park and we were left playing route 1 rubbish.

Yes the players all tried hard, they were let down by a coach who wouldn’t back them to win.

we need nicky carle running our midfield and playing nicky carle would be good for scott macdonald.

last point: i understand that playing smart tactical football (unimaginative, bland, boring) CAN get us to the world cup but it wont take us very far. why not play beautiful flair football instead? this will get us into the world cup AND help us get much further. at the top level of international football, to win games u need creativity, flair and special players. that’s why we need to continue to advocate for the likes of nicky carle, bresciano, kewell, culina and nathann burns (hopefully he continues to develop) to feature in our national team. lets aim to be a brazil, argentina, egypt etc instead of a greece!

Yes, Nicky carle have problems scoring goals and hasn’t exactly produce a lot of assist for Bristol City but watching him play in the playoff they pretty much used him as a holding midfielders and given him no license to have an influence in the final third. They are just not using him probably during the play off by bypass him in the midfield by plumping up long balls to the striker. He did far more work defensively in those games then attacking which was strange. Most of the praise for nick carle in this season is for the ability to control the game in the centre of the park rather than his attacking flair (i heard the commentator say that he runs the bristol city midfield). From what I read they never played Nicky carle as the playmaker just behind the striker. They either played him deep or on the wing.

You state that he plays in a lowly Bristol city while other players play readily for better clubs but people who watch him play believes that he is better player than that. If playing for lower division clubs is a detriment for national selection then players like cahill (got pick playing for millwall), carney and chris coyne (we’ll see how he goes tonight) would never be pick.

Jesse, as I posted earlier, I’m no fan of Homan, but Cahill, Bresc, Carney and Scott McDonald are the players I think deserve far more attention thant they get.

Take Scott McDonald.

Here is a man playing for the top team in the top league in Scotland, and as well as creating a number of assists, he has scored 39 goals in all competitions this season for his club – 39!

So hot is his form that he was top scorer this season in the SPL – a top 10 European league, with 6 more goals than his nearest rival, and scored two hattricks. Celtic appreciate his conrtibution so much that they have introduced their new away kit in identical green and gold to the Socceroos. (OK, I made that bit up, but seriously, it is scarily similar!)

For those like Mick of Newie, who scoffed “for all his SPL achievements he may never cut it with the national team because international football is not like the SPL. The roos don’t play like Celtic or Motherwell and Iraq and Japan don’t defend like Hibs or Inverness Caledonian Thistle.” Scott McDonald scored goals in arguably the most highly skilled football competition in the world, the UCL, including the match winner against the then Champions of Europe, AC Milan.

If you can score against top Italian defenders in the UCL, I’m sure Iraq and Japan should be no problem! I’m not sure what excuse Nick Carle has, playing in the lowly Championship, in comparison, against teams like Crystal Palace, yet unable to score a single goal.

Over his career McDonald has scored 78 goals from 201 appearances, which is a better career goals-per-game average than Wayne Rooney or Anelka. For Australia, he has scored 29 goals in 51 games.
In December 2007, McDonald was named BBC Sportsound Player of the Year for his eight man-of-the-match performances throughout the 2006/07 season.
In March he was named Australian FourFourTwo magazine’s Overseas Player of the Year.

To hear people for some reason putting Nick Carle on a pedestal as “the most gifted attacking player we have” makes me wild, because they are ignoring the red hot form and mind-blowing achievements of one Scotty Mac, for one, as well as others.

Hell, the man doesn’t even NEED to play for us, both his parents are Scottish, he could play for their national team, but he chooses to play for Australia, and we should be singing his praises far more.

Watching the move against Iraq in which he casually rolled the ball back for Bresc’s shot gave me a real thrill to see a move worthy of Arsenal coming from our National team.

Once the squad gels and gets used to playing in this style, incorporating McDonald’s nous, I think we are all in for a real treat.

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KB

and to those idiots who correlated flair with losing and graft with ‘getting the job done’ are incredibly deluded. we must all belive in beautiful football and put our trust into flair and lets start by picking our flair players!

If you re-read some of my posts above you will see at least three members of the Socceroos that I have mentioned who are far more deserving of the attention fostered upon Nick Carle. I’ll add another: Super Dave Carney. He has been a more attacking force than Carle for the Socceroos, and that’s from left back.

Anyway, I’ll let you get back to those “better things” you have to do on your Friday night – I’m sure replying to my humble thoughts on the topic are not one of them – let’s all just agree that we hope whatever team walks onto the park on Sunday morning fasions a decent result, if we can get all three points we will be through to the next stage, I believe.

As for Carle “polarising people”, I would gladly prefer to discuss the more underated, yet more interesting members of the squad, however all we ever seem to get is the same old articles on Kewell, Carle and occasionally Lucas Neill – after all, you cynical media types realise that these get the most hits. You may be shocked to find that most bloggers do tend to disagree whatever the subject. Write an article on cheese, and I am sure you would find it just as “polarising” in the blog format

Not at all mate. The point I was trying to make is that perhaps the team isn’t picked on current form, responding to what you said in an earlier post (“Why do you think national team coaches go to matches? To gauge current form.”). Harry is an absolute champ, but there’s no way in hell you could say he’s made the team on form.

And to those of who think it’s a decision between Mark (it is MARK, btw) Bresciano and Nicky Carle…welll it needn’t be one or the other. There are plenty of other midfield spots to allow for the new “hardworking” Nicky.

And, to those Scientist Football coaches out there (Ernie Merrick eg), find some Heart. Some Footballing Heart.