First XI:
—————Schwarzer————-
Wilkshire Neill Moore Chipperfield
————–Culina Grella
–Emerton —– Cahill —- Kewell
—————-Kennedy———–

2nd XI
————–Covic——————–
Williams Milligan Kisnorbo Carney
Jedinak Valeri
Bresciano Holman Carle
————-McDonald

The youngsters: Lowry; Vidosic

Still think Spiranovic, Djite, Rukavystya have a chance if they get game time, but that will be the only way they force their way in.

Schwarzer and Cahill can both play, fair enough. I’m not sure about one or two of the others, however. I don’t know much about football in Aus but I assumed that they would be bringing a few more players through.

Don’t tell me that Aussie is becoming a bit like Scotland i.e. a country in which they’re struggling to bring at least a few players of quality through.

Actually……………….Aus isn’t exactly like Scotland. They haven’t been to the World Cup since 1998. You’ve qualified twice in that period. I take it all back.

it’d be great if he could include two or three of these sort of players… Vidosic certainly comes to mind unless Ruka gets more games by mid-season. Whats the deal with the train-on squad? Will they take a few extras like they did leading up to Germany?

No.

The Squad we take to South Africa should be very different from the one we take to the Asian Cup (assuming we qualify)

In coming up with my list, I am really looking to plug what I believe to be the gaps in the squad, and the main 2 are up front and in centre defence. But there are a couple of other interesting posers;

1 Striker; Kennedy at the moment is a shoe-in, McDonald has fluffed his lines so far, so there’s a spot, in my mind, for Porter to at least get a chance to show Pim he’s up for it. One thing I didn’t mention in my piece was his mentality – I like it. If there was one bolter for the squad, I’d still think Porter can be the man, but he has to keep doing what he’s doing and get a few goals for good measure.

2. Centre defence; Neill’s search for a club has the potential to really backfire on his chances of getting game time. I don’t see him as a certain starter at Everton at the moment. Craig Moore has always done well, even after his comeback for the WCQ’s, but there have been some less-convincing signs of late. I saw Kisnorbo against Liverpool recently and he did pretty well. Milligan didn’t look so good against South Korea. Jade North has been the one who has really done consistently well whenever given a game, but how often is he playing? He’s missed out. Not surprised Colosimo and Leijer have missed out, but they should just keep doing what they’re doing. Colosimo may have missed the boat for good, but Leijer has time.

3. Left back; Chippers and Carney deserve to be 1 and 2, and that’s probably all Pim will take to SA. But the battle for no. 3 is interesting. Steffanutto appears in pole position, Jamieson has gone backwards so far this season, but the guy really doing well in the A-League, at least for his defending is Dean Heffernan. Don’t know whether Lowry comes into the mix here, but if he’s anywhere near the success that Rhys Williams has been, definitely worth a crack..

4. Goalkeeper; 3 go to SA. Covic is Schwarzer’s back-up here, but Galekovic and the boy from Huski, Federici, should be right in the mix.

As a more general observation, the squad is looking a little on the oldish side, which doesn’t just mean you just throw in youngsters for the sake of balance, but looking ahead to SA, is there enough surprise element, point of difference, or unknown in the squad to worry teams in SA?

And is there potential for an 11 made up of the established stars (esp. the defensive axis of Moore-Neill and Grella in front of them) to be caught out by a lack of pace? If they’re not playing or not playing well, does Verbeek have the steel/authority to leave them out?

And, by picking the tried and tested, or the guys that have done the job for him to date, does Pim run the risk or not including someone who is in better form, or someone on an upward trend in terms of where their career progression?

Rukavytsia maybe. He is obviously not in the first team yet for his club but he is close and has 8 or so months to get ina nd score a few goals.

Beachamp moving to a middle east team should mean the end of him as a Socceroo.

As some point Vidosic has to get some serious game time – he is one of our few players competing in one of Europe’s top tier comps. Bit of a worry that neither Rukavytsia nor Djite are in, but I guess if you aren’t playing, you aren’t in. In Djite’s case, I can’t remember the last time he scored a goal. He has gone very cold after a bright start.

Covic must have been playing very well in Sweden….

We may not have the world class cutting edge that other countries will have but Pimbo is starting to develop some depth, as he said he would.

I am disappointed but hardly surprised, given how defensive Pim plays.