Debacle. Farcical. Embarrassment. National Disgrace. You’d have to think we are now used to these sort of performances from the Socceroos.
For years we have been crying out for a rebooted and rejuvenated national football side, for the old wood to be shifted out and our promising youth brought in.
But time and time again, our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. This debacle has been coming for a while, and as much as I dislike Holger Osieck, this all started with Pim Verbeek.
The rot started when he was manager. We’ve been on a slippery slope since the 2010 World Cup, and now that slippery slope has taken us to being the joke of the footballing world.
The FFA have just stood by, ignored this mess, and watched our national pride become as legit as Dave Warner’s off-field behaviour.
Why have they stood by and allowed this highly paid manager to watch us become a side of footballing senior citizens? We are too old, too slow, too bloody obvious.
Where has the good old fighting spirit gone? We are just lifeless numpites on a football field.
Whoever becomes the next national coach, they need to revamp things fast. I’d rather go to a World Cup and lose every match convincingly with a youthful side, then go with an ageing side that has severe consequences to the future of our game.
Lucas Neil, we love you, you wear your heart on your sleeve, but your time has come – give it up. You’re no longer the stellar Lucas Neil model of 2006.
You could say the only positive contribution from Holger, bar getting us to the World Cup, was to start grooming the likes of Langerak to becoming our number one keeper, but it’s took him a god damn long time to do so.
Dark times are ahead, but to begin the revolution we need to carefully wipe our ageing players out of this national side.
The likes of Ognenovski, Wilkshire and Schwarzer should go, but to do so the new manager must be able to assimilate our younger boys – the likes of Brett Holman, Tommy Oar, Robbie Kruse, Mark Milligan, Tommy Rogic and Carl Valeri.
When given a chance they grasped it with all they have.
Let’s hope whoever takes charge has more common sense than Holger to take the brave step and lead Australia in a new direction.
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Even though St.Pauli ultimately lost a high-scoring affair, Jackson Irvine was a standout, as well as scoring a late goal.
What if we celebrated all of the achievements big and small, and weeded out those hell-bent on bringing down a game that is doing a hell of a lot right?
A good performance from Michael Ruhs, scoring twice to beat Macarthur and doubling his season goal tally in the process.
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