Crushed in the dust, but Socceroos limp on

Das & KB Thought i'd put up a list of U23 Aussies Abroad: Now start telling me we have no depth........ Born in 1986: - Tomi Arcaba (GK, FC Gloria Buzau, Romania) - Adrian leijer (Def, Fulham, England) - Kyle Nix (Mid, Bradford City, England) - Eric Paartalu (Def, Greenock Morton, Scotland) - Ruben Zadkovich (Def, Derby County, England) Born in 1987: - Bruce Djite (Str, Genclebirligi, Turkey) - Peter Eletherakis (Mid, Pyrsos Grevenon, Greece) - Ersan Gulum (Def, Manisaspor, Turkey) - Erhan Karahan (Def, Sivasspor, Turkey) - Caleb Patterson (GK, Red Bull New York, USA) - Dario Vidosic (Mid, FC Nurnberg, Germany) - James Wesolowski (Mid, Leicester City, England) Born in 1988: - Nathan Burns (Mid/Str, AEK Athens, Greece) - Rostyn Griffiths (Mid, Blackburn Rovers, England) - Ryan Mcgowan (Def, Hearts, Scotland) - James Meredith (Def, Shrewsbury Town, England) - Matthew Park (Def, Hearts, Scotland) - Matthew Spiranovic (Def, FC Nurnberg, Germany) - James Troisi (Mid/Str, Genclerbirligi, Turkey) - Daniel Visevic (Str, Dynamo Zagreb, Croatia) - David Williams (Str, Brondby, Denmark) - Rhys Williams (Def, Middlesborough, England) Born in 1989: - Scott Balderson (Mid, Stevenage Borough, England) - Oliver Bozanic (Mid, Reading, England) - Alex Cisak (GK, Leicester City, England) - Peter Czetanovski (Def, Borussia Monchengladbach, Germany) - Mate Dugandzic (Mid, Dynamo Zagreb, Croatia) - Andreas Govas (Mid, Apollon Kalamarias, Greece) - Chris Herd (Mid, Aston Villa, England) - Cameron Jones (Str, Tamworth FC, England) - Stefan Vrbesic (Str, Dynamo Zagreb, Croatia) Born in 1990: - Dean Bouzanis (GK, Liverpool, England) - Paul Giannou (Mid, Apollon Kalamarias, Greece) - Daniel Ireland (GK, Coventry City, England) - Michael McEntagert (GK, Everton, England) - Aaron Mooy (Mid, Bolton, England) - Mitch Nicholson (Mid, Dorchester Town, England) - Rocco Visconte (Mid, Hearts, Scotland) Born in 1991: - Matt Falzon (GK, Hearts, Scotland) - Brynn Hindley (GK, Dundee United, Scotland) - Bradden Inman (Mid, Newcastle, England) - Dylan McGowan (Def, Hearts, England) - Brett McGrath (Str, Brondby, Denmark) Born in 1992: - Matt Fletcher (Str, Sunderland, England)

MC Disagree ........without doubt Football is strongest in NSW but to extend that to its NSW is football Australia is a well over the top. Football had the first national league and players generally came from the cities and sates they played in. Football player football is Australia. I agree very strong in Sydney & Brisbane & ACT & SA with reasonable numbers in other states. My point on the Sydney media is former RL players and administrators or people associated with them have run the sports media departments in Sydney and NSW generally. Given that Sydney has and have a player ration of about 6 to 1, and many of the old NSL clubs drew larger crowds than some RL teams football never got any good press in Sydney if any press at all. Marconi on a good crowd would out draw Penrith with a poor crowd, East’s / South’s drew very poor crowds which where overly inflated, often Sydney Olympic certainly the Northern Spirit had a bigger crowds than most Sydney RL teams. RU & RL internationals where seen as major events .......the TEST match ...... yet when the Socceroos played a South American side it was nothing .......... if the Socceroos played a pacific nation side it was presented as like ......... if RU played a pacific island side it was a real contest a real test match. By and large this continues today ......... not so much the looking for the bad news story but certainly the lack of media time ..........as I said to Pip I am not sure how it or why it started but the football folk of Sydney or parts of the football folk just have the shits with the media and are just going to get louder. But yes Sydney / NSW very strong but in all states a team can be made up of locals and so no to your comment that ............ football is mainly Sydney / NSW Shit day ahead ....... clients galore so my last post until late tonight

Midfielder - and your whole point about Sydney and soccer is one I've made previously - - about the 'mirage' of the 'truely national' code of soccer. The reality is that soccer is as single state centric, as NRL or AFL - - the over representation of NSW for national participation figures is such that NSW is as crucial to soccer as it is to NRL and ARU and Vic is to AFL. There's been deliberate attempts to present a different image - - - but, you and I and probably most on theRoar know this NOT to be true. NSW IS soccer in Australia.

Das Danny Ireland - Goalkeeper club Coventry City FC 19 years old Oliver Bozanic - Midfielder Club Reading 18 years old

Pip I have some experience with newspapers and you raise a interesting point about readership and change. Pip the following should be read in a Sydney context only as I have no real knowledge of other areas within Australia. Most media outlets especially newspapers believe they have a demographic and they pander to that demographic .... the people in charge understand that demographic ........ middle mangers and workers often come from this demographic. Meaning changing what you believe your readers want is full of danger ........"It's worked for the last 100 years why change" .... if you change and it's deemed a failure then bang there goes your job ........ and those wanting to maintain the Status Que will find failure if it is there or not ...... as their jobs are on the line...... so change is not so simple. However the print media is changing ....... it's more the electronic media ...... FTA TV and radio ....... fossil AM talk stations with their baby boomers listeners are reluctant to change ...... the sports departments are run by ex RL players as are the TV stations. 2UE a typical AM fossil talk back station on the day AU played in the ACL final in their 12:00 news did not mention the match. The electronic media will only change when / if Football wins a major FTA media deal next time around .... meaning the media owners will replace the RL people in the media sports departments with football people ...... my guess is it will be Ch 10 as the feeling about Ch 7 runs deep in football as you would be aware ...... When / if this happens will be interesting to see how RL react to football having access to a "fair suck of the sav" ... But to get their football has a lot of hard work ahead and holding it all together and making correct decisions will be the key ... but by heck it is gonna be a hard slog with many setbacks along the journey but I have faith in both the game and the FFA management to believe football can gain mainstream respect and acceptance of the broader general public...

Midfielder I'm not too sure your point is but I don't think most of the players you mention have not proven to be good enough for the socceroos and some of them are not even contenders for selection. What criteria do you have in listing these players as a showing of depth? It's feels like you pick 60 players who had represented Australia at any levels and then say we have depth. Might as well list out all the players in the Aussie Abroad section in 442 (maybe add Eddie Bosnar, Danny invincible, Nathan Coe, Jess Van Stratten, Dean Bouzanis, Joshua Rose and also Joel Griffiths, Travis Dodd, Craig Moore from the A-league) Some players have been outright failures (I'm not ruling them out for good however) for the few times they played for socceroos like Carney and Petkovic, brad jones and jacob burns Even players who had played for the socceroos for a fair amount of time have been unconvincing and the jury is still out whether they are good enough for the socceroos like Djite, Kennedy, Coyne, North, jacob burns, holman. And who is Danny Ireland and Oliver Bozanic?

Jimbo I would have thought that News Ltd now has as much stake in the A-League as AFL. - it doesn't make any sense to me that it would put down one of its products. That's at a high strategic level, however, I can understand what you're saying a bit more if we go down to the individual level, of what people are deciding on the coal face day-to-day, but even then, I sort of still have trouble making sense of it in this day and age.

Pip, true, the commercial rags are commercial and they need to sell papers. But you also need to balance that out with what sports they have invested in. News limited has invested heavily in NRL and AFL so they will give the most coverage to those sports, no matter how popular the other sports are. However, they always find room on the back page to write something negative about rival football codes or articles that attack other codes, like RW's. Controversial, sells papers and still promotes their own interests.

Pim has a job on hand to get Australia through to the next WC. I have listen to some who say we lack depth and got to thinking who is overseas and who is in Australia who Pim could call on to play. My list has 58 players 43 overseas and 15 in Australia ……… never have we had this depth . Have I left anyone out From Overseas 45 players Nathan Coe, Micheal Beauchamp, Nick Carle, Scott Chipperfield, Ryan McGowan, Carl Valeri-, Lucas Neill, Tim Cahill, Brett Emerton, Harry Kewell, Neil Kilkenny, Luke Wilkshire , Scott Mcdonald, James Triosi, Brett Holman, Richard Garcia, Matthew Špiranović, Aaron Downes, Vince Grella , Jason Culina, Mile Sterjovski, Bruce Djite, Mark Bresciano, Kasey Wehrman, Joshua Kennedy, Trent McClenahan, David Carney, Adrian Leijer-, Danny Ireland, Adam Federici, Brad Jones, Dario Vidosic, David Williams, Chris Coyne, Michael Petkovic, Mark Viduka, Jacob Burns, Nathan Burns, Oliver Bozanic, Spase Dilevski, Shane Stefanutto, Mark Schwarzer, Bret Emerton From the A-League 15 players Matt Simon, Jedi, Danny Vukovic, Archie Thompson, James Holland, Nikita Rukavytsya, Eugene Galekovic, Robert Cornthwaite, Scott Jamieson, Rodrigo Vargas, Billy Celeski, Mark Bridge, Michael Zullo, Robbie Kruse, Adam Griffiths

Mid yes - that answers the question very well - thanks. This is an entirely different situation and context, but you remind me that for about the first 12 years after South Melbourne was moved to Sydney (the Swans), they had to purchase space to get an article written about them in the sports section of the dailies.. It seems to me that in your context, the FFA would need to do something far less radical than that to redress the media situation. One other point, if the local rags are commerical enterprises, it follows that the press coverage of sports should follow the demands of their readership, otherwise they wouldn't be able to sell advertising, etc. What do you think?

Pip I cannot speak for the Melbourne as I don't read Melbourne media or listen other than in a link if someone says look at this. Sydney I can talk a lot about ........ some background history is important here so just bear with me a bit. In Sydney registered football players are more than... RL / RU / AFL/ Hockey players numbers combined and doubled. Sydney over the years has had about 10 former NSL clubs .... most of whom own their own stadiums ... be they on the small side Blacktown Demons 7 K , Marconi 12 K etc. The Sydney media in the past devoted media pages to RL and it was on TV / radio my guess very similar to AFL in Melbourne. The only time a Soccer story was given any press was for a riot or something bad never anything good. The electronic media ignored soccer and made fun of it .......... often but not always deserved mind you, but never anything good ........ never the good news story .... and essentially this continues today however the print media is mainly positive these days and provide more than ever been before in inches. In summary old soccer had a very bad press so bad that any good news story never got air or media inches. What has always been hard to sallow is why the good news stories never got published and how the gutter media just put the boot in every chance they got. Further unlike Melbourne where AFL has a very large number of juniors RL had few by comparison. The sleeping giant was its name never let it up was the call and the attacks on soccer from the Sydney RL media were many and often. Pip that's football history with the Sydney media and what lead Simon Hill to pen his famous article of "Can you smell the Fear". Further SBS Les & Johnny grew up in Sydney and I think TWG had to much of a Sydney thing about it.. Today little has changed in the electronic media outside Fox and some radio stations now give football a little respect. What drives football people mad is we believe that football is the number game in Sydney because of maybe 50 years of negative press football was as strong as what it is. As an aside this is why the failure of SFC is holding back the A-league and Obie One needs to rid himself of SFC and just stay focused on the big picture. So in a position of having maybe 5 or 6 players to one a very strong state and former NSL comp yet constantly attacked. Today we have the A-league and the success of the W & youth Leagues ACL and Socceroos and football still finds it hard in mainstream media to get any real foothold. My guess is people have given up and taken a lead from Mr Clean (lol) Mr Muskie (elbow in matty neck aside) and write a reply and we have the shits with the media and no idea how it started but if people throw shit ..... given there is no one in the media arguing football point the fans have taken it on themselves ...... call it what you like but the key reason behind it is so little media that the football family or at least parts of it are developing their own media and it will only get louder as I see it. RL claim WS as its heart land that is so much BS ...... without doubt football is the main game it has over 120, 000 registered players. The AFL claim to come into WS is seen by most as a ruse given they will be playing in Homebush they actually just want a second Sydney team and wish to draw fans from all around Sydney and just use the WS as a tag to start the team ...... which BTW I have no problems with ....... so Pip I think Sydney Football folk are simply pissed off at the media and have said ......... in the words of Tom Petty " We Won't back down gonna stand our ground" In closing mate ...... you have to understand many people in Sydney consider Football as Sydney's major code ... yet its media support where their dollars are invested and people have had enough they want to be heard and the mainstream simply does not........ if anything still go looking for the bad news story.... Is this a chip on the shoulders ......NO .... its simply a fact of life ........ simply the 2005 WCQ Sydney had 2.5 million when pubs clubs and live sites are taken into account, Japan over 2 million, yet the RLWC has got more press in Sydney than the 2006 Football World Cup go figure. Hope this answers your question.... football 2.5 million people WCQ.... media today almost nil on FTA ....... the AU match was almost not reported until phone calls and emails forced the issue....

Craig Foster helping with solutions. hmm perhaps he should do more of this http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDUs2P2Dlk

Das Agree with most of what you except people will not change their mind about Craig. I believe even those that dislike his style have respect for his knowledge......... What Fozzie has to learn is being a Zealot only works every now and then and he needs to engage his audience more be more trusting of there knowledge ......... because F*** me the only people who watch TWG are hard core rusted on anyway with heaps of knowledge. Fozzie can lead us along its just style and manner in which he chooses which will ultimately determine if he becomes one of the great football media commentators or one of a number of football commentators ... in this regard Les M could guide him a lot better IMO. The thing he must realise is many of the things he goes on about are well known so develop people's understanding and help with the solutions and secondly the next media deal will be with either 9 or 10 and SBS will become the third player so he needs a broader appeal.

Mid I'm glad you mentioned Bozza - I reckon he is an absolute natural for a long TV career. I have read negative comments about him from some pundits, but I don't understand why, I reckon he's terrific (also not forgetting that he must be in the top 5 players ever produced by Australia). Like das, I enjoy listening to Fos for the most part - I especially love it when he goes into the nitty gritty of the tactics teams use on the field, some of those segments are priceless and very rare opportunities to dig really deep into how the game is played at the very highest levels (as opposed to pub football, to borrow one of Towser's expressions). But sometimes - very rarely mind you - he absolutely loses the plot! Also - no problem with your response to me. One thing is that I still read The Age (sponsor of MV), and listen to SEN at every opportunity, and I find the exposure both these media organisations give the game to be very good. Maybe this is missing in other parts of Australia?? I debated with some people on the FLOG, arguing that the Wilson article should just have been ignored - and the mostly Sydney bloggers were a bit outraged at me. But it did occur to me that places like Sydney and Brisbane might get to read and hear far less about the A-League than you can in Melbourne. Do you think that is a possibility? My article in FourFourTwo this Wednesday will actually touch on this whole Wilson business with a bit of a twist, a bit of a different perspective - I encourage you to take a look - you might be surprised as to what I have to say on the subject.

Yeah the way Foster preach about his message can easily be interpreted as condescending. In the past he has no diplomatic tact. He say his view so aggressively and so viciously that if you don't agree with it you'll be offended. It's like he is preaching to the converted and rallying his supporters base but he is not convincing people who have different views to see things his way because it seems like he shows absolutely no respect and shows absolute contempt to people with opposing views. It's a skill in debating. That you can get your point across in the way where the opposing side may not agree with you but not hate your guts either. However his passion of the game often makes it difficult for that to happen as he tends to go on an angry rant about any particular topic. I always say that he needs to take lesson from K. Rudd in diplomacy (avoiding leaks of telephone conversations) As much as there are great truth in Craig Foster message. I think that he is largely responsible (along with Les Murray) for the divide in the football community. His commentary on the EPL and the A-league although not necessary incorrect was said in such a way that it was only going to alienate audience. In fact it sprawn a legend and create a whole caricature of Craig Foster as this anti-English (which is a myth) and overly negative person. I look at Johnny Warren and Craig Foster. Both have very very similar views (in fact I think Johnny Warren views on English football is more negative than Craig Foster). However one is universally love and respected among football community and the other divides the football community and you are either a pro foster supporter or you are against him. The message was the same, the result was completely different. The shame is that Foster is improving a lot recently and expresses his criticism in a lot more diplomatic way. However the damage is already done and the polarisation of opinion of him is not going to change that much no matter how much he improves.

Jes Maybe it's just me ........ but if I look at non SBS football forums and even here on the Roar most take a view similar to mine, which I have often posted before. Fozzie writings and TV deliveries sometimes are so over stated and so vicious and lecturing in style ....... its like we are being told something that was well beyond our range of knowledge and the wisdom of the teller is grand . I think Fozzie has a huge career in front of him but so to does Bozza ...... now Bozza says very similar things to Fozzie without talking down to the audience and sorry thats how I often find Fozzie talking down to me pointing out something I am to stupid to understand ....whereas Bozza talks to me as an informed person and comments on something and shares his knowledge and experiences with me. I would also like to add as an aside if you take a pure football view.. and ....that football view has quite a narrow focus ... like say ....... improve quality ..... national team from early childhood ....... 40 week seasons etc ....... and never think about how it can be implemented or afforded or how it affects other parts of the greater football family, then you leave out a huge chunk of the possibilities and will reach wrong conclusions../ ... decisions, ... all I can say is I am glad Obie One is running the FFA

Pip You said ..... " o I truly detest this perception amongst many futebol followers in Australia that it is impossible to follow both futebol and aussie rules with equal or almost equal interest and enthusiasm. And one thing I share with my compatriots redb and MC is a dislike of this constant victimhood, this paranoia that everyone is out to get them, and conversely, this “smell the fear” tripe. A middle ground would be most welcome!!" Two comments first what Obie One has often said and I have posted numerous times is watch the AFL in winter and football so it is a large part of the football marketing to get cross coders to come ........ in some on the Roar don't get this then they need to be told ...... but I think most do understand it and welcome them. The victimhood of which you speak ........... yes there is some of that ...... however my experience on this site is many post about the future and how to get there and about future products, ........ some are caught in the past and I agree with you that the energy fighting a war football has already won is somewhat pointless as football has well and truly moved on. Better to take that energy to grow football and plan for the future. However in building our own future we have to be very mindful of two general things....... first what we did wrong to invite such bad press and never let that happen again ......... second be confident enough in our own game so as not to worry about other codes ...... perhaps a third is to look at what those around you are doing and receiving and as the late great Graham Kennedy said ensure football gets a "fair suck of the sav" As I have often said we made our past history and allowed the media to treat us the way it did ......because football deserved it ........ but now its all changed and football wants its ...."fair suck of the sav" .... and some want the pre Hal football so there is argie bargie going on ......... everyone has names for it "smell the fear" / and many others . What to me appears undeniable is that new football will not stand for articles written about it that are full of falsehoods and reflect the game in a poor light / or are so selective in facts chosen that the essence of an issue is lost in the selectivity of the writer. Why this is so is because relative to the NRL & AFL (this is not saying something bad about the AFL - REDB) football has few in the media who research and will go into bat and argue a football response. To explain if RW wrote her article about the NRL there are plenty of NRL in the media to counter her argument this is not the case in football .... so people react now. Finally what is the middle ground for me / MC & KB may be totally different ........ but in closing I am confident football will grow and in time get the respect in the mainstream media it wants ........ and that is what most want no more or no less. But you do raise some interesting points and your fundamental issue of lets move on and plan for the future I agree with.

Pip Still cannot believe that the Socceroos weren't 6 up at half time (Vidmar should have had a hat trick alone)...never have l seen such a one sided game and the dominant team not win. The quietest MCG at the final whistle l think l've ever heard, certainly not too many laughs on the way back to the car. Still have that game on tape somewhere...

By the way I like Craig Foster and I think he is a genious. He gets 95% of things right, I find him insightful, informative about the game. But like all genious he is prone to lapse in sanity and those 5% when he doesn't get it right can be quite disasterous.

Jesse Fink If Craig Foster present his views as articulate as he did for the World Game then perhaps I would have partially agreed with you but his article seems but over the top rant in what was really a harmless throw away comment. Really at worst the comment was inappropriate choice of words but it certainly wasn't offensive or indicative of an arrogance growing in the Australian camp. I don't have an issue with him saying that the performance was rubbish as it was. I also didn't have a problem in him saying that perhaps the Socceroos were complacent before the match. However it's was pretty obvious that after the match the Bahrain team knocked some humility into the Australian players. What about the captain Lucas Neill going on about how they were embarrass about the victory and how they didn't deserve it. All the other players have said the same thing but cahill comment was picked out. Let's say Cahill comment was arrogant (which I don't really believe it is) does his comment then overshadow all the statement of humility from all of the other players. That's what Foster was doing by saying his comments were reflective of a growing arrogance in the Socceroos. No it does not. Cahill is just one person. In fact I would say that the Captain of the team should be the most accurate reflection of the attitude of the socceroos in general and Lucas was humble after the Bahrain match. Although Fozz rightfully criticise his comments after the Qatar match implying that the victory against Qatar gave a strong message to the rest of Asia that Australia should be afraid of. Now with Cahill. I interpreted Cahill comment that in the past Australian teams dominate matches and still lose (and hence the comment that past australian sides will come here and lose 1-0). Nowaday the opposite happens which shows that Australian side are more clinical (substitute that with professional). Obviously Foster interpreted differently and he was right in showing how poor choice the words as he has articulately pointed out in TWG. He also points out that Cahill probably didn't mean what he said and that it was probably a poor choice of words. So why the rant at the end of the SMH article? His response to Cahill in the Herald Sun was over the top. He saying that the current socceroos do not respect the game while socceroos in the past do. So what is his calling the entire current socceroos unsporting and have no respect for the game. That's just bullshit. His comparison with previous players although maybe argued to be true is quite irrelevant but also lacks any diplomacy or tact. It like he is implying that the current socceroos that they only succeeded because of the support they have from FFA and not because of there actual ability. I'm sorry but it sounds like he is denigrating the achievement of the current socceroos They had a poor game against Bahrain. Cahil made a silly comment - foster should just point out it was silly without playing down and denigrating the current socceroos. "And former teams would have lost this match? Which team would that be, exactly?" Perhaps the 1978 and 1982 socceroos? Or maybe the 1990 socceroos that lost to NZ away. Or perhaps the Frank Farina Socceroos that barely defeated Tahiti 2-1 in extra time and lost to NZ in the final probably the most unprofessional socceroos in recent years. Or the socceroos that Tim Cahill personally played for under farina where they drew 2-2 with soloman island. Maybe the Scoceroos under Guus Hiddink then went to soloman island and only defeated them 2-1. Or the socceroos in the past that lost twice to Fiji. There were plenty of worst socceroos side out there that would have went to Bahrain and got flogged. It's very easy to point out with rose tinted glasses the great players of the past when there were plenty of awful teams in between.