True words from the baddest bear of them all

this is straya .......................Kewell........................... ..................................Cahill.................. Bresciano..........Carle............Emerton. ..........................Grella......................... .Chippers....Ljubo....Neill.....Wilshire..... .......................(schwarzer)................ subs: macdonald, kennedy, rukyvitsia, spiranovic, culina

Ljubo still has time to button up & make the Asian cup squad at least. The FFA have successfully negotiated an Asian cup qualifier against Oman 4 days after a friendly against the Netherlands on The 10th October.Solid move, creating the ability to use our overseas players,but with the A-League having been running for 2 months a chance for some A-League players to step up. Money where the mouth is Ljubo. http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,25515647-5014539,00.html

DaSilva - good point. The mercurial Anelka was also looked over for many years (including the seminal year 1998 for France) due to his temperament and lack of fit with the side. Its only now that he has become a more constructive team-mate that he is being allowed to achieve his potential internationally... plus of course his being more settled is also a good thing for Chelsea...

Remember guys you get what you pay for. Pim is on $2 million a year while Guus is on $7 million for Russia. Back to the Topic Lube came off in the ACL last night injured as Newcastle qualified for the next round.

As talented as Ljubo is and as entertaining and refreshing the little soundbites are. It doesn't change the fact that Ljubo is an idiot for making this comment if he has any international ambitions left. It's like he doesn't care whether he is selected or not and makes me question his committment to the team. You don't go insulting the boss and then expect to be selected. Lets just say that Ljubo played well for 4 matches in the last year. Hardly automatic pick to the national side. If ljubo had a stellar A-league season under the belt as well maybe he would have a point. None of the Adelaide United defenders are guarantees a spot in PIm's socceroos squad despite ACL success so why the hell should Ljubo think he should be. Maybe Pim should have handled the question about Ljubo differently but that doesn't change the fact that he shouldn't be shooting his mouth off. Even if Ljubo was the most talented defender Australia has available and is better then Lucas Neill, he still shouldn't be pick. Better players in history has been omitted due to potential team disruptions before (a certain Eric Cantona from the French 98 World Cup squad comes to mind) and he is too much of a risk for the national side.

Millster, i accept your opinions. I shall not be so "worried" for our recent history. We may both share our concerns for the immediate future though. I do not expect to play so valiantly nor with as much class as we did this time around. Timmy can only do so much, and Pim has no real plan B. But don't throw away the past achievements, just because of this concern. We did good, it won't be a flash in the pan - we will get back to performing in the WC soon, and not just to "make it there". Cheers Pip for backing me up on the Croat game. On any other day we would have won that confortably, within that 15 days of 2006.

Jesse i never knew you were a Bear.. mate as we say once a Bear aways a Bear.. The Central Coast BEARS will be up in the NRL before you know it....and it can't come soon enough for all us rugby league starved Bears supporters...

Millster you won't get any argument from me on that score (the world is a tough place, etc) - the WC is for the best of the best, it's a tough, tough stage - history tells us that. We are going to all be hoping to better our top 16 finish - but most of us who follow the game know that we are more likely to not get past the first round as we are to make the quarters - that definitely is the reality (just making it out of the group stage will depend on a stack of variables). There is one wildcard in all this - and we saw it with 2002 - with the game being played in a "non-traditional" environment, the possibility of a joker in the pack is quite high (similar to Sth Korea and Turkey surprisingly making the top 4 in 2002, of course that Turkish team was exceptional by any standard). By the same token, there are plenty of worthy nations who'd be looking to crash the party and who are well advanced of where Australia is at (you mention a few examples, but there are many others). We need only look at Japan's record in the WC (excl 2002), for a dose of reality. It's doubtful that the casual observer in Australia is ready for this sort of hard nosed reality.

Actually Millster I think with our best starting eleven that we are better than the Koreans and possibly just shade the Japanese..... the problem is we do not have the extraordinary depth the Japanese in particular possess. Hence the need to blood youngsters and have more players rotate through the Socceroos for as we saw against China there is something of a gap between our first and second string. The Triosis, Vidosics, Jones's, Jedinaks and Williams's of this world need to have the same understanding on the pitch that Valeri and to a lesser extent Djite have been afforded by virtue of game time.

Millster yes, as a general proposition, you are right in terms of where Australia is and where Croatia is - but in relation to that game specifically - Croatia scored two goals from three shots on goal for the whole 90 minutes - we more than matched it with them (except in the department of goal keeping)

Pip - you've described my fear exactly. In the last WC we made it through our group to be in the last 16 in the world. Irrespective of the fine detail, are we a 'top 16' team and should we make assumptions on that basis? No. That would be ridiculous. And my view with all the Pim / style / Carle stuff that started this whole thing is the same at the 'top 32' level. We aren't yet a top 32 team. No way. We're showing signs that we are nearing that mark, but its nowhere near a given for me. This is why I say over and over again that we need to just aim to show up to a series of 4-5 consecutive World Cups before we deserve to have any higher aspirations. Even within our own Confederation, I can see for myself what the FIFA rankings say but is anyone willing to step up and tell me that we're REALLY better than the Japanese or the Koreans or the Iranians? I'm sorry but for me we're just now in the process of proving that we belong in that group. We're not ahead of them. Of course this all sounds pessimistic and humble but in fact is not at all. Its awfully rare that any Australian team faces a truly competitive global environment outside of our comfort zone. So to do what I think we need to do in the next 12-16 years, which is to just consolidate ourselves as being 'worthy incumbents' within that top 32 group, is in fact as valuable if not more than seemingly greater success in most of the much smaller sports that we have traditionally played. And even from a global perspective... look at teams like Sweden, Nigeria, Mexico... teams that qualify more often than not, but for whom making it past the group stage is not so common. They are not at the pinnacle but on the other hand no-one can tell me that they don't command some respect and admiration... To me thats kind of where we need to get to as a medium term goal.

If you are putting your hand on your heart and mount a convincing case to say that we don't need a good measure of luck to match the Croats, then I will happily wear the shame because it means that the Socceroos are better than I think they are. Yes of course that match was shambolic on many counts. But fact remains that we had to come from behind twice against and opponent that you cannot possibly say is just Australia's equal. On ANY day we would be lucky to draw with the table-cloths (nice nickname there!).

Bear I'm sure Millster was trying to give us an objective look at history, free of exaggeration and hyperbole (and that's fair enough too, it's very easy for people to fall into the trap of thinking that we can repeat what we achieved just by turning up, but we know the WC isn't like that) - I think he just went a little bit too far on this occasion!! :)

Over two legs we deserved the draw. Give Bresh some credit... it's surely not the first miskick from Kewell that has led to a goal. Bresh was there, and he put it in the back of the net. Notice you are not defending your "lucky draw" quote. EVEN Pip thinks you have not given us the deserved credit against the tablecloths last WC. Millster, wear the shame!

Well, I think fluke is too strong a word (it's not Bresh's fault he was unmarked) - but you're right - if you watch a replay of the ET (and it's actually a great half hour of football in its own right), Uruguay created far and away the better chances. But with Croatia - mate, Dukes shouldn't have been back tracking a player all the way to our box, and what can we say about butter fingers Kalac?? - really, all in all, we had it all over them!!

The Bear - "Uruguay was not a fluke"... ok so first of all we lose in Montevideo. Then we equalise in Sydney only through the sheer luck of a terribly scuffed Kewell shot dribbling to the feet of an unmarked Bresch. Then we end up qualifying after an extra time period where from memory we should have lost except for a Uraguayan header woefully misdirected into the ground and then bouncing over the bar. Then when we get to penalties we rely on Schwartz to make saves because our captain and key striker Dukes misses his shot early in the piece. I was excited as the rest of them. But not a fluke? You have to be kidding.

Millster, so pessimistic. A lucky draw with Croatia???? We should have had at least two penalties on Dukes, and in fairness the final goal should have been creditted....and not mentioning the three yellow cards on sonafabich. Uruaguay was not a fluke either. Shame on you.

Ben - what I hope is that if we do get the point in Doha we will start implementing a chosen style and game-plan for the finals campaign, that is, start seasoning those players we are taking to Sth Africa and schooling them in our tactics for that competition. Once we qualify, everything has to focus on the way we want to play there. jub jub - I wish I could agree but my eyes have seen us be anything but convincing against Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Ghana, Singapore, Iraq, etc in recent times - plus clearly technically inferior to Japan irrespective of 'formal' ranking - so I just cannot concur. And if you look at the current list of nations 21 to 30 by FIFA ranking you have Israel, Ukraine, Serbia, Scotland, Mexico, Chile, Nth Ireland, Romania, Denmark, Nigeria. I would not be anywhere near confident of an Australia win, all other things being equal, against any of those countries - in fact as much as I love the Socceroos think it would be deluded flattery to suggest that we are even a roughly-equal peer to the majority of these nations.

whiskeymac, I am one merely of many limpets. Since my parent limpets never gave me a name (to be honest our method of reproduction is also a mystery never explained in limpet sex education at limpet school) I distinguish myself from the other limpets by the number of my post. For instance, this is the 38th comment, therefore I am Limpet 38. Simple. As a limpet who knows little of football matters, I would nevertheless offer my humble opinion that the Netherlands win in Holland by the Socceroos was in my aquatic opinion far better and worthy of note than the Nigerian friendly. Unless you are only interested in eye candy.

LMAO @ Millster.. I disagree that we're a 40-50 "ranked team".. Our current crop is in my opinion top 20-30 at the least.