Socceroos squad weaker than it should be

Oh, England would, and being English, If Capello selected a team solely from the Championship, I would be incredulous.

Dickroo No the article said we sack him if we lost or drew..we won he stays:) Football is a simple game. Mintox: Have you lived in England?...wouldn't matter who they put out, if the team didn't win or qualify...queue national inquiry, queue media frenzy queue fan outrage......fast forward sacking. Works every time.

His crossing is normaly pretty good. He certainly showed Sterjovski up.

now we know what the Indonesians are like....Love the Fox comments "Galekovic could have an cigar..." should we sack Pim now because the only goal was too ugly?

Australia won pretty comfortably and we qualified to the Asia cup against a pretty unmotivated Indonesian side. Controlled the game in the second half. Too bad we couldn't get the second goal. Oar looks pretty awesome. If he can just improve his crossing and get the final ball there, he will be a superstar.

Would England sack Capello if they were the second team to qualify for the World Cup but failed to qualify for the Euro's with a team selected solely from the Championship? I think not!

The A-League is completed by the end of March. There is no reason why the national coach cannot pick the best 20-25 players from the season and have a 2-4 week camp in April. This could happen every year. Players involved in the ACL might have to be exempt due to club commitments (there maybe exemptions for players trialling overseas as well). These sort of camps would ensure that best local talent are well prepared for when they have to make the step-up. This camp should supplement the week long camps used in the lead up to internationals.

Dasilva I don't think because it worked once that suddenly throwing a team together is the way to do things. It is cutting corners and taking unnecessary risks, we might get some decent results with it but if you keep playing Russian roulette by skimping on preparation eventually it will get messy.

Andyroo You miss the following line "However Graham Arnold took an A-league team in a Asian Cup qualifier in 2007 and defeated Kuwait at home with similar limited preparation time."

its called being an international coach... its his job... thus not an excuse at all...

Pim Verbeek only has one excuse, that he wasn’t allowed access to have regular training sessions with the A-league player for them to gel as a team unlike the A-league clubs in the ACL campaign and other Asian Cup teams. It might only be one excuse but it's a pretty good one. It's unfair to expect a coach to turn the A league team into world baters in 2 to 7 days. He then doesn't seem them again for 3 months and doesn't even get the benefit of a warm up friendly before an important game.

Putting the blame in the A-league players saying they are not good enough is full of rubbish. I can understand if we were playing against Japan, Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The powerhouse of Asia but not Kuwait or Indonesia. Remember this, Vidmar coached Adelaide United to beat Korean, Chinese and Japanese clubs to reach the finals of ACL. He also coached Adelaide United to beat the reigning champions of Asia. Jets and Sydney FC were also pretty competitive in Asia as well. Tell me how many Indonesian and Kuwaiti clubs succeed in Asia and got anywhere near the knock out stages of the ACL. Of course the foreign players in the A-league clubs have helped us success but if you take the best players in the entire A-league, we should beat Indonesia and Kuwait any time. The A-league is rubbish camp to deflect blame from Pim Verbeek in his performance with the a-league team has nothing to stand on. Losing to Kuwait at home and heaven forbid if we lose to Indonesia at home would be an absolute disgrace and reflect poor coaching. Pim Verbeek only has one excuse, that he wasn't allowed access to have regular training sessions with the A-league player for them to gel as a team unlike the A-league clubs in the ACL campaign and other Asian Cup teams. However Graham Arnold took an A-league team in a Asian Cup qualifier in 2007 and defeated Kuwait at home with similar limited preparation time. Losing to Indonesia at home and failing to qualify in an ideal world (if there's a coach to replace him) should be a sackable performance.

actually it's in the FIFA calendar the same way that the Africa Cup of Nations is. Hence the clubs will need to release players however won't be happy about it at all as they will be mid-season and playing. As a result few of the more senior players will play though the up and comings who aren't regular starters for their clubs (Troisi, Djite, Rukavysta et al) will be sorely tempted. Normally the Asian Cup is played in June at the end of the European season however it has been changed for 2011 to January as it is too hot in Qatar in June for football.

I'll tell you where Iraq are, they were knocked out of the Group stage along with China because of Australia! haha Australia, Iraq, China, Qatar, in 1st group stage, that was a group of death! luckily for us Qatar liked giving up against us but beating the others. We only just scraped through. ............ W D L Pts Australia 3 1 2 10 Qatar---- 3 1 2 10 Iraq------- 2 1 3 7 China---- 1 3 2 6 keep in mind that in the final round, all team's were playing each other and had 6 pointer consequence results (Australia was safe in last round however) And it's unfair to judge the meaning of the Asian Cup by using Iraq (if that's what you were suggesting), they are an unstable team in an unstable country but have alot of talent and hunger!

Good Article, I agree with most it. For Australia to not Qualify for the Asian Cup would be massive failure, worthy of a sacking, the only problem is that the World Cup is so close. Pim has got us results with the European Socceroo's, but has failed with the A-League players. You can put all the blame on the A-League players 'not being good enough' but they main thing is that they havn't gelled together as a team, not properly understanding their roles, something that ALL international coaches should be capable of fixing. One major issue with both European and Local Soceroo's is how slowly they move the ball, there is no sense of urgency and give passes that their teammates didn't see coming , this allows the opposition defenders to get into position. The Long ball is widely criticized but it does work, however you need to have more than just 1 tactic, having more versatility in how the team plays can get the opposition in a tangle. I'd also love to see the A-League players being mixed with Fringe Euro players more often, e.g against Kuwait, Wilkshire, Vidisic and a few others, were brilliant and a class above to lift the team against Kuwait, some poor defensive error's from Colosimo and Kemp combined with amateur keeping however cancelled that out. In summary, we must NOT lose this match and Pim hasn't done a great job so far. His been good in getting us to the world cup, but that's it.

if we're going to constantly be trotting out the asia/a-league team for non fifa dates perhaps, in non-world cup years, we should run a tournament of Australia v A-league Australia - stealing an idea from cricket of Australia-A? the players who peform well for Australia A can push for selection in the fully fledged version

true Dickroo, though the Asian Cup is an important piece of silverware in its own right. Sadly for reasons of temperature the Asian Cup is in January which is too close to the World Cup for my liking.

The article makes a few good points but I don't agree with its sentiment. Yes, there should be more camps organised for local-based players especially when you consider the A-League only has 27 regular season rounds. Pim and FFA should be doing more the raise the standard of our local players. However, despite the pragmatic (even defensive) football Pim has served up, you cannot deny that the he qualified us for the World Cup pretty easily. And, you can't just say the opposition wasn't that good. We had to play in the altitude of China, freezing winter of Japan and the searing heat of the middle east. And, our European-based players have to fly halfway around the world to play these games. Peru and Bolivia might not be the greatest teams in South America, but Brazil and Argentina still struggle to beat them on their home patch because of the altitude and travel time. Pim's man management and preparation has been impeccable (just ask the players). Furthermore, you don't sack a coach unless you have someone better to replace him. Who could we get to replace Pim 3 months out from the World Cup that is better than him?

Most big Asian nations will have a different-looking squad for Asian Cup Qualifiers. "Do you think Japanese, Chinese or Korean fans can name their national teams without their overseas based players. I bet they can!" Not very often. As for how many of the players from those nations play overseas; sure, there are quite a few, but there aren't many that actually play for their national teams. I can think of... two regulars for Japan, maybe three of real note for China. Korea is the only one that has a reasonable amount of overseas regulars. Australia has an ENTIRE first team squad playing overseas, and then some. We don't share the same luxuries as these other Asian nations. Not only this, but the players we have who are capable of earning a regular spot will jump at the chance of playing overseas, and many have since faded into obscurity. Doesn't help our chances of finding A-League players worthy of consistent callups to an Asian-based squad. We thus have to rely on form, and hope it carries over to International Level. Also, a correction on one of your earlier comments, Eamonn; Shunsuke Nakamura no longer plays in Europe. He just moved back to Japan.

Eamonn: We will build a competitive team for the next World Cup qualification campaign by: - 1. having players play regularly in European elite clubs day in and day out. 2. having a much stronger A-League. Not through an Asia Cup. Iraq is the Champion of 2007 Asia Cup, but where are they now? A tournament 3.5 year prior to the next World Cup won't give you a competitive team, simple as that. But still a good chance to get the next group of players to taste international football. I'm not saying we shouldn't play Asia Cup. I would like to see the best young A-Leaguers have as many regular camps, tournaments as Asia Cup, Federation Cups, ANZAC, Trans-Tasman, Pan-Pacific and international friendlies as possible before the World Cup campaign. But it is not realistic for now.