Young Socceroos deserve our congratulations

Cheers Fussball, great viewing

Errr.....Mark Viduka was a pretty good young striker once upon a time???

Jimbo In I think two of the games Amini was voted our best on park and in the two lead up games was outstanding... he was heavily marked in the final ... he will improve... this game was a great learning experience ... but as I said earlier ... Oar, Leckie, Bulut & Kantarovski should all go to Qatar on that display .... with Amini & Antonis to train on squads .... Just a wild rumor nothing more but when the Mariners signed Perez it was said to help develop Amini .... GA almost admitted to it in an interview some time back... Amini is still little and looking at him you get the feeling he has not reached anywhere his HMMMMM not sure how to say it ... but he is still a boy in many ways and the natural strength you get as you mature has a bit of a way to go ... my Uncle would have said a slow developer ...

The young Socceroos and everyone associated with the rise of this team should be congratulated. I thoroughly enjoyed the game especially the first half, even though the ending was very cruel. But that's football, its a theatre of dreams or a night of drama that breaks your heart. After giving Amini such a wrap, he goes and misses a chance to be a national hero. But these guys are only 16 and 17 or 18, they must have been exhausted after playing 6 tough matches in the wet in 14 days. The North Koreans seemed a bit fitter at the end - they drank more turtle blood than we did. :)

I think all those great players were very professional and discipline on the field and in training. However their faults lies in their discipline in dealing with real life scenario such as various vices of woman, drugs and alcohol. They may also have problems of letting their competitive passion that helped them progressed this far to go uncheck causing brain explosion on the pitch such as getting red card for violent conduct (Zidane, Cantona) etc. However they are all professionals footballers and they all treat their game and maintenance of their standards very seriously. You can't go far in the game without work ethics or discipline.

yes, there are - but for every one of those there are 100 no-names that you will never know about - they were weeded out long ago.

I disagree with that. There are a range of qualities that can be broadly categorised under the mental aspects of a game. Within those range of qualities, some will often talk about mental tougness, that you might attribute to the will to win, but I would submit that it is even broader than that. For instance, mental toughness will often come into it off the field, e.g. on the training track, the ability to work harder to keep improving, or to overcome injury, or even the ability to keep playing reserves for two or three years until you get your chance - that can be actually be the biggest test of mental toughness. In all these aspects, there is an element of discipline at play. I believe that you might be using the term ill-discipline far too narrowly.

When we talk about the developing the "mental side/psychological factors" we are referring to the will to win - it has ZERO to do with "ill-discipline"!! Some of the most gifted footballers (and elite sportsmen in other fields) have been the biggest risk takers, been ill-disciplined on and off the park and made poor life choices. This list of ill-disciplined footballers (some showed poor discipline on the park, some poor off the park, some both on and off the park) - just rattled off from memory and heavily featuring English players since I grew up following the English game - contains some of the best footballers of modern times: Garrincha (who some rank even higher than Pele), Maradona, Jimmy Greaves, Georgie Best, Eric Cantona, Paul Gascoigne, Stan Collymore, Stefan Effenberg, Paul Merson, Mark Bosnich, Tony Adams, Bryan Robson, Paul McGrath, Roy Keane, Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Ashley Cole ... It's the will to win/succeed that trainers are looking for when they try to develop "the mental side" of a footballer (or any athlete).

One thing I'll say about Bulut - he is very, very difficult to categorise alongside the great youth frontmen of the past 30 years, i.e. he has more than one string to his bow in front of goal and he doesn't fit the exact same body shape of others we've had (or maybe I'm being decieved by his hairstyle).

I agree on both Kaz and Timmy - they both tell the story rather nicely.

Kerem Bulut is our most exciting young striker since David Seeeeaaaaaal!

I am thinking this was a big learning curve for him, and a key one for his future.

During the live blog, I wrote this around the 50th minute: The North Koreans are tag-teaming Oar – this means we have to be a bit smarter, get Warren overlapping, or switch it quickly to Leckie, or have one of the mids come in to look for the one-two. I can't remember a single instance when Amini got close enough to Oar to offer support, except one time when Oar cut in and set up Amini for a shot (which was pretty good all round) - but that was Oar doing the work - not Amini. So this becomes a crucial question: do blokes like Amini and Antonis have the engine to do what I was suggesting? Or more importantly, do they have the smarts and will power to see how the game has changed (as it had) and do something about it? They are currently too young for those questions to be fully answered, it may take four or five years for those questions to be answered.

U19's went exceptionally well, Joeys are looking good, Newcastle has a dynamic owner, Adelaide and Welly breaking records, the Melbourne derby a success, Fury playing with utter enthusiasm........ my what a change from the doom and gloom of a few weeks ago :)

Jiggles I think most technique training is fun. It basically equates to just let them use the ball as much as possible which is why we have small sided games and such so that each kid gets a lot more touches during the game. At the most basic level instead of just running laps arround the field now you run laps around the field with a ball at your feet :) However there is a great article about Ajax from one of the American newspapers. It is a global game so to get to the top does require a lot of practice and it's not all fits and giggles. It might be over the line of what some consider healthy for children. To make it at somewhere like Ajax involves playing and training a lot. edit: found it. The comments are interesting in that a lot of American's have your rection Jiggles (about the exploiting of children) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Soccer-t.html

As I mentioned before, only 2 or 3 have to make it out of each crop of youngsters for us to have the talent we need to assemble strong national teams. The key is for the level of talent to keep coming. If every year we produce another Chipperfield and another Wilkshire and once every few years a Kewell comes along we will be doing very well indeed.

Yes, Jiggles I, too, love listening to people like Wenger and I've listened that interview many times and seem to gain a new insight on each occasion. When, we talk about teaching technique in football - it's all about fun and it's all done with a ball. Controlling the ball is the core competency for any footballer and the trainer will focus his/her attention on teaching the kids how to correctly work with the ball - trapping (with inside/outside of each foot, with the chest, the thigh, .. not the hand unless you're at the French Academy ;-) ), passing the ball with either feet, shielding the ball, dribbling, heading, juggling the ball, etc. In my opinion, at these young ages - right up to 10-12 - the most important thing is to get kids playing football without being yelled at to win. They must be able to express themselves and implement all the techniques they've been taught. I reckon the manner in which football technique is taught should be no different to teaching kids to play a musical intrument - they must be given the instrument (ball) and then be given drills and exercises to help them correctly use the instrument. If bad habits/bad technique is allowed to go unchecked at a young age it will be difficult (some say it's impossible) to rectify at an older age.

+1.

I agree with what most have said about the team’s performance over the whole tournament. Great result with many young prospects putting their hands up. Out technical level is improving before our eyes, still not quite up to the level of most of the other big Asian nations but we are closing the gap fast. The only disappointing thing for me was the lack of involvement form Amini in all the games based on our system. We did play a lot of quick balls into the corners for Leckie and Oar which would restrict Amini’s involvement in the attack. He should be the dominate figure for us going forward. But as others have said, he is young and will be ready for the next one. I really hope that he and Antonis can forge a great partnership in the attacking middle for the NT in the years to come.

Kaz is still one of the most technical player we have produced, but unfortunately for Kaz he didn't have the other ayttributes to make a top line footballer. Look at Timmy Cahill not really our most techical player but now our highest profile. I'm very excited on the future of Australian football & happy to have my taxpayer money help these young guys come along.