How I stopped worrying and learnt to love the Socceroos

No problem Joe but I think we are talking abut 2 different political arenas. Just remember what I said when it is time for .F Lowy to leave us. Cheers jb

I actually don't mind James Joyce and in a way, I think throwing dead batteries at cows could be quite fun.

Bielsa for a few reasons, firstly the WC is in South America and having a South American coach gives us an opportunity to directly absorb what will be good about playing in that tournament with a helpful coaching interpreter (that is Bielsa himself interpreting the football for us). Secondly he understands and performs at a high level in those areas where we are deficient. Thirdly he's a disruptive element (in a good way) that we can use to accelerate the changes needed. The forth one is personal, I love watching his teams play:) Hiddinck has too much to lose to take the job again

Just to make sense of the post about Belgium & link,I sent a much longer post connected to this one,which is being moderated.

Here's the second one about Belgium. http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/features/3834/why-belgium-has-the-most-exciting-footballers-in-the-world/

All these articles about the Socceroos,but where are we really at with our football? A new coach is a short term fix to the overall problems facing the game in Australia. That problem being that the Football World treadmill never stands still & we are on that treadmill. We fell off the thing against Brazil the other day,question is where to get back on. Read two article's recently one very pessimistic about England by Alan Hansen(ex Liverpool player) & one titled "Why Belgium is the hottest country in football". There's plenty in them to get your teeth into ,but a few lines stood out for me. First from Hansen:- "The greatest reality check English football can give itself is to recognise that culturally - even during more successful periods - this country has never produced the same quantity of talent as Brazil, Argentina and Germany. It is becoming even more difficult to do so. There is nothing can be done in the near future to change that, so expectations should be fixed accordingly. "What I hope coaches and scouts will get away from when watching schoolchildren is this misplaced belief that bigger and stronger is better. If you are watching a team of nine-year-olds, the one who has matured the quickest physically is always likely to shine, but it doesn’t mean he’ll be the most technically gifted or the best player at the age of 18. I do not envy the challenge facing Dyke, or anyone at the FA as they seek to halt a trend which to a large extent is beyond any football organisation’s control." What these lines indicate to me is that English players are not comfortable on the ball in the same way that Brazil/Argentina/Germany are & because historically we've looked for the the wrong football charicteristics in our young players that wrong football culture is too entrenched for any drastic change to happen. Relatng that to Australia I'll slightly adjust it:- "What these lines indicate to me is thatAustralian players are not comfortable on the ball in the same way that Brazil/Argentina/Germany are & because they haven't yet worked out the football charicteristics in our young players that provide success on the world stage. Now to the Belgium article quotes:- "One thing is we have played together for a long time,” he says, eventually. “A lot of us went to the Olympics in Beijing, stayed together in the village, when we were 18, 19, 20, 21, so we got to know each other very well, and we had a good tournament [finishing fourth, losing semi-finalists behind the Argentina of Messi and Agüero]. So that was maybe the start of it. But I guess also it is luck that this has happened.” Luck always an element involved in anything ,but I firmly believe that playing together regularly over a long period is a benefit to any national team. "“There was always a lot of quality, a very talented group from a young age,” Mirallas says." So is identifyng talent at the earliest International age group (ie Joeys)important? Seems to me that even a succesful group like in what was it 1999, who reached the final against Brazil in NZ, virtually disappeared of the professional football radar after that. Next bits a bit long ,but I felt I had to do that to make sense. "At the turn of the millennium, Belgian football was in something of a crisis, the teams that had been a byword for a certain indefatigable grace in the Eighties, led by Enzo Scifo and Franky Vercauteren, which came within spitting distance of reaching the World Cup final in 1986, were long gone." It was at around that point that Michel Sablon, the national technical director of the Belgian FA, decided a blueprint, a 10-year plan, was needed for the emerging generation. In 2001, we established a new vision to develop young players in Belgium,” Sablon says. This vision involved among other things giving all the clubs “a brochure which detailed how to best manage player development”. Sablon believes 95 per cent of the clubs followed these instructions. In addition, at every national age group, those teams in which Mirallas and Dembélé and the rest began to appear, it was decided that all teams would play football the same way — at every level from schools upward — a high-tempo and flexible 4–3–3 system. Each player would have a clear understanding of his place in that system from the earliest age. For the success of that policy, Sablon argues, you only have to look at the current national team. “In the past, we had four or five good players who could be competitive against the top nations, now that figure has more than doubled,” he says. For a nation of just 11 million people to suddenly produce such a depth of talent, the coaching system has to be doing something right, but since great teams are never made only of brochures and systems, there seems to have been some other shaping force to this group of players. "One way of looking at that Belgian style — as Fellaini says, “We are quite technically strong, but also there is a lot of strength and power in the team" So the question I ask is the National Curriculum set up in such a way that it will mirror the quality of players that Belgium is now producing? I notice that technical director provided Belgian clubs with a brochure on how to manage player development. Are we doing the same? Anyway here's the Hansen article in full I'll put the Belgium one as a stand alone next to get it through. http://m.smh.com.au/sport/football/this-is-as-good-as-it-is-going-to-get-for-england-20130909-2tglb.html

I think Joe was simply making a case that whatever your political hue, the election is over and we have a result. Reality bites HARD! As a Labor voter, former Ministerial adviser and lifetime party member I, as much as anyone, have good reason to be deeply disappointed about the result and the emergent policy risks. However, there is one thing that shits me more than losing an election to the Tories - it is 'so called' lefties threatening (hollowly as it turns out) to abandon the battlefield for the Airport in a self-indulgent, middle class hissy fit because they didn’t get their way. These individuals were rightly the target of Joe's humour. What they should do is double-down for the next policy fight and the next election. Imagine if after the disappointment of the World Cup Bid failure if football fans decided that they were going to move to the US and follow gridiron? Keep writing about politics Joe, if, within a sporting context it brings a timely, metaphorical dimension to your work.

Joe - As one who has watched your offerings grow in content & debate, a little word of warning, stay out of the political field on a sports site for if you were a little older & more experienced, you would have learned that "politics" of a slightly different "mode" were behind the ultimate demise of the NSL, which, if it had been run properly & along the lines of good businesses, would have put us 30 years further down the track in the development of our sport. That is 30 years lost. To the knowledgable observer these last 9 years have seen that potential problem area completely obliterated at the management level of our code. Message - Joe,leave politics out of these discussion columns & we may yet succeed. Your mate jb

"Whiney lefties " huh Mr Gorman ? You'll be one of the whining millions when you will wake up to the fact that Australia has been robbed of free fibre-optic broadband in favour of a copper -wire murdoch monopoly , when Abbott wipes penalty rates , screws the life out of our natural heritage and showcases Australia as an international embarrassment -but apart from that I think we can do a lot better than that performance and so do the FFA -Holger and the team might be putting on a brave face but there's no washing away that kind of result

Yes for Bielsa, not simply just to coach, but the challenge of a role to bring the game forward at a national level for years to come. Appointing Hiddink is looking at our past to fix our present, but is ignoring our future. Kind of what Osieck is doing now, just not in the same class.

I used to think it was a but rude on Chipperfield's part to be so dismissive to Mario Zaggalo. But I've changed my opinion. What is rude is seeing ROberto Carlos using a Brazillian legend such as Zaggalo as his delivery boy. If I has bieng in Chipperfields position (and thank god for Australian football I wasn't) I would have knocked the shirt back but gotten Zaggalo's autograph.

I too second Dog's comments. I had never come across any of these videos but enjoyed them all, well except for Zad's. Once I heard Bieber I just had to stop!

I think that we should take a strategic decision to team build for the asian Cup, replace Holger with a tactician and organiser like the currently unemployed Bielsa, and give him a long term contract and vision to aim for.

Thanks for that, Dr. Strangelove. ;-)

Joe I too am a good chance of going to Brazil if I can navigate my way around exorbitant hotel prices.Was also at the Allianz that day and must admit got a little caught up in the pre match activities and was a little tipsy by kick off,i will be getting absolutely sh!tfaced before kick off in Brazil next year watching this lot if there isn't a huge turnaround in form. As for Zadkovich,im sure they all go in at training.

+1 And +1 to the article Joe. Best I've read for awhile. Thank you also for introducing me to Jay FC