Socceroos' 'generation next' aren’t far behind 'golden generation'

It is great an Australian coach has been selected. At least now our young players will get an opportunity, and we will play the Australian way- our own style of football (aggressive) and we will have the will to not give in and an Australian coach understand these qualities. Foreign coaches do not understand Australian football or the Australian identity. I think Australia will do well under the new coach.

Australia almost achieved the same result at the 2010 world cup but missed out on for and against so the 2010 team could have reached the second round as well. I think Australia will reach the second round at the world cup again. Also, what makes you think France will never have a team like in 1998 when the won the world cup. Well in 2006 France loss in penalty shootout in the final so things are possible.

I think your point has been deliberately omitted by certain posters trying to push their particular slant on reality. The omission of Cahill and Aloisi from the golden generation in the comparison is another way of slanting reality. The reality is that for most lesser teams a period can be identified where they had a team out of the ordinary. Our golden generation may never be repeated, neither may that of england in 66, france in 98, denmark in 96, bulgaria in 94, etc... but we can always hope.

"Golden Generation" - Like "Total Football" a mythical title thought up by some journalist or journalists who found it an easy way to describe something that needed more than a little investigation if it was to be fully understood.But today, familiarity breeds contempt & the question has to be asked,when did the "Golden Generation" come into actual existence?. Was it the 2006 World Cup?, the 2004 World Cup? or the 2000 World Cup? for that is a period of time stretched over 6 years & that is not quite what one would term a generartion. In his comment young Nathan has attempted to compare players by looking at who they played with in 2006,how often they had played with the country & then set up his findings with the same information about the present squad.Unfortunately Nathan that is not really a good way to assess players. Players have to be assessed in how they have mastered the basics of the game & how they apply that learning when they are playing in like company. This should be done on an individual assessment & an assessment of today's players does not really compare, not with the 20 guys in the 2006 squad, but with all the guys who played in Socceroo squads from 1990 onwards. The reason I isolate 1990 is that is around the time some of our players started to follow others overseas & surprise, surprise, found they were good enough to make their way into some of the top teams in Europe at that time.So were David Mitchell , Eddie Krencevic,Ned Zelic,Paul Okon & Mark Viduca part of the GG that existed in 2006 for they were playing with top teams in top leagues all over Europe between 1983 (Mitchell at Rangers) right through to 2001 when Viduca was scoring goals for Middleborough.????? That is an 18 year "generation" between 2 central attackers. I hope this clears Nathan's thoughts just a little for his attempt made an interesting insight into how some people perceive how players from different eras can be compared with any degree of certainty.. Cheers jb

Here's an interesting trivia fact: Harry Kewell made his full Socceroos debut BEFORE he mad a full first team debut for Leeds. So Fuss, you could have listed Kewell as "Leeds United Reserves." It was a masterstroke by the late great Eddie Thomson who saw how good this Kewell kid was going to be and realised he would be pressured to become an England international by his club due to his parentage, and so picked him in 1996 for a game against Colombia.

has any one looked at alex wilkinson, the bloke is carving it up in korea. 'In South Korean FA Cup Final, Alex Wilkinson played a full game in defence as Jeonbuk Motors suffered a heartbreaking penalty shootout loss to Pohang Steelers after the game finished 1-1 after 120 minutes. Wilkinson did provide the assist for his side’s only goal, setting up Ki-Hee Kim in the first half.' http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/285528,aussies-abroad-weekend-wrap.aspx

I can't believe I left out Tommy Oar.

Admittedly that was in a time when it was a lot less cmmon for players to go abroad and that was th case across the world. If you go to Wikipedia and look at thesquads for the 1982 and 1986 wrld cups you will see that for a few exceptions, the squads were made up of players playing in the domestic league of the country they were repesenting. Obvously a lot of the Scots nationa team played in England and pretyy much the enire Northern Ireland team played outside of Ireland, and a few of the South American teams had players playing elsewhere in Latin America. But even the national teams of Brazil and Argentina had the majority of their players playing South America rather than Europe. Of course one could argue that this meant there was a lot less competiton for first team players in the European leagues than there is now,which is even more damning of the idea that the NSL was better than the A league. But I am of the view that at the time it wasn't the common thing for players to leavetheir home country unless they were players of the ilk of Matheus, Maradona, Francescoli Platini and Boniek. For that reason i don't think it is realistic to compare the competitions as far as producin players. They existed in diferent times and circumstances. As far as I know these are he players to have progressed from th A league to play reguar frst team football in top flight European competitions or the English and German 2d divisions consecutively for a season or mre. Carle, Jedinak, Vidosic, Kruse, Leckie, Rukavytsa, Djite and Holland. Bozanic and Ryan look likely to break into this club by the end of this season. And Sarota would've being in this club had it not being for his knee injury.

Agree. It might look like small margins on paper but that translates to either burying the ball into the back of the net or missing altogether. Had to chuckle Grella v Jedinak. The Jedi is a strong lad built for the EPL but fookenhell is he a lousy player honestly. Kewell v Oar, Viduka v Ruka, Bresc v Rogic, surely there is no comparison - I'd have Harry, Mark and Marco in a heartbeat.

Thanks Evan. So, after 8 years, the NSL had 3 players in Europe. After 8 years, HAL has had: Ryan, Bozanic, Leckie, Rukavystya, Oar, Zullo, Holland, Sarota, Kruse, Langerak .. probably missed a few.

Patikas, Krencvic and Mitchell at that stage were the only guys playing regularly in Europe. Farina, Slater, Bozinovski, Arnold and Katzlantsis would go onto have decent to excelent careers in Europe but were still playing NSL in 1985.

Vinnie my comments about trolls did not include you. I hear what you are saying & would not disagree with what you are saying.There are some truths. The issue is however, the world is changing, Australia is also changing, however, not fast enough to keep up. I agree with you in regards to the Les schenflug or Raul Blanco etc, in our haste to change to new football we left alot of good guys from old soccer behind. We are still producing good players, Kruse, Oar, Amini, Ryan, Landerak via the A-League. The likes of Kewell, Viduka, Moore, Cahill & Grellas didn't have to compete with the large amounts of Africans, Sth Americans & Eastern Europeans now plying their trade in the top western Leagues, they had some but not in the abundance as now. Even the English players are pushed aside now apart from the very best. This is Asia's century, we have seen the improvement in the last 10 years of some of these lesser Asian teams, some of them do have some skills, especially in their youth teams & our physical presence no longer fears them. Our youth teams are struggling as they are trying to play a style of football that is not just the biggest & fastest. look at our 1999 youth team that lost to Brazil in the final, not many actually made a career out of football. There was a gap between NSL & A-League where the Milligan era, few players actually faded away Patafta & Sarkies (both in 2006 train on/ development squad) who were suppose to succeed the golden generation. There is still a gap in our National youth league, only a couple of A-League sides, have youth teams. The A-League & it's development took precedence. Results were more important than development. Slowly this is changing.

hey Punter, a troll is someone who is an AFL/NRL/RU supporter and dislikes soccer and wants to stir up the people on these threads, i am neither of the 3, if i agreed with what all of you had to say i would be also living in football fairy land with you guys, there were so many warning signs through the recent youth olympic teams and everyone ignored or polished them off as just a minor glitch and its now infected the socceroos, temporarily maybe but with our poor youth performances, too many imports, not enough aleague teams, the socceroos are going to suffer for a very long time.

@vinnie The NSL started in 1977. The HAL started in 2005. So, tell me .. in 1985, how many players from the NSL were playing in Europe?

the kids are training more than the 90's and 00's, its what they are being trained, its passing drill after passing drill after passing drill after ..im tired of saying passing drill, we forgot the good old days where it was every player for themselves and it was more about individual skill at youth level then being brought into a football system much later on. someone like Les schenflug or Raul blanco should have wrote the ciriculum, not this million dollar a year muppet called hans berger.

nthing against the a-league punter, he nsl was doomed due to the ethnicity of clubs, the aleague just hasnt produced the players, youth, olympic, senior

fadida Would not be adverse to that myself,add Belgium to that too.

Agree 100 percent also. I believe Mark Viduka's dad used to spend hours playing with his son. It wasn't any magical skills camp that taught him how to play, it was just hours with dad in the yard. It angers me all these 4 wheel driving parents who buy their McMansions and shove their kid's off to some school subsidised by the tax payer want the tax payer to bail them out at every turn. They get their frigging cars novated lease, they rort money to get their home loans, then the icing is they want their kids in private schools where they can be baby sitted and the good old tax payer has to also stump up for the bludgers there too. And people wonder why we have a budget deficit!? If you want kids, stop robbing the workers to pay for it!

Fuss you really need to stop biting!!!! These trolls ain't worth it.

Vinnie, I think you could do with a little researching yourself!!!!! If the NSL was that good, it would still be around now!!!