Socceroos defeat Palestine 3-0, Sainsbury suspended

Promised Land?

Regardless of what happens in this tournament, I am glad Ikonomidis, Mabil and Mclaren got to play and prove their worth. Sure Palestine wasn't a strong team but playing against Arab teams anywhere in Asia is always tricky. These 3 players have the potential to combine in ways we have not seen before, and I hope we see it happen. For too long now we've been predictable up front. Those 3 goals were a breath of fresh air. The other good news is that we will have Arzani, Boyle and Leckie to add to future campaigns.

Good grief, Rick, I really do suggest you hold back on the Back-of-a- Wheatbix pack analysis of Japanese culture and, by corollary, their football.

Bangladesh was pretty weak, but agree with sentiment, you'd back a socceroos team made up entirely of A-League players to win that one, by the same margin too.

Agree Mahler, I too would not describe it as a tap in, plenty can go wrong in the identical circumstances.

After being away from this site for a while the edit function is still useless, along with the entire interface.

Embarrassing group this. It really is. Football, by its very mechanics, allows minnow teams to compete with the very best in one-off games, i.e. tournaments such as this. Australia, by all accounts, is one of the very best teams in this tournament — on paper at least, by ranking and are the current reigning champs. Let’s make no mistake though: if Australia played Jordan 100 times; Australia probably wins 40 of those encounters, draws 40 and loses 20 on neutral turf. Equally, Australia probably defeats Palestine and Syria to a greater extent all things being equal. This result, statistically, is to be expected and nothing to get excited about moving forward in the group stages. Where I disagree with others, along with our style and ethos of play, is in our attacking third of the field-of-play. We certainly looked more dangerous up front, but the quality of the opposing defence allowed this. Sure, Australia can only defeat what is in front of them, but I’d like to see a more dynamic approach to our game style — one that allows for fluctuations within games where we can sit back, absorb and attack coupled with tiki-taka football when required. Ange, in all his glory, wanted to play a more possession-based game — something his successor is still trying to achieve but it’s an outdated model by about 5 years. We saw this in the 2018 World Cup Finals, where teams that managed 60-70+ percent possession, did not make it out of the group stages. The Champs —France— did not. They relied heavily on counter-attacking football, due to their wonderful offensive capacity in their attacking third. Australia needs to be capable of this hybrid game style and not just play to its strengths full-time, nor persist with an outdated model. Sometimes defence is best and adapting to what your opposition is doing — the Japanese learned this the hard way at the Battle of Midway, and to this date, is still one of their main weaknesses due to their very proud samurai culture; consequently, their footballing ethos is also fundamentally flawed. It’s easy to say that if we combine solid tactical possession gameplay through the midfield with dangerous attacking forward play then everything will be fine. Great, I’d suggest every team strives for this, but even then, I don’t believe this would always work — especially in knockout football unless one considers what the opposition is doing, i.e. countering counter-attacking football, should a team deploy this tactic, which Australia has been very susceptible to. Australia is not an innovator in world football. We just aren’t. Look at what the best do, and at the very least, figure out what parts of their success can be implemented into our game strategy.

Australia scored all three goals with balls crossed into the area, that should have been the basic tactic against Jordan, Even in this match they didn;t resort to it often enough. The second choice is have the wingers and fullbacks combine out wide, they did that more in this match and got a lot of their best moments against Jordan. Arnold restricted Grant against Jodan from getting forward. What they shouldn't be trying is to play their way through the center of the park against crowded defences and getting hit on the counter. Arnolds Sydney FC last season had Merjevski, Ninkovic, Brosque and Bobo which made it possible to play one touch through the center of the park. Palestine are the weakest in the group, so question why play Rogic under a cloud.

Western Samoa? They are known as Samoa even before we last played them, and were called western before that because American Samoa lies to the east . Samoa were stonger than Tonga and American Samoa was the one that lost 31-0. Tajikstan and Bangladesh ring any bells? Palestine are the weakest in the group but a lot better than those teams.

Well I enjoyed it. Thought we could have had two more, at least, and Palestine never looked like scoring after MacLaren's header.

This is definitely the best team Arnold can put on the park at the moment, though I would prefer Giannou to McClaren any day of the week. Syria will be interesting - a much sterner test, with pressure to capture at least a point.

Can't remember an opponent this weak since Western Samoa. This should have been a cricket score.

Mabil and Ikonomidis are making some terrific runs , giving the team some energy. Ikonomidis precision crossing for the goals was a joy to watch . As was rogic beautiful diagonal cross fir the first Notice that Irvine was an obvious target in the air . Is this diagonal crossing the way the Aussies plan to beat Korea japan or Iran later in the tournament. ?

Agree. It was a very good finish. The kids doing well.

In tournaments, only results matter. Play like superstars & lose and counts for nothing. Play like relative hacks and win 7 times and you can end up Champions of Europe, as did Portugal in 2016. Don't think Maty Ryan had to make a save last night, which means our midfield & defence offered him the structure to shield him from harm. My only gripe is that we didn't get the ball into meaningful areas in the box often enough. Last night we had attackers who looked in the mood to put the ball away, but our build up wasn't great. In recent years we've created lots of chances in games, but struggled to put them away (think Thailand WCQ in Melbourne). If we can merge the two - create lots of chances & finish with precision like last night.. we'll have finally reached The Promised Land.

You have a different interpretation of 'tap' to me...Mabil's goal was hardly a tap in. It required a perfectly timed run and the skill to hit the ball on the volley at an angle. Hardly a tap in. Mabil was one of the best players in the game. I'm surprised he doesn't get a serious mention in the above report.

Agree with you on the Jurman comment. Like for like - don’t upset the balance too much and leave Milligan where he is so you don’t have to replace another position (if not another player). I really like what I’m seeing in Awer Mabil. He’s quite creative but also showing confidence and composure in front of goal which so many good attacking players lack. His finish last night was a beauty. Pretty sure I heard Fraser Anning jumping for joy LOL. I also like what I’m seeing in Rhyan Grant - though his test will come when we play opposition on the next tier. Ikonomidis as others have noted is proving to be a very promising player and should be continued. Interesting that all of the above players are new. Clearly the new blood has helped. Good to see - especially when you consider we haven’t seen leckie or Nabbout yet let alone the injured mooy Boyle and Arzani.

You have to wonder how a first goal against Jordan would have been. Jordan are definitely the form team of the group and Palestine now look to go for the win in their last game against them. The first goal opened up the field as Palestine needed a result and allowed a bit more room in attack. Ikonomidis needs to start in place of Kruse but I hope he pulls up okay as he had a couple of tense moments in the injury front. Imagine Ikonomidis in this form, Arzani similar on the opposite side. Boyle potentially in the middle. Perhaps Nabbout forward who is also attack minded, has technique to trouble defences, and a real sense of goal. For Syria though, who also have incentive to win their final match, I’d have Jurman come in for Sainsbury and keep Milligan in his current role. Also have Luongo in Rogić’s role rather than Irvine who should start as he did just behind. I’d also give Giannou game time ahead of Maclaren. Given the form of the teams in our group we should win our Syria match.

Kruse will struggle to get back into the starting 11

Don't believe the hype ! This was a pretty "underdone" socceroos ( i hate that name ). We scraped in. A shame we've been hit with casualties. That's football. If we are to get out of this group and move on.....a lot has to change.