Enough with the Socceroos niceties. Cop that, Peru!

Late reply but anyway ill have my say, I watched the Peru media mock us and jump around like Kangaroos laughing, so fk em! They were the team we were never meant to beat. On YouTube a lot of bloggers said Peru were poor and Australia got lucky, i think Australia were good and made Peru look poor and as for luck well the Socceroo's are pretty much the play off kings. So even after the win the overseas jurnos and youtubers have written of the Socceroo's and given them no credit at all.

Great piece Stu, This is something that has been front of mind lately especially with the U23s. Those lads in my opinion were fearless, especially when you consider two very dodgy send offs, but they still won with 10 men. The trouble is a lot of the Middle Eastern teams try to turn it around by spending more time relaxing on the grass than playing football. (There are so many questions I have in that regard, but I will save those for later) It is true though that our character and our mentality are one of our assets. What we have to do better is to use it to our advantage, but at the same time achieve a balance to ensure it doesnt become a liablity as it was in the U23s tournament. I have to question what the scenario will be in November. Our lads will be going into an environment that is basically a second home. Ok, France are going to be a formidable prospect and you have to concede that, but Denmark especially, playing in a warm climate up against a bunch of lads that love nothing more than pulling down the big boys, is anything possible there? Tunisia are an unknown at this point, can we conjure up two wins with tenacity, bloody mindedness and hopefully a far more attacking approach from Graham "The Museum Piece" Arnold? Bottom line is a lot of countries dont understand our mentality yet, and that, if employed smartly can be a real advantage.

Peru is a football nation with a historically significant civilisation (Inca civilisation) and some of the most culturally significant historic sites in the world such as Cusco and Machu Pichu, Australia has the big pineapple and afl.

If you think only Gen Z loves easy money, I have a bridge to sell you :laughing:

My point is that if Australia had played its cards right, and not got sucked deep into Italian territory, thinking they could score the winner, they would have made it to the lottery of penalties as well (and as a socceroo fan, you'd take that every day of the week). So at least Arnie's socceroos had the discipline to see the 120 minutes out at nil-all, but the golden generation failed against a 10 man team, because they got ahead of themselves, lacked discipline and got sucked in by the Italians through extreme naivety.

spot on agree. Neill should not have gone to ground and making his body big enough for Grosso to milk the penalty. It all happened so fast and in the 90th minute no less. Haunting! :(

To be fair to Australia, that was their first game in a knockout stage of a world cup. And if anything, Hiddink did help Italy. He only made one change and was waiting for extra time. Italy made three and did look more fresh, even though they were down to ten men. But as i said in my previous post, Italy went on to win the world cup. With names like Cannavaro, Buffon, Guttaso, Pierlo, Totti, Adp, they had the experience of playing with ten. So yes, mighty Italy needed a penalty to beat a minnow like Australia.

Yes, probably not the best example due to his history. But there are numerous short players who have excelled, from Maradona to Broxham. :silly:

messi's a completely different story, he went on growth hormones - while that may be popular in europe and south america for extremely talented younger players, it hasnt really made its way to our shores yet. its well known that multiple agentinian clubs (including river plate) werent willing to fork out the money for these types of hormones for a player who at the time was severely undersized at only 4"2' !!!!! (crazy to think he grew another 17"s in the next few years) barca at that point (not anymore lol) had plenty of money to throw around on things like growth hormones, i think its fair to say there initial outlay paid its dividends lol

Make it easy on yourself. Show the clubs a Lionel Messi complication and then dismiss him as too short. Seriously, height is often a disadvantage.

i think it is already that way, i've mentioned on here alot as well - that clubs will not touch shorter players for certain positions (specifically goalkeeper, centreback and to a certain extent defensive midfield) eg if your 15 year old goalkeeping son is only 5"8', there is a high likelihood he will be passed over, regardless how outstanding he is in that age group - let alone the fact he is likely to grow potentially another 3"-4" in height before he hits 18 you can teach alot of things in football, but you cant teach genetics lol. i've argued with many people within the game and broken protocol for kids i felt should be further looked at (had an infamous bust-up with mark rudan over a certain player lol) when you are given certain parameters that absolutely must be met, its difficult to state your case. there is an under 10's player currently at adelaide city who has attracted interest from overseas - one of the best techniques i've ever witnessed in that age bracket, always plays with a smile, comes from a very good family and is doing well in school. unfortunately he is incredibly undersized already at that age compared to a lot of the other boys - i've resorted to including his parents heights on his analysis to show the potential for future growth, to try and keep clubs in australia particularly interested in his progress, let alone europe

That's why Fabio Grosso thumped the ground in delight when Italy was awarded that penalty. They KNEW they were cooked. They were going to have to hold on for the penalty shootout, and Australia was running over the top of them in regular time already! Italy's experience and cunning came to the fore. Also happened in the Final too: one bloke (who was an ex-teammate of his) started saying horrible stuff to Zidane about his sister etc right to his face, leading to Zidane's headbutt...and inevitable red card!

IIRC, Italy had made all of their substitutions and Australia had only brought on Aloisi very late. I guess that ties into RB's argument about naivety insofar as they didn't give enough focus on disrupting Italy's smash and grab approach, but also your argument that Australia had the run of play and were looking to win without going to the lottery of penalties.

Andy, in your experience, does football suffer from the 'January syndrome' that other sports face, where youth selections are skewed towards players who happen to be born in the earlier months of the year (which gives those players a size and development advantage that doesn't last as everyone fully matures)?

Your team was rubbed by the VAR. If NZ's goal was not valid because of the fault in the building up, why Costa Rica's goal could stand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf92rp0wwW4

I don't really disagree AG - in 2006 we did have a few standout players, plus a competent support cast. On balance I'd say the team was stronger than today's but it's hard to tell. One big difference was we had a brilliant coach who was aided by the team's relative anonymity. It worked well for us, but my memory of the games back then is full of the usual complaints about Aussie teams - poor touch, poor control of possession, lots of running, running, running without much creativity.

That's right Peru, take that - no goals. Count em, nought.

Dunno what all this fuss about Peru is about. Sure they have Macchu Picchu, the great midfielder, with contributions from Ollantaytambo, Sacsayhuaman and Pisac playing through their famed Nazca Lines formation. But this is a team who has qualified for five World Cup Finals and failed to qualify between 1986 and 2014. They are a middling South American team at best. And we beat them. See ya, Lima.

Perue can rue while watching the Soccerues in the Cup. Or is that too ruethless?

Good. Suck on that, South Scotland. May you sail comfortably into the quarter finals only to be cruelly denied, yet again, by some miraculous play/goal/dubious decision. South Scotland: still sucking at football after all these years