'Get goosebumps thinking about it': World champions announce Socceroos rematch

AFA and CBF ( Argentina and Brazil) are in soccer like NZrugby and RA, they do what they want and do not care about others as Fiyi Samoa, Argentina, etc. Same old

Argentina put the price and the conditions this time. Indonesia or Bangladesh. Indonesia pays more. Japón or Korea. But China pays more and offers Australia. They do not like Aussies, but they hate japan an South korea more. And it is a propaganda for them.

Argentina cannot play India, Bangladesh, China or even Indonesia. It's like Wallabies or Abs playing with Hong Kong or Vietnam at union. Money talks anyway, but at list AFA made the China game vs Australia, top team in Asia-Oceania, a real threat and competitive game. This is the point of view from Argentina

I read something recently that perhaps Aust Gvt played a part in securing the game in China, as a sort of peace offering. As I understand it, there will be a number of Gvt officals attending, riding the back of the Socceroos in order to continue unofficial talks with Chinese officials in regards political tensions and tarrifs between the two nations. Football is a powerful tool, and Aust Gvt are possibly just starting to realise that it is a genuine gateway to the rest of the international community.

And if this helps get our wine, lobsters or any other boycotted goods being exported again then a Socceroos home base needs to be built!

Land/fields is obviously another issue to developing the game.

This is great, let's hope it gets the publicity it deserves. Individuals like tennis or golf aside, I can't imagine any other of our national teams being invited to play in China like this. Well done to FA.

Average height is not a racial stereotype. Saying the Chinese are no good at team sports is.

40 degress with 75-80 humidity is fatal conditions. Europe is a lot further north than people imagine. China Beijing is in the North is about the same as Northern Greece , Hong Kong at the South Rockhamption. Its like the USA.

Mate, you've never lived in China - clearly - so your comment was clueless, and frankly loaded with râçïål stereotyping. I'm finished talking to you

Loads play it. They just don't play it with any organised/structured competition or league. But every middle school, high school and university will have half the kids play 3v3 5v5 etc etc on whatever available patch of turf they can find (the other half playing basketball). They need junior comps like Australia

You have it the wrong way around, Brazilians you have to be top quality to get to play on full sized fields and you still have to wait till about 14-16 as well. I have met players from there who never got the chance and cant believe how much grass and full size fields Australia have . PLaying 11 vs 11 on full sized fields for development is a waste of time as well, the best players play in small sided games. One person has the ball so the more you have the less time you get with it. Great cricketers developed in the backyard where they played one on one. What team sports are there in China that they actually like, its football and basketball. Basketball you need to be tall. Chinese like basketball but they dont have the tall athletes you see the USA has. If they have a tall person they generally physically look to struggle. Japan and Korea the same issue, they like basketball as well but havent succeded. In football its different height is less of an advantage, Japan and Korea can compete, so why are CHina going backwards. Football is linked to gambling and the seedier side of life. Footballers in China are different to the other sportsmen.

Football is a very popular sport in China - lots of people watch it, but my understanding is not that many actually play it.

Hopefully we can do as well as last time against Argentina. I will be keenly watching this game and am curious to see which players Arnold selects.

And they are paying The Socceroos an appearance fee as well.

It's not 40 degrees with no humidity. It's 40 degrees with 75-80% humidity. It is brutal. The tropics is 32-33 with 90%+ on the humidity. People need to stop equating European summers as the same in other regions of the same latitude. They are entirely different. Europe is moderated by the North Sea and the Ocean. Asia gets it's hot air from land with nothing to cool it down (also why it gets the extremely cold winter).

I don't think it's that tbh. It's more a long standing issue prevalent in male team sport there where they have an absolute refusal to play as part of a team + a baffling refusal to take a shot on goal. China - at least in men's sport - have historically proven completely useless in team sports, and especially those that are drilled into them in the high school curriculum: basketball, volleyball and football. I did a couple of years of my uni degree in China and was always amazed by the impressive nature of basketball and volleyball facilties on campus (likewise even in ordinary high schools they have an excellent indoor sports facility, and a running track with football pitch). Yet none of it has translated into any success for the men. Far, far too much focus is on skills at the expense of teamwork, tactics and general fitness. The weekend sports programs in China are borderline non-existent (the expat communities have huge ones in Beijing out beyond the 5th ring road, but nothing for the locals). The local kids are only learning skills in academies and schools, and playing 5x5 endlessly. There aren't any leagues or competitions to join. They are getting no real match practice on full sized fields until a lot turn 16. But the government keeps pumping money into academies unabated.

The tropics is always worse, I dont mind 40 degrees with no humidity in comparison. This is June 15 early summer is not bad the further north you go. If you lived in Beijing for 5 years in then I feel for you I couldn't handle the pollution in China . I know its getting a lot better in China in these days it would have been crazy to play in Beijing some years back.

The problem in China is the culture in the sport is similiar to the NRL and AFL here, party boys drugs and drinking. If you dont have competition if everyone is drugged to the eyeballs then it evens out you dont notice. Their players were actually better when they were poor. There was quite a decent Chinese player at Adelaide early at the start of the A-league, the last one here at Newcastle was one of Chinas better players as a youth yet , a lot of talent but threw it away . The Japanese and Koreans are the opposite and thats why they are good and gone forward whereas the Chinese players have gone to the pits in comparison.

No way. Beijing in the summer is a very miserable place to be. I lived there for 5 years. The humidity ratches up, it's inland so there isn't a moderating sea breeze (instead you get the desert winds of inner mongolia), average highs over 30 with spikes in the high 30's. That belt of Asian cities in the 35-40N latitudes (Beijing, Tianjin, Seoul, Tokyo) are as bad as anything in the tropics...they just get the relief of it being only for 3-4 months unlike the year round sweat factories of Singapore, KL, Bangkok and Jakarta.