Just an update. I have never seen that type of behaviour from the police at Suncorp before. Disgraceful! They really need to be asked to explain why they were so heavy handed. Brisbane crowds have never behaved in a way that would warrant such a reaction.

I don’t find the cops to be too much of a problem at Suncorp, but the stadium staff are relentless in their mission to make punters feel unwelcome. I cant tell you how many times my kids have been told off by the ushers for, or standing on the bottom rail (80mm off the ground) of the barrier so they can see their heroes clearly. Or to remove a bag off the chair next to me (as if the 54000 seat stadium needs the extr seat for the 5K at the ground). I have lost count the amount of times I have been rudely ‘moved on” from outside the bathrooms when waiting for my sons and daughter to come out. All the more reason for A League clubs to have their own stadium and by extension, own staff and security. They could then be trained better in what is acceptable at football and what is not. Does this happen in Adelaide, Perth or CC as much as Brisbane and Sydney?

Hey SS. I agree that Glover could have played the situation down by not retaliating. A very silly decision on his part, but let us not give excuses to the thugs that should be intelligent enough to know not to invade the pitch and assault players.

Did they walk out on the team, or did they walk out in protest against again heavy handed stadium staff? I think there is more here than meets the eye.

12 is too young to make any judgment of a players potential size or even playing position. At that age the focus of good clubs should always be technical, decision making, creativity and love of the game. Definitely by 14 -16 clubs should be shifting their focus to whether or not these players potentially will be a part of the clubs 18s, 23s ultimately the first team. At that point it is my opinion that focus needs to shift to effectiveness on the pitch. Unfortunately this is often not the case where you can’t avoid the human factor of coaches having favs, or selecting players that “look” the part rather than which ones actually affect the game. Can they score, create, or stop goals. End of story. At that point, physicality is always going to be a factor. If you are small and technical, all the skill in the world (again Messi is the exception not the rule) will not show through if you are simply muscled off the ball every time you get it. Again, huge credit to players like Nisbett that have been able to prove their effectiveness and value despite their size, but again, except in exceptional circumstances I don’t see how a player like that could compete at the absolute highest level (international/ Europe) where all players have amazing skill as well as size and physicality.

I would suggest that players like Nisbet and Messi (It should go without saying that this comparison is not of technical ability, but rather physicality) are the “exception, to the rule”. When we are talking about player pathways and elite professional athletes it stands to reason that the bigger, stronger, faster athletes are naturally going to come to the top. No-one has a crystal ball to be able to look at a player that clearly is at such a physical disadvantage as Nisbet at youth level, and bank on the hope that he might be the next Messi. So understandable that many great smaller players will get overlooked and for a great many, we will never even hear of them. A credit to Nisbet’s character that in spite of what I am assuming were many closed doors in his youth, he persisted and forged himself a career in the sport he loves, but there will always be a ceiling that diminutive athletes will eventually have to accept. (again, we are talking generalisations here, I know Muggsy Bogues at 5,3 played NBA in the golden era).

I am not sure why Zadkovic change the line up in the last two matches. He had a couple of good showings by the boys and instead of rewarding them with another start he rushed them out of the team once the “big names” were fit. Fo a bloke that keeps telling up he is there to right the ship and provide some stability, why so many changes? If it aint broke, dont fix it. Berenguer and Aldred should have been forced to earn their spot back in that starting line up that demolished City 2 weeks ago, not simply waltz back in.

The state of the pitch should really be a home ground advantage for us by now. The Roar have spent the last few seasons moving from council pitch to council pitch. A poor Suncorp Stadium surely replicates their training conditions, giving us an actual playing edge. In fact, I half wonder if they could go further to prepare for a what I am assuming will again be a poor pitch by shifting training to Roma St Parklands, the public amenities there aren’t too bad. Might also help the bottom line.

When it come to national selection and WC qualifying…..you select whoever is in form. That is Tags. Blooding young players that “haven’t been tested” is what friendlies are for.

I have to admit that I do not value a “ball playing CB” more than an attack stopping CB. This obsession to ask defenders to be everything on the pitch is nonsense, including the wing backs who today are expected to play everywhere except in the back line wider than the CBs). A CB’s primary roll is to nullify the oppositions attack and hand the ball over to your actual ball players…the midfielders. We wonder why we keep seeing our national teams…or any team for that matter only hold possession by sending the ball sideways across the back line for hours and never get any penetration or forward movements…It is 100% because todays obsession with keeping possession is stifling creativity in the middle and taking the ball from the feet of our actual ballers. Have a think about it, where do we place our most technical superior players, the ones who know the game the best, the ones who have the best vision, creativity, ball control and passing…..CM, CDM, CAM. So why do we keep taking the ball off them in favour of our CB’s. There is not a single reason for a CB to have a higher pass count or possession rate than a CDM. Yes, it is beneficial to have CBs that can hold the ball and make a good pass, or a full back who can overlap beat a player and deliver a cross, or a striker who is willing to track back and make a challenge…… but like everything in the modern game, we seem to have forgotten the absolute underpinning and foundation principals of the game; that is, to simply score more goals than the other team. Maybe I am just getting old??

Oh and I forgot to mention that Mitch Duke with 12 goals in 36 games, has already surpassed Viduka as the more effective striker with still half a dozen games up his sleeve. And he never played against Jamaica or the Solomon Islands.

I am not sure why we keep comparing our current strikers to those of old. Our strikers have never scored for Soceroos. The bulk always came from spread across midfield. Viduka hit 11 goals in 43 Caps. Kewel 17 in 56 caps. Tim Cahill his the net regularly, but lets not forget, he was actually a midfielder and only played as striker in his twilight years. Emerton played half his games at Right back, Bresc was a midfielder, as was Mile………. The only strikers that scored regularly for Soceroos were when we qualified through Oceania and Archie, Johnny A, Arnold…… were hitting 4, 5, 6 …… 13 goals a game. We need to start to look at our strikers through a dose of reality.

I think coaches need to realise that just because they have 5 subs, doesn’t mean that have to use them. If the team is gelling, and there is no reason (fatigue, injury, tactical) to change it…….then dont. All these players should be able to run out an entire match, not just the CBs and O’Shey.

A good response. I think it would also be prudent for the refs to bring back those start of the game team talks. Remember in the good old days when we lined up at the half way with the other team, walked on together and the ref addressed us all as human beings. They would take that opportunity to be very clear on the behaviour they expect from the players and also how they plan to behave in return. A simple conversation at the start of the game like that would make it very clear what the ref deems as dissent, who and how players might address them in the game, and what they deem cautionable offences. When did we stop this practice?

I was ref. I refed from the age of 15 until I was 21 (granted that was almost 20 years ago). I have spoken with my son about how he spoke to the ref, but as a 15 year old kid that was “wrestled” off the ball (kudos for him not simply going to ground and “milking” the free kick), I believe his reaction was not justified, but understandable. I agree with Stuart, I dont not think what he said was dissent. If he had rephrased asking for the foul ie “where is the foul”, or “come on ref, he has me around the waist”….possibly a different outcome. But the yellow card should have been enough for the ref to stamp his authority, show my boy that he will not accept being spoken to like that, and made it very clear he will not tolerate it again. IFAB say “Dissent: Public protest or disagreement (verbal and/or physical) with a match official’s decision; punishable by a caution (yellow card)”. This is dangerous ground. If they introduce this Blue Card, they will ned to be very specific as to describing what can and cant be said. I for one do not want to see players sent from the field simply because the shake their heads in “disagreement” as a refs decision.

FQ have also already put this in place. I know, because my son was given a yellow card and sent for the final 10mins of his game (u15 league 1) this week end. After being grabbed around the waist and thrown off the ball, he turned to the ref and called ” use your whistle ref”. The ref did not even bat an eye. Pulled out the yellow and sent him off the pitch. No one could understand what had happened. Not even the clubs ground officials (we were playing away) understood why he was sent off?? So I jumped online only to see that FQ introduced a 10 min sin bin back in 2020. Who knew??? I would also ask if what he said constitutes dissent?? Perhaps a conversation for another time. But it does beg the question, what exactly will a player have to say or do to get blue carded?

This has always been an issue for Bne. But I would think there is no money for that type of advertising. I would also suggest (based on the new revelations coming out of the APL shenanigans at the moment) that what little money the Roar have, they would be spending it on advertising directly to fans that are already interested or have been in the past ie social media. Most of APL’s big issues revolve around the fact that they neglected the football fans they had and wasted money trying to convince (very poorly) others to come. It is far cheaper to keep a client then to land a new one. I reckon Kaz and Zac are still prioritising just keeping the lights on. As they should be this season.

Bad reputations are hard to shake. It will take time and more than one good season to bring everyone back. If the current trend is going up, when prior to covid it was going down, then that is a good sign.

I think Jelicic and Hore’s movement is creating space now for Tommy. I would hate to be a CB trying to keep track of those two boys. If you added Rojas to that pair, all CB’s are going to be chasing their tails leaving young Tommy plenty of space to hammer home a few winners.

Just imagine the concerts they could schedule in a stadium like that!

So what is the answer? More A League Clubs? NST? DO players need to do the same as young Volpato and make that very early move at 16? (I understand his story is a different one to Joe’s). Just knuckle down at club and “hope” for the best? Or is it just a matter of the players will and commitment to the “pathway”? ( of which most of the time we are walking it blind and hoping we dont go off the cliff). I have a son (well three) playing u15 League 1 in Brissy, also involved in the FQ academy (old TSP program), and it does make it difficult to make the right decisions and take the right steps give him the best chance of pursuing his dream, knowing that the pros were passing on players like Joe. It is no wonder he was thinking of quitting. With A League clubs passing over what was clearly a very promising talent in Joe at that crucial age where the kids are making decisions as to whether to give up or double down, surely we are missing some amazing talent.

The fact that again, two other A League clubs turned him down and could not see his ability and potential worries me. What is doing with our talent identification? This seems to be a common story in Aus. Gauci is not the only one in recent times. Why are our football “decision makers” not identifying these players. Is it still just a case of who you know, not what you know? Are they looking at the wrong indicators? Are the top clubs not communicating with the Grass root elite (ie: NPL clubs) on their players? I know what I think it is, but I would really keen to hear what you think SS.

I agree. Is this an actual article or perhaps the author is fishing for some kind of strategic consultant position at the Wanderers?? What the Author is describing is the general reality of home and away fixtures. I find it laughable that “Travel Fatigue” is mentioned for a Sydney team with essentially 2 of every 3 matches they play in the season within driving distance to their own homes.

I liked the way Indonesia played, who was their coach?? Having said that, their attacking style saw them go down by 4 in the end.

I feel if he defended from the front third it would have been a disaster. That attacking line for Sth Korea was rapid and talented. All they would have required against a higher back line was a few well played balls, and we would have gone down by a lot more. We didnt have had the pace in our back line to compete. That is why Sth Korea struggled like us in the the previous matches. Teams that park the bus…Sorry “Low Block” dont allow for fast attacking teams to get in behind. Hence why Australia has had luck against better opposition. Leckie, and Duke were both lightning quick. As soon as that space closes down with the deep defence, we have no strike power.