Who should go? Schwarzer, Moore, Chipperfield, Grella, Bresciano, Kewell, Neill Besides Moore and Chippers who have already announced their retirement, I don't think any of the others will do the same. Of the current crop of old players I think only Cahill, Culina and Emerton will be capable of playing any part in our next WC qualifying campaign, probably not the WC itself though. As for Arnold's comments about taking a development squad to the last AC, we already have a development squad, it's called the U/23 national team. At the last AC all of our biggest names were available for selection, the best available squad must be picked for major tournaments. Next years AC will be different, with all our Europe based players unavailable, although I personally hope the best players will be picked, rather than taking young players for 'the experience'.
Farewell or not, I would absolutely love a friendly against Chile. Do it, FFA! I agree for the reason that we should be taking the Asian Cup as a serious competition. We are in Asia now, this is not the OFC, and it is a serious confederation. If we're to be treated with the respect we feel we deserve in the region, we should show the same in return.
thats actually pretty common knowledge. The FFA and AFC (and im sure sponsors) pushed really hard for our first 11 to go.
The process of change needs to be implemented over the next 2 years with an eye towards being in the last four at the Asian Cup. Anything less is a failure - and we should also aim to have our 2014 First XI be the team that's used at the end of the Asian Cup as well. For me the only elder player from the current squad who I could see even stepping foot onto the pitch in 2014 is Tim Cahill. Everybody else needs to be phased out.
What about Wilkshire? He's only 28-29ish, and pace is not something that he has ever relied on, so an older version of him couldn't be too much different to what he is now. I really can't imagine him not being in Brazil. I think Emerton will still be involved as well, probably not as a starter but he's always been incredibly fit physically and he doesn't come off to me as someone who would not try to be apart of 2014. I'm sure we will have a couple 30-35 year olds in that 2014 squad, heck, you can even quote me on this in 4 years time.
FFA shouldn't consider selection of players any older than maximum 29 yo right now, preferrably 27-28 max. At least use that policy until the WCQ for 2014 starts. If Australia isn't at the right level in 2012 then consider bringing in the older folk.
I don't think that's particularly wise. Older players can impart experience and provide leadership and in the case of Wilkshire, Holman and the like aren't exactly going to be over the hill. The pendulum swung too far in favour of the 2006 team but it's equally silly to swing it too far the other way. u35 in 2014: Code: [U]Central defenders[/U] 34 Bosnar 33 Kisnorbo, Beauchamp, Ljubo 32 North, Durante 31 McKain, Madaschi 29 McClenahan 28 Milligan, Cornflakes, Leijer 25 Spiranovic, Williams, Lowry 24 DeVere, Jurman, Ryall, McGowan [U] Wide defenders[/U] 34 Steffanuto, Emerton 33 Kemp 32 Wilkshire, North 30 Carney 28 Cole, Milligan 27 Gülüm 26 Zullo 25 Jamieson, Lowry, Williams 23 Mullen [U] Centre/defensive midfielders[/U] 34 Grella 33 Culina 32 Wilkshire 29 Jedinak, Valeri, 28 Kilkenny, Celeski 26 Wesolowski (hey, it could happen...) 25 Holland, Williams, Herd 22 Kantarovski [U]Attacking midfielders[/U] 34 Cahill, Bresciano 32 Carle, Garcia 30 Holman 27 Vidosic 26 Burns, Troisi 25 Sarota 24 Giannou, Dzugandzic 23 Mooy [U]Forwards/wingers[/U] 34 JGriffiths 32 RGriffiths 31 Kennedy 30 McDonald 27 Djite, Rukavytsya 25 Rooney 23 Esposito 22 Oar, Danning It's a massive crapshoot with forwards and attacking mids as kids promise a lot there and few come good, also who knows which bright young thing is going to break out of [insert big Euro club here]'s reserves in the next couple of years. Consequently I stuck with guys that are overseas or in the u20 squads. Feel free to add.
RickChelsea has covered some of the more obscure possibilities in this post in the wonderkids thread. It's interesting but you usually have one of these type players bolt from nowhere in the next WC cycle, I wonder who it will be this time. I think you've covered it pretty well ZZ but just a few others which might be interesting if speculative. 29 - Spase Dilevski - Regular at univ craiova in Romania. Can play wide defence and midfield. 28 - Ante Rozic - Plays for Sedan in French Ligue II. Plays regularly, is a left back. 24 - Robert Stombolziev - Panathinaikos, striker. 23 - Jason Davidson - Plays for Pacos De Ferriera in Portugals first division, young LB who has already debuted which is a great effort given the standard and his age. 23 - Brad Inman - Attacking midfielder in Newcastle Uniteds youth team who's had big wraps. Getting lazy now so.... Some GK options: Federici, Bouzanis, Cisak, Ireland, Vukovic, Langerak, Jones Also another one that interested me was Ryan Gazet Du Chattelier (mainly because of his name and the fact he was at a premiership club). He's done his knee and is on a month by month contract with Portsmouth who are in the shit. He's a 6.4 striker originally from Richmond in the VPL and is likened to a Peter Crouch type striker.
Looking at these lists, you could probably compile a somewhat decent young (U-21) squad just from A-League competition of last season... Let's just use 4-4-2 (perhaps look at it as 4-1-3-2) for the sake of argument, and because it seems to be most peoples' preference. [LINEUP-4-4-2]Bulut,Leckie,Oar,Dzugandzic,Kantarovski,Danning,Jamieson,Jurman,DeVere,Mullen,Birighitti[/LINEUP-4-4-2] A surprising amount of experience already there (particularly on the sides). The back-up wouldn't be bad either. The centre of midfield and defence don't quite look as good, but hey, that's without any of the overseas kids. The future may not be as bad as we might believe... so long as those kids keep improving and backing up their reputation with good performances, of course.
thing is, none of these young players are really pushing out the older veterans, challenging for their spots. its unnerving. i will feel a lot more comfortable when the younger players burst into the premier league, la liga, serie a, bundasliga or even the eredivise. probably sounds a bit shallow, going for players simply cause of where they play, but talent goes where the money is and all that
Interesting that most of the oldies still want to push on. Can't see 36yo Neill, 35yo Harry and 41yo Schwarzer putting us past the hosts at the Marakana myself.
Time to start blooding Oar, Leckie, Kantarovski and DeVere IMO. Also would like a good hard look at Sarota, Herd and Ruka as starters. I have complete faith in Osieck unlike Verbeek who was a disaster.
David Carney and the future of the National Team He pretty much cost us the Asian Cup final and should never play for the socceroos again, along with Harry Kewell, and Brett Emerton ... On the surface, making the AC final is a decent achievement, but if you look deeper, the fact is the Asian Football Federation is mediocre at best, and is by far the worst out of all the major contenential federations. Our mediocre World Cup performance is more indicitive of where the national team is at ... The truth is, right there is a Dad's Army element to the best players on the squad, and the manager and FFA committee are too dour and conservative in nature. Frankly I think it's time we re-built our side from the bottom up, and keep playing the likes of Kilkenny and start bringing in more Olyroos into the squad, and even if it means missing out on the 2014 WC so be it. In reality Lucas Neill and Harry Kewell and probably Schwarz cannot possibly be a part of our next WC qualifying campaign, so you may as well put them out to pasture now.
Re: David Carney and the future of the National Team Only a few players in the Olyroos have any real future at senior international level. The Young Socceroos would give them a pasting. Kewell had a great Asian Cup, couldn't lift again for the final but he's more or less shown that still has a lot of football left in him. With Carney we already know he is a problem but we have no other options since Gulum opted for Turkey. We've basically got a pack of left footed central defenders, A-League quality leftbacks that aren't proven at international level and decent U-20 left footers that have barely settled into professional football at club level. Would love to see someone rise out of the ashes so to speak, but I don't think we will find a full time replacement for Carney for at least a year or so. Ive seen people mention Josh Rose but honestly, am I the only one that thinks he can't defend? I mean, the guy is a monster going forward but defensively i'm not sure he's good enough? And after him who do we have? Scott Jamieson? Lol. There is Jason Davidson who is a very good young player but that's all he is right now and also Marc Warren who is an athletic phenomenon, but not much of a footballer. Neill was by my reckoning, was our best player especially in the final, of course if he happens to return to the form of the last year or so then by all means, we definitely need to look at replaceing him but his Asian Cup performances were very good. I'm more concerned with the Valeri - Jedinak combo in midfield, they get through a lot of work but they leave far too much space in between them and the strikers. Obviously Culina would of played instead of one of them and would of helped in that aspect but a player like Kilkenny is a rare commodity and I definitely think he should be pushed into a starting birth.
Re: David Carney and the future of the National Team Nice read, but what about Tim Cahill? I thought he handled himself quite poorly last night, to be honest. He was more interested in the refereeing decisions than on trying to win his team the match. The amount of appealing done last night could have made us concede a few goals from a Japanese counterattack, since every time Cahill waved his arms at the referee the rest of the players felt keen on pausing for a second or two and waiting for the whistle to be blown. It wasn't an impressive final for Cahill, and I really thought he would finally step up to the occasion. Kewell had a good Asian Cup campaign, up until that moment he missed a beautiful chance to finish the Japanese off. Unfortunately, he didn't keep his cool and that's one of the reasons why he failed to capitalize all the goalscoring opportunities that came his way. It's time for a better generation of Australian players, indeed. Out with the old, in with the new. I am hopeful that we would one day reach the same glory that Japan has reached right now in Asian Football. It'll take us decades to ever achieve four Asian Cup titles, but it's not impossible. If we can build a team that would make us forget about our aging Golden Generation, then I believe we can win the tournament in four years time and use that as a launchpad for winning more and more Asian Cup trophies between then and 2023. If we continue to rely on our aging players as the best hope for Australia, on the other hand, then I don't think we'll win anything for a very long time.
Re: David Carney and the future of the National Team You seem to pick out every little detail that this team ever does wrong. If we don't play the best players we have we won't win anything either.
Re: David Carney and the future of the National Team Cahill appealing a ref's decision? No.. Surely not... I thought by now everyone knew that Cahill plays with a sense that everything goes against him. It does annoy me, but that's Cahill. Kilkenny should definitely be starting. We do need to start getting guys like Leckie, Oar, Sarota, Ruka, Burns into the senior squad (assuming they are getting game time). Hopefully this camp and the German friendly should assist with that. We need some new blood in the team before the 2014 WCQs start.
Re: David Carney and the future of the National Team http://www.smh.com.au/sport/footbal...tart-preparing-for-future-20110130-1a9r4.html
I think the main thing the AC proved is that the HAL is nowhere near as bad as its detractors point out and that we should have faith in them. You could put together a decent HAL-Roos side with guys like McKay, Kruse, Theoklitos, Culina, Jamieson, Matt Thompson, Leckie, Kantarovski, Djite, Josh Rose etc etc
