Are Australia the weakest in this group?

Hi just wondering opinions, I have read a couple of the threads in here and it seems especially you Germans believe Australia is the weakest link in the group.

Personally i think Ghana are the weakest, but i wont go to my opinions because that will start a lot of arguing.

Thoughts? Opinions on why you/dont believe Australia is the weakest?

i see next to nothing between serbia,australia and ghana.
serbs are the strongest of the 3 on paper and ghana may exceed themselves playing on african soil so it'll be tough for australia.
Despite this i have a feeling australia might sneak through with germany

Holland played Ghana last night and Australia a while back and judging on those friendlies Australia are MUCH better than Ghana.

Considering the last World Cup, I never rule out the Socceroos. They have heart.

The Serbs did excellent in qualifying, so I don't rule them out and Ghana had such a young team against Egypt and they stuck in there, you never know. Judging by the games though, this group is like a chess game, nothing but defensive strategies which could spell a snooze fest. Let's hope not!

Believe it or not, the influence has become that rapid the locals are even starting to speak Dutch. You people weren't taking the casual approach of football to take over our country, were you?

In relation to the question, no. We're better than Ghana and Serbia. But I'd rather them do the talking on the pitch.

Ghana sucks, plain and simple!!

No excuses!! Ghana sucks!!

On paper they are the weakest but they could get out of the group with their Greek style of play.

I personally think they are offensively clueless and will get owned by Vidic and Ivanovic all game long.

You are not better than Serbia nor Ghana. Serbia have one slip up in 5 matches and all of the sudden they are bad. On paper, and reason I am saying on paper, is because no teams have played each other yet. Germany and Serbia are strongest, followed by Ghana and in the last place Australia. Thats on paper. But I do think that Australia could come ahead of Ghana, but I think Serbia and Germany are gonna advance. Australias best player is Cahil, than there is Neil and keeper. The rest is average. Look at it this way. If Serbia could chose all of Australias players, only two who would make it, and they are the Keeper and Cahil, the rest wouldn't make the squad. So to answer your post, NO, you are not better than Serbia, you probably play better than Ghana, but player by player, Ghana is ahead of you...

lol

Player by player = players I've heard of > players I haven't

Imo the weakest is Ghana. After the missing of Essien, they are by far the weakest.

LOL So because of one friendly Ghana is suddenly the weakest without a doubt. When Australia and Serbia were getting embarassed by New Zealand (without a doubt the worst team at the WC) The excuse was it is just a friendly, now friendlies mean everything. I believe Ghana has the worst defence in this group, overall as a team we will have to see. They are notorious for not taking friendlies seriously, they lost to Saudi Arabia 5-0 before looking very strong in the 2008 ANC. IMO Australia is the weakest team in this group, but not by much. I may be wrong though.

People change opinions very quickly... most people don't even know that Rajevac was experimenting with the squad and the tactics, while Holland was playing a first XI (minus Robben) and playing at home... but all they see is 4:1... EOS.

I'm verry worried about the injury ravaged Ghanaians, but people get opinionated way too easily and without really knowing anything.

You should add that Ghana got thrashed at the ACN by Cote d'Ivoire and still picked up silver.

Despite having the best midfield in the world, Ghana are the weakest team

Not funny. The joke has been made before and it didn't work the first time and won't sound better upon repeating.

Are you kidding me...this joke is funnier everytime. Everyone is having a good laugh....




............except you

Not really. The back 5 was standard, only Lee Addy wasn't 1st choice but he has enough games with that back 4 to be comfortable. Annan, Muntari, Appiah and Amoah are all regulars, although playing Amoah as a lone striker isn't really effective.

Quincy and Derek have returned after loooong absences, but are hardly new to the set up.

The formation was Milo's usual 4-2-3-1. The problem wasn't "experimenting", the problem was some of the players, the coach and how the coach fitted the players into the system.

What do you mean by "joke"? Ghana clearly has the best midfield in the world.
With players like Essien, Muntari, Essien, Appiah, Asamoah, Essien, Ajew, KBP, Annan and not to forget Essien, Ghana will destroy their opponents at the WC.




This is the formation they will use to win the WC:

[LINEUP-4-4-2]Essien, Essien, Essien, Essien, Essien, Essien, Essien, Essien, Essien, Essien, Essien, [/LINEUP-4-4-2]

Oh, wait...

1st of all, if you sit on Wigan's bench for the entire season then you have no business being no.1 at the World Cup. If the coach had any sense he'd have spent a lot more of the friendlies over the last 2 years, playing the other keepers (but sticking with Kingston for qualifiers).

I don't want to criticise Paintsil because he's just come back from a serious injury, but Inkoom is surely knocking on the door (very loudly). Still has a habit of playing everybody onside.

Age and injuries have caught up with Sarpei. He's been our best full back for a long time (grossly under used over the years by previous coaches) but WC 2010 should be the end for him imo.

Big names having no impact = Appiah & Muntari. Muntari was anonymous (although I missed some of the 1st half), seriously, what did he do?

Appiah didn't create a thing, Quincy should be an impact player coming off the bench, Amoah should not play up top on his own. Milo has tried this several times and it doesn't work (not against decent oppo anyway).

He brought on 3 strikers at half time, yet kept the same shape.

Why on God's green earth did he bring on Adiyiah and play him in the hole? Tagoe on the right wing is something Milo has done several times too, he should be playing up top. To have Prince Tagoe attempting to cross balls into the box is just plain stupid. He should be in the box getting on the end of things.

At this late stage he shouldn't be experimenting anyway. Just play the players in their natural positions ffs. The only new thing he should be trying is fitting KPB into the team, but he didn't even do that.

Oh and the football he has got the team playing is awful. Lacklustre and uninspired. Players like KPB and KA should be starting all day every day, they can make things happen. And if he must play with only 1 up top, then it HAS to be Gyan (he should try Tagoe there too instead of farming him off to the right wing every game, idiot).

Do the midfield understand the phrase "close down"? Perhaps my memory is failing me already but I seem to remember the Dutch players having extraordinary lengths of time on the ball.

IMO he hasn't learned anything that he shouldn't already know:

Amoah cannot play lone striker
Appiah can no longer play football at the highest level
Quincy should be an impact sub
Play midfielders in midfield and strikers up front
Players that hardly kick a ball (if at all) all season will not be sharp

WTF did he learn? He should have known all this already? Someone tell what Milo learned from last nights game...

Maruti?

Depends on what you mean by paper. Australia have had two common opponents with Ghana (Japan and Netherlands being the common opponents) and two with Serbia (New Zealand and South Korea) in the last 12 months. When comparing results Australia fares better than Ghana, and similar to Serbia. I realise all those results are friendlies (except 1) but thats what happens when you compare results accross confederations. Apart from World Cups there is very little inter confederation competetive play.

You had Hiddink in the last World Cup. I'd be a bit surprised if the Aussies beat Serbia.

Yeah, I kind of agree. The last Dutch goal was also from a questionable penalty (dive) near the 90th minute which made it seem like a blowout. Until about the 85th minute though Holland only had a 1 goal lead at home. Change the venue to Africa and maybe a different result.

Does not matter who is the weakest, anyone can qualify to the second round in this group. We can all agree to this.

Verbeek has a pretty good record. I would also be surprised if we beat Serbia, but only mildly so. We have a pretty good record lately against teams that stack up better than us on paper. Its against "weaker" teams that we tend to struggle to find any rythm.