Socceroos to play in Melbourne this October! Socceroos in Melbourne to play Oman in an Asian Cup Qualifying match at Etihad Stadium on October 14. This is after the Friendly against Holland October 10 in Sydney. Just got an email from the FFA.
Re: Socceroos to play in Melbourne this October! *gets on knees and begs* Please Melbourne/Sydney, any change, a penny perhaps? or relinquish your stranglehold on the Socceroos, give Perth an Asian cup qualifier, you guys already enjoy the World Cup qualifiers, while you are fat and plump, we're football starved over here and on the verge of fainting...
Re: Socceroos to play in Melbourne this October! Did you guys hear something? Guess it was just me...
Re: Socceroos to play in Melbourne this October! I thought I heard a faint whinge from across the Nullabor- but I must've been mistaken!
Socceroos match program: August 12 v Ireland, Thomond Park, Limerick September 5 v South Korea, World Cup Stadium, Seoul October 10 v Netherlands, Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney October 14 v Oman, Etihad Stadium, Melbourne November 14 v Oman, Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex, Muscat January 6 v v Kuwait, International Jaber Al-Ahmad Stadium, Kuwait City. March 3 v Indonesia, Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25857421-10389,00.html
Re: Socceroos to play in Melbourne this October! Another faint whinge from across the Nullabor . . . we're going to have to wait until we get somewhere decent to play at first; and that's a while. I'm more surprised that they didn't give at least one of the Asian Cup qualifiers to Gold coast, townsville or bluetongue . . . . . they're deserving too !
http://worldradio.ch/wrs/news/wrsnews/nati-to-lineup-against-the-socceroos.shtml?19748 The Swiss national football team have announced they’ll play Australia in a friendly match as part of their preparations for the Euro 2012 qualifiers. It’ll be the Nati’s first game since failing to reach the second round of this summer’s World Cup and the first ever encounter between the two sides. The match will be in St Gallen on September 3, four days before the Nati take on England in Basel at the start of their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign.
Paraguay have confirmed away match against Australia on 9. October. http://www.paraguay.com/deportes/cotizada-albirroja-suma-tres-amistosos-mas-a-su-calendario-37304
Slovenia-Ljubliana 11/08/2010 Switzerland-St. Gall 03/09/2010 Poland-Krakow 07/09/2010 Paraguay-Sydney 09/09/10 Chile-Home -October tbc Egypt-Away-November tbc UAE-Away-January tbc India-Doha-10/01/11 Korea Republic-Doha-14/01/11 Bahrain-Doha-18/01/11 Germany-Away 29/03/11 4 friendlies v Nations that have a FIFA exec Don't ask me for links for Germany,Chile ,Egypt as I haven't got them
The FFA are coping alot of flack from everyone lately, but you have to give them props for organising the Socceroos schedule this year - it's brilliant to see regular games against good quality opponents.
Just thinking 4 years ahead. I'd much rather play South American teams at home, not in Australia. I'd also like to see more friendlies scheduled against those teams and less against central European teams.
There is plenty of time to play teams in South America if we qualify for the World Cup. The value of playing in South America is mainly for the exoperience of playing on the continent. We could qualify and not play a South American team at all. If we qualify we are guaranteed of playing at least one European team so playing friendlies against these teams is pretty useful, especially since most of our team is based in Europe. My own preference would be to start up a "B team" consisting of mainly local players that could play friendlies or friendly tournaments in Asia. There seem to be plenty of those all the time and it would give valuable international experience to these players.
I understand Almango, but it's probably going to take that long for us to get used to those conditions, especially with our players being predominantly based oversea's. The European teams are going to experience the same problem. I am just of the opinion that instead of having friendlies against the Switzerlands, Polands, Croatia's, Macedonia's etc, we would be better served scheduling friendlies against the Peru's Chile's Brasil's Argentina's. I understand that it wouldn't be easy to do that at the drop of a hat, but I think we'd gain more out of that than playing a group of teams probably worse off than ourselves and learning little in the process. I know what you're probably thinking, we're playing Paraguay in a few weeks, but that's here where we should win anyway and it doesn't really tell us a lot about what to expect in 2014. I may be the lone voice in this but we need to start planning for this now.
I don't think you're a lone voice, and maybe planning does need to start now, but I don't think there is value in going there just now. Possibly 2012 may be a good time to organise a friendly or two over there, but the teams may be understrength.
I think its a tad early to start getting used to playing in south american 'conditions.' half the current team won't be around 2014 anyway...
I can understand their dilemma, but if they've come all this way then a match against a 2nd rate Australia shouldn't cause too many drama's.
"The Socceroos will face Egypt in Cairo on November 17 and the UAE in Abu Dhabi on January 5." Both friendlies now confirmed on AFC website http://www.the-afc.com/en/afc-asian-cup-news/30920-australia-to-play-egypt-uae