Australia vs Chile - June 13, 2014 - Cuiabá [R]

Nice first 15 minutes by Chile. After that? Not so much. Good effort by the socceroos who in the end were slightly hard done by the result.

 

Entertaining game, but had me too nervous. I knew Australia was going to be tough, so no surprises. Chile tends to become complacent against teams we are supposed to win. Happened Egypt in the last friendly too. The good, no injuries and no red cards. I expect Australia to upset either Spain or Holland.

 

Start running they scored! Move boy move you little ass!!

 

Chile is overrated. I don't get why people hyped them up so much (mostly South Americans). After seeing this game, it's clear they're above the smaller teams but that's it.

 

Another pathetic display by the fake asians... Chile were also equally disappointing. Neither team has a shot of securing another point in this group.

 

Best was Mário Jardel.

 

Nervy win for Chile. Just please at least draw against Spain. We want them out too.

 

Chile usually plays good games against Spain.

We did't play our best football today, but enough to get 3 points.

I don't think Vidal is ready yet, he's not fit.

Beausejour surprised to the whole country with his good game and his goal.

 

We ALWAYS do that.

 

Bierhoff. End of discussion.

 

And usually gets completely shafted by the ref in those games.
Seems like Spain may have lost their "plot armor" from FIFA though... tikitaka is so 2012... so perhaps this time outplaying Spain will be enough to get Chile an actual victory.

 

Australia has many excellent athletes who are good at many different sports, but soccer isn't one of their strong suits. Still, not a bad effort against a country in which soccer is like a second religion. Enjoy your WC experience, Aussies, and don't worry too much about what happens to the team.

 

lol People who don't understand football.

A team like Chile who plays out and out no bars hold attacking football will always look worse against a team like Australia than say Spain or Holland or even Brazil.

Australia played very careful defensive football always pulling back with two lines of four to defend and countering while Chile pushed their entire team up into the Australian pitch to attack. It's hard to break down teams like Australia because of that. They're a bit like Greece. But I don't think people back in Euro 2004 sat around saying Greece looked so good and all the other teams looked like so shit.

Chile was not perfect certainly. They're hardly overrated. They played like they play. It's not necesarrily the best kind of football to play against a team that was as focused on defending as Australia was. But they refuse to compromise their goal on football which is the pure attacking style inherited from Bielsa.

They don't get the ball down and play with it looking for holes like other teams. They don't play possesion football. They go all in, quick fast attack that is extremely dangerous on any team that tries to play on the same ground. If a team defends to the teeth like Australia, there's no room left for Chile to move the ball through in their quick attacks. And that is the major problem. As a result Chile looks bad. Because they're gifting the ball away, because they are looking for holes that won't easily exist when 8 or 9 of your opposing teams players are defending.

Most other teams would backpass and try to find holes against a team like that. Chile stuck to it. They went full beast mode always moving fast and losing possession as a result.

Chile's probably biggest problem on the pitch was their obvious tiredness. Cuiaba is a rainforest tropical climate. Game was hot. Like nearly 90 degrees. Chile are one of the only teams that can't really deal with heat like that. It was obviously making them sluggish. Australia has a lot more heat in terms of weather than Chile does. They looked much more at home with the temperatures.

This is Chiles only match at that kind of field though. I would think they'd look much better afterwards.

The biggest problem with Chile most definitely was how long they waited to bring some changes in. The players looked tired. Once the replacements came in they actually backpassed and started using different strategies that opened up the hole and gave them their third goal.

But to say Chile is overrated, or bad, or didn't deserve the win because of one match, is pretty premature. Chile can only go up from here. Against a team that doesn't defend extremely heavily with two lines of 4, it would be a lot easier to open holes up in the enemies defense.

 

I'm proud of what Australia were able to produce today. Keep in mind we just switched managers about 6 months ago and have gone through a reguvenation period since our last manager refused to blood new players. 5 of our starters have had less than 10 caps for the national team including Leckie and Davidson who were our best on grounds tonight. Honorable mentions to Cahill, Bresciano and Spiranovic.

We let Chile move the ball around too much and rushed going forward in the opening 20 minutes which cost us, hope we don't make the same mistakes in our next 2 matches, would love to pull off an upset . Once we started to play with a bit of mongrel and confidence we got our goal and were on top for the rest of the match.

We weren't expected to do anything this whole World Cup, not even score a goal, but to see the relief on the Chileans players was satisfying compared to what most of us all expected. This tournament will give us great experience before the asian cup on home soil which I think is on the back of out managers mind.

Best of luck for the rest of the tournament Chile

 

Are you trying to say that Australia bunkered ? No they did not. Well they did for the first half hour, and that was when Chile actually looked its best. The whole second half Australia took the game to Chile, creating more chances, and just looking the better side. The bunker argument does not work here. Chile looked helpless in the second half.

They also have a terrible defence which is why Brazil trounced them 4-1 in the last WC. The last friendly between Chile and. Brazil was also very flattering to chile. Brazil could have scored like 4 or 5 goals in that match if they were more clinical.

Chile is an overrated team , period. Aside from friendlies they haven't done much. They even got trounced out of the copa America by Venezuela.

 

Why is Chile overrated? we dont think we will be champs or make it to the final at all. Also, funny how you use Copa America for your point when you didnt even see it, plus it was a whole different team.

 

I saw every game of the copa.

Pretty much every expert I've seen said " I see one of Spain or Holland going out in this group" almost every single one. That seemed to be a very popular theme on Bigsoccer as well. I'll admit, that I even bought the hype a little bit. I think people got a little carried away with a few friendly performances. I'm not referring to Chile fans by the way. Not saying Chile is a bad team, they're a good team, but they are not as good as a lot of people think they are. It's up to them to prove otherwise.

 

True, but Copa America was completely different. A lot of water has passed since then. Also, if we judge by the first game (usually bad), then Brazil and Spain have no chance to make it far, which is far from the truth. Ill say the same thing ive always said, all the chileans in bigsoccer, all, no exceptions, have always said we have a chance to make it out BUT Spain and Holland are clear favorites.

 

The problem for you is that you tend to under rate all of Conmebol and believe that back here there are the same diferences between teams, as those you see everywhere round the world in other continents.

Well to get your facts right, that Venezuelan team from last Copa America, besides beating us (by one goal), to reach quarters against us, at group phase, they managed victories over Paraguay and Ecuador and they had a draw against Brazil, at semis lost on pk definition to Paraguay (whom previously lost to them at group phase) and lost to Peru for 3rd place (where at group phase, we defeated Peru). Of the 4 best places last Copa America, Uruguay was the only of them to qualify to this WC. Back here in Conmebol, everybody beats everybody at given moments of time, reasons why it is so dificult for all teams to get through at qualifiers. Oh yes, at qualifiers only taking in account results against other qualified teams to this WC, Venezuela besides defeating Colombia once, they defeated Argentina (together with Uruguay, they were the only 2 teams to defeat them here), and still managed to achieve draws against Colombia (yes, Colombia only got one point out of six played against them), Ecuador and Uruguay. It's no shame to lose against such a formidable opponent and it doesn't constitute anything bad to whomever does.

Now in relation to Chile, we have always had a terrible defense which is no mistery to anyone (almost all teams score on us and only in very few occasions we've managed to end without goals against us), so you can't use this issue over how "hyped" we may be. Our strong point is that despite others frequently score on us, we usually score on them too, where most of the times we score a bit more than our opponents. Oh yes, and the last issue, which can be seen as a weakness, is that we probably are the only team in the world, whom never takes cautions at defending, even if we are up on the score (as almost every team in the world does on the same situation), because as we know we usually suck defending (we don't have the fastest, the tallest and even the smartest players around), so no matter how much we attempt to protect a lead, the other teams sooner or later will score on us. This is also the reason why we never quit on attacking at all times. Our best defense, is our attack.

And as @Yañez told you, despite this win, nobody in its right set of mind, really has us as clear favourites over Spain and Netherlands. At most, people believe that if there are any teams in this WC capable of upsetting one of the other teams considered as clear favourites, one definitively can be Chile (we are probably in the same "boat" as Colombia or Belgium in this aspect). I underlined the "can be", as it implies a possibility, not a certainty.
As to now, Spain despite its loss, still are favourites to advance together with the Netherlands.

 

Congrats Chile on the win. Even though you weren't at your best it was a great match to watch. Shame my favourite player Eduardo Vargas was very quiet today for you guys.

 

Thank you, think Australia could really steal points from Spain or Holland. A lot of our guys were low today; Vidal Vargas, Valdivia, Aranguiz and even Bravo. However, it was the first game and we were both probably nervous. Hoping you guys beat or tie vs Holland or Spain, I will be cheering for you.

 

Entertaining match, Australia is better than most rate them to be. Chile deserved the win but I am also a bit disappointed by their overall game, they got a scare or two in the second half. Valdivia's goal was fantastic, not just the shot but the play by Sanchez to break down the defense.

Asutralia won't leave with zero points, they are gritty and have a couple of interesting players.

 

The thing the gives me a little bit of hope is that Vidal has a couple more days to be at 100%, he is a big difference maker when fit. Also, winning while playing badly is something to rescue.

 

Don`t forget he almost scored a goal today, which was brilliantly avoided from happening, almost at the goal line by an Australian defender.

 

In addition he participated in the first goal , he passed the ball to Sanchez.