We're absolutely toast without him
Socceroos The Socceroos Thread - The Boss Tony Popovic
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- Dec 22, 2009
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Metcale & Souttar injured at the same time. Not good.
Souttar’s had some horrid luck.
An ACL and Achilles are both terrible injuries to come back from.
It’s like whenever Australia has a promising player something has to go wrong to derail their career.
We are now very very thin at CB.
An ACL and Achilles are both terrible injuries to come back from.
It’s like whenever Australia has a promising player something has to go wrong to derail their career.
We are now very very thin at CB.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but we'd still be expected to beat Indonesia and China even with these injuries. Right?
nobbyiscool
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Shit.
Wild we have 1 win from 6 games so far and are second in the group. If we don't start winning though we'll be out. Aside from getting Boyle back up front to help find the net, this Souttar injury is pretty terrible for our ability to stay tight at the back and our set pieces. No surprise that our last WC qualifies went to crap as soon as he did his acl
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Colosimo, Kewell, Souttar, Bosnich ( wasn't Injury) Circati. Probably missing a few.
We've been incredibly lucky with results going our way to date and that has meant our destiny is still in our own hands. Regardless of what other teams do in our group, if we win the last four games of the group stage then we WILL qualify for the World Cup. If we've learnt anything from the '22 qualification campaign it's that we should try as hard as we possibly can to avoid the intercontinental playoff/s and that means we need to secure our spot in the group stages.
I actually think this is a really important World Cup for us to qualify for. Should we make it, then it will complete a 20 year cycle of the Socceroos competing at the grandest stage of them all and therefore will solidify a generation of supporters experiencing the joys of Australia playing in the World Cup. There are now adults in Australia who don't remember a time when Australia wasn't competing in the World Cup and that's massive because the burdens of the past shouldn't weigh down the future generations in the way that it did with our older players.
First assignment - beat Indonesia in March. Build some momentum in that Sydney game and hopefully roll into the China game five days later with the confidence to secure two consecutive wins. Winning those two gets us very close to the World Cup.
I wouldn't think there's much either way. USA has become a good domestic standard. The only factor is they play out of the European football calendar cycle, which isn't the end of the world.
The other thing I thought for a personal thing, if you want to continue in progressing your own development, being in Scotland and playing Europe he could get looked at more? Even if it was a move to the Championship..
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Scotland or America doesn't matter it's crap standard.
Hasn’t Hearts been playing in Europa or the Conference?
If so that in itself is better than MLS.
Also playing against Celtic and Rangers with backs against the wall defending is great for his development too.
If so that in itself is better than MLS.
Also playing against Celtic and Rangers with backs against the wall defending is great for his development too.
Topkent
Confirmed ITK Drafting King
Sure, if Australia plans to get absolutely battered every game he'll have great practice
Plenty of games we will have our backs against the wall inc WC’s if we are lucky enough to qualify
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People sleep on the MLS a bit I think, it has a lot of potential. Fair bit of decent transfer activity in and out of the MLS now. Celtic have sold players to the MLS for better value than selling equivalent players to Germany and Spain. Outside the PL and the continental european clubs in the champions league (Bayern, Real etc), the rest of Europe are skint. TV money in the MLS is only going to continue to grow the game. The MLS will end up the stepping stone for all of Latin and South America to Europe.
Maybe.
It's been around for a long time and it's always been "it's going to grow".
I don't think it will. It's a good enough league now to make it a viable alternative for players in lesser European clubs.
Would be weird to qualify for 5 consecutive World Cups when there are 5.5 spots available for Asian teams and then somehow miss in 2026 when there are 8.5 spots available for Asian teams. We really should always be inside the top 8 of Asian teams and shouldn't have trouble qualifying for World Cups. Right now, we're in a direct qualification spot in our group so no need to worry just yet.
Interestingly, we've played some of our best games when the back has been against the wall in the World Cup. Obviously the Japan win in 2006 when we were down 1-0 in the 83rd minute is one of them and you can probably throw the Croatia and Italy games from that tournament in there too. Going up 2-1 on the Netherlands in 2014, holding France to 1-1 until the 81st minute in 2018 and of course beating Denmark 1-0 in 2022 to advance to the second round.
It's just in the Aussie sports culture to embrace the underdog tag and I think we'll always be a chance to surprise people when we're on a big stage like the World Cup. Long may it continue and our next challenge is to win a knockout match at a World Cup.
