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Socceroos vs Egypt - 2026 World Cup R32 - Sat 4th of July 4am AEST

Of the times Maty didn't stand down the middle was when Salah does his little spinner.
 
The joy when we levelled. Do we have sport psychology in the team? We need to channel the best of everything to have the competitive edge.

The players released a lot of joy but built up frustration when we scored. Post game there's crying and disappointment they didn't leave it all out there.
 
Mertesacker and Kramer arguing the defenders should never take penalties.

Mertesacker is sceptical yet Kramer says Egypt's scored theirs and it depends on your technique.
 
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Mauk has said it well.

I think that is why I'm feeling so flat. It's so nice football being in the spotlight for a few weeks and the Socceroos being the talk of the town for all good reasons. Then for the next 4 years all we'll hear is about the odd fan brawl.

That and that I think we didn't reach our maximum potential/limit with this squad. Whereas in all WCs bar maybe 2010 I reckon all juices were squeezed out of each squad. We had more to give with this squad....

Really disappointed today.
 
Robbos said:
Exactly, Souttar is easily the best central defender the Socceroos have ever had, he's a boss & his distribution top class. Bos has a very high ceiling, Beach has the potential & Irankunda just needs to knuckle down & work hard.
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Lucas Neill was better at his peak
 
I think it is reaching the point where the blowback will force FA to show Popovic the door. his position is to completely untenable.
 
Villa Dan said:
Amateurish

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I feel like Popovic and the coaching staff tried to live their own world cup dreams through the players with ridiculous selections and tactics.

The keeper change done on a hunch. In all likelihood Beach goes better but we'll never know. If Beach saves none then we argue whether maybe Izzo would've been right.
 
JM47 said:
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Mauk has said it well.

I think that is why I'm feeling so flat. It's so nice football being in the spotlight for a few weeks and the Socceroos being the talk of the town for all good reasons. Then for the next 4 years all we'll hear is about the odd fan brawl.

That and that I think we didn't reach our maximum potential/limit with this squad. Whereas in all WCs bar maybe 2010 I reckon all juices were squeezed out of each squad. We had more to give with this squad....

Really disappointed today.
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Careful now the leeches will come out and say it's because Australian fans don't get passion or tribalism.

For me I'm so heavily invested but I'm not the majority of the population.

What I don't like is the notion that our squad will be better in 2030. Probably yet injuries and other issues will occur. We had a world cup at our feet and did a few good things while wasting a lot more.
 
JS96 said:
Mertesacker and Kramer arguing the defenders should never take penalties.

Mertesacker is sceptical yet Kramer says Egypt's scored theirs and it depends on your technique.
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Yeah - The one thing coming out of the media that I don’t agree with the shitting on is the generic “why are defenders taking penalties in a shootout?” angle. I know the two recent ones we won (2019 Asian cup, and 2022 qualifiers) was very much strikers taking the penalties, but the Uruguay shootout in 2005 we had Vidmar and Neill taking probably the two best of the shootout
 
With time for the dust to settle, what's lurking about this morning more than a normal loss is this:

The way Poppa coaches is the antithesis of what the Socceroos should strive for, as the team representing Australia as a footballing nation. Japan have made no secret of their intention to win a WC by 2050 and knowing the Japanese kaizen mentality, I don't consider it a grandiose plan for them. They have their own hurdles to overcome as a squad, but I have faith they'll rectify this because of their attitude towards football. When Johnny Warren said I told you so, he wasn't talking about Australia simply making another World Cup tournament. He was talking about winning the whole thing.

Watching this squad under Poppa, does anybody get a sense of this ambition or mentality? I can't shake the feeling that under different management, we could be talking right now about the Socceroos 4 game winning streak and genuinely psyched for a chance at redemption against Argentina. Instead we made the USA look better than they are, didn't push ourselves against Paraguay and bowed out to an Egypt team whose star player was off his game.

Poppa rests his hopes on us getting lucky with a counter-attacking goal, running the clock out or penalties ending in our favour. It's the same mentality that he coached 4 losing A-League GF sides with. It feels as if he's still considered a top coach because of that that famous ACL win - but that was 12 years ago. And in the second leg in Riyadh, WSW were very lucky to hold Al-Hilal scoreless.

I told you so looks like playing with the mentality of a side who believes they can win every game, no matter who it's against or what's at stake. It doesn't look like trying not to lose against a team that's at the USA's level or above. And that's Poppa's M.O. It might fit for a team like Curacao or Jordan, but it doesn't fit what we should aspire for as a football nation.
 
Captain Haddock said:
With time for the dust to settle, what's lurking about this morning more than a normal loss is this:

The way Poppa coaches is the antithesis of what the Socceroos should strive for, as the team representing Australia as a footballing nation. Japan have made no secret of their intention to win a WC by 2050 and knowing the Japanese kaizen mentality, I don't consider it a grandiose plan for them. They have their own hurdles to overcome as a squad, but I have faith they'll rectify this because of their attitude towards football. When Johnny Warren said I told you so, he wasn't talking about Australia simply making another World Cup tournament. He was talking about winning the whole thing.

Watching this squad under Poppa, does anybody get a sense of this ambition or mentality? I can't shake the feeling that under different management, we could be talking right now about the Socceroos 4 game winning streak and genuinely psyched for a chance at redemption against Argentina. Instead we made the USA look better than they are, didn't push ourselves against Paraguay and bowed out to an Egypt team whose star player was off his game.

Poppa rests his hopes on us getting lucky with a counter-attacking goal, running the clock out or penalties ending in our favour. It's the same mentality that he coached 4 losing A-League GF sides with. It feels as if he's still considered a top coach because of that that famous ACL win - but that was 12 years ago. And in the second leg in Riyadh, WSW were very lucky to hold Al-Hilal scoreless.

I told you so looks like playing with the mentality of a side who believes they can win every game, no matter who it's against or what's at stake. It doesn't look like trying not to lose against a team that's at the USA's level or above. And that's Poppa's M.O. It might fit for a team like Curacao or Jordan, but it doesn't fit what we should aspire for as a football nation.
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Interesting post, and it resonates a lot with how I've perceived the team this World Cup.

I'll admit, I moved away from AUS 25 years ago (to the EU) and only watch the national team at the World Cup. So I don't hear what Aussie pundits are saying or the media (it's all pay-to-read now, so no Aussie media for me). But my god, the Norwegian pundits over here were carving Australia up for low intensity and a complete lack of motivation to attack Egypt. They were on the back foot the entire game, chained to their own goalposts - Against an opponent who is, at best, on the same level as Australia, not a team to be scared of!

Looking at the squad, I'm surprised there was no faith in the attacking players' ability to score - So the plan was to have Irankunda alone up top with no service. Absolutely mental.

With that said, I haven't seen any team coached by Tony Popovic, but if this is how he sets up his teams, good lord, I hope we get a new coach before the next round of qualifiers. This was shockingly bad - no faith.
 
What keeps happening is we don't get to see our best be their best. They do it at club level and we have 16 guys who can form a very good team. If it's a good coach then we're in a talent dip and it's if a good group of players we then get a bad coach in.

Stop with the concrete booters and finally get the ball players our there and a coach with an attacking mindset.

We're set for defence and we have decent attacking options. The midfield not needs Yazbek, Balard and Robertson among others.
 
expatfollower said:
Interesting post, and it resonates a lot with how I've perceived the team this World Cup.

I'll admit, I moved away from AUS 25 years ago (to the EU) and only watch the national team at the World Cup. So I don't hear what Aussie pundits are saying or the media (it's all pay-to-read now, so no Aussie media for me). But my god, the Norwegian pundits over here were carving Australia up for low intensity and a complete lack of motivation to attack Egypt. They were on the back foot the entire game, chained to their own goalposts - Against an opponent who is, at best, on the same level as Australia, not a team to be scared of!

Looking at the squad, I'm surprised there was no faith in the attacking players' ability to score - So the plan was to have Irankunda alone up top with no service. Absolutely mental.

With that said, I haven't seen any team coached by Tony Popovic, but if this is how he sets up his teams, good lord, I hope we get a new coach before the next round of qualifiers. This was shockingly bad - no faith.
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Welcome to the forum! Agree that we were unable to find the back of the net and the plan to have Nestory Irankunda up front as a sole striker failed miserably given his lack of height, and Heather Garriock and Football Australia will definitely need to consider giving Popovic his marching orders heading into the next World Cup cycle especially if we want to be progressing further into the tournament.
 
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