I think this is the ideal situation for all parties. . Popovic is a decent coach. He has given the side a solid basis and whilst getting us qualified and producing an OK performance at the world cup has also done a reasonable job of introducing new players and rebuilding the squad. I'm not...

I'll consider it a win, especially considering where I was after matchday 1.

We've only got two windows. Playing higher quality is OK but it would be nice if we played a couple of games where the opposition will let us play the 3-4-3 more often than the 5-4-1. I suspect we may have trouble getting and keeping the ball against Brazil, even if they bring a side of...

Safely on page 1 roughly arounds the middle with only Stano being able to go past me.

They talk about an October window in the article but there isn't really one. It's a combined September/October window where we can play up to 4 matches. A game against Uruguay will at the latest be Tuesday Oct 6. Maybe as early as Friday Oct 2. I think we are prioritising gate receipts rather...

Not from day 1, only since they stopped giving him a gig on Insiders.

Yes, lets just ignore what the actual excise on beer is and go on a general rant.

I've said this before but you are really letting your dislike for Popovic cloud your judgement. I'm confident that at no point did the team decide that losing in the R32 was a good result and all of them were extremely disappointed that that happened. In hindsight we all look at the results and...

You don't think we showed fight? We had a good win against Turkey, got the result we needed against Paraguay quite comfortably (who went on to eliminate Germany) then matched Egypt and lost on Penalties and Egypt went on to give Argentina quite a fright. You are either very hard to please or...

I edited the post with a link to the ATO site that lists all the alcohol excise rates. It's higher on packaged beer (63.7 c/L) or about 24c per can. I've no idea of the other costs. Excise is small. GST is 1/11 of the cost. Every beer seller will have their own costs they need to cover, but the...

Whist excise on cigarettes is very high here the excise on beer isn't. It amounts to 43.4 c/L for draught beer in kegs (full strength). Thats about 18.5c per schooner. Accounting for some spillage its around 20c a schooner and around 27c per pint. I looked this up earlier this year when petrol...

Those of us that think that way still have the same desire for better results that you have. The main difference is that you seem to think it's the NT coach that is the problem, when it is actually player development that is the problem. There is an argument that its both, but the solution is...

Of the 4 you mentioned the closest we have to playing AFL with a round ball and no hands is Irankunda.

You must be disappointed at the way the Liberal party is destroying itself these days. They are where they ALP was about 10 years ago when it thought the Greens were an ally rather than a political foe. The Libs need to realise that ON aren't their friends or we will descend into a one party...

I suspect you are more aligned to the Howard/Abbott version of centre right rather than the Turnbull version of centre right.

Having players good on the ball is a quality of player thing. Our progress isn't being limited by the National Team Coach (whoever we may appoint). We can't match the success of Spain and Argentina because we don't have players of their quality (at least not in any huge number). Lets be honest...

Goes back to the French Revolution and the Legislative Assembly where more conservative members sat to the right and the more Liberal members sat to the left.

Q & A was an ordinary show made even worse when they had a few hosts that thought it was their job to answer the audience questions for the guests. Guests (if they were allowed to answer) were fairly balanced in views but the audience asking the questions tended to skew left. In any case for...

You must be a fair way off centre yourself to think that. The lefties think they are both right wing rags. Anyway we are all entitled to our opinions.

After reading a bit I thought I would give some general views of mine on a few of the issues raised. We don't need an Australian identity. We already have one. We produce footballers who have good physicality and a fighting spirit. That's our football identity, has been for a long time and won't...

As neither of those are print media it would probably be a bit messy trying to wipe your arse with a screen

ABC is pretty balanced. The AFR and SMH are centre right in opinion but do straight news. The Guardian is left wing. It tries to do straight news but usually fails.

When they were spoken about back then I think the word future always came before national coach. Pretty much the same as anyone talks about Milligan today.

Do you really think they would criticise the current coach publicly, even if they were privately looking for other options?

Happy so far. Have a few more triggers that lead us to press when we lose possession rather than the current rush back to defensive formation 95% of the time I'm probably not qualified to say as I don't have first hand knowledge of how the team is managed (assuming your talking about player...

You're probably right about that, which is why I added the bit about Popovic having to listen to them if one were appointed.

I think the view that Popovic is holding back our boys from performing at the level they are capable of isn't grounded in fact. If it were our boys would be performing at that high level week in week out for their clubs. I agree with the view that Popovic is a defensive and conservative coach...

I disagree with you. We punch well above our weight in terms of player ability, and have since Arnie took over. We have a weaker roster than most of the nations ranked around where we are. Our roster is more like a top 50 team than a top 30 team. Popovic only coaches this set of players a...

What was the solution?

No. I think Popovic is good at setting up his teams to defend. I'm sure he has a big say in who the assistants are. I'm suggesting that perhaps he needs an assistant that can bring something else to the coaching team, rather than more of what Popovic already provides.

Perhaps he needs a more attack minded assistant coach on the staff to help. The current assistants were all defenders or defensive mids.

How old are you? Did you even watch any of them play?

I agree with you. Popovic's formation in attack doesn't favour out and out wingers. His variation of it has the front line wide players inverting to fill the forward midfield roles and the wing backs running a mile upfield and back. That sort of role suits people like Metcalfe and Volpato (and...

I may have imagined it but I think I saw pace, great ball control and an accurate well selected pass in the first goal against Turkije.

Does anyone have any intel into why he didn't get game time?

Playing in junior competitions cap tied you for life in those days so players like Viduka were tied in that manner. The restrictions eased in the 2000's allowing Tim Cahill to represent us. Clubs in those days put a lot of pressure on players not to play in friendlies, and also not to travel to...

I'm only 6 behind with 8 matches to go. Might have to take upsets in all matches and hope for the best.

In Farina's last tournament with us just before he got sacked we managed to score 5 goals against Germany and Argentina before running out of legs against Tunisia. It's not as if we had no attack before Guus. If anything he tightened up our defence a bit.

He selected 3 players under 25 in his WC squad, only 2 of whom were making their debuts under him (Kennedy and Milligan). He was a very good coach (his record speaks for itself). His part time role and short term appointment wasn't aimed at, or responsible for, any long term development or...

He coached us for less than a year part time. What is this platform you speak of?

Thats why I clarified that with a proviso that my memory may be faulty on that one. I remembered that he was more than just a 2018 WC fill in but couldn't remember for how long.

I hope not but I've seen it happen to sportsmen now and then. If Bos's injury is severe enough to keep him out for 6 months or more we may need him.

Nothing, but I've myself believed for a while that our cycle ends at the Asian Cup (although my opinion will change on that if they move the Asian Cup back a year as is expected). Lets look at what's happened in the past. For our first Asian Cup Hiddink's contract expired and he was also...

The two main proviso with Behich are that 1) He doesn't retire from international football and 2) Age doesn't quickly catch up with him as it does to a lot of players.

Lots used to say the same about Mitch Duke when he was clearly the best central striker we had at the time. A lot used to say that about Mark Viduka in those days as well and he's the best striker we ever produced. Toure deserved his selection, and hopefully he can become a solid striker for us...

Not from your posts, it was a rant aimed in general at a lot of others. Apologies for implying otherwise.

It's not to me. Olympics don't require mandatory release of players and is really a second tier tournament these days. The Asian Cup is the priority.

Thats true. What we do have is a lot of players of similar ability. We've only got a couple that really stand out to me. Thats why squad selection is always controversial.

They must have all been in the two shootouts I watched him in then.

Popovic likes his wider forwards (I won't call them wingers) to invert leaving room for the wing backs to move forward. Irankunda hasn't come to terms with that just yet and prefers a wider position. It's one of the reasons Bos didn't come forward a lot in the Turkey game but when teamed up with...

He was more like a Circati with 5-6 years more experience under his belt. A highly skilled player who rarely made a mistake.

It doesn't bother me either. What does bother me is some people seem to think that we have some flowing attacking style that is part of our DNA when its clearly not. You are right that it's something that we need to develop and improve on. Right now we have top 15 defence, and top 60 attack.

Ange may have had an underlying philosophy but don't forget that during much of his time were a bunch of toothless tigers in attack with goals either coming from Cahill or set pieces. We held the ball more but weren't really creative. In the end he left us in much the same position as he found...

Did you watch the games? We have a different setup in attack to defence. The amount of time that we spend in 5-4-1 is proportional to the amount of time the opponent holds the ball. We transition to a more forward oriented formation when we have the ball. Our attacking formation is more 3-2-2-3...

We have never "expected" to get to the R16. It's always been a goal rather than an expectation. If it's your expectation then you've lost a bit of touch with football reality.

I've been playing long enough to know my limitations and just enjoy the social aspect these days. Practice is boring. It does, we can, and we should do so after the Asian Cup.

You confuse with par with goa (at least the way I mean the terms). Par is what you expect. A goal is what you want to achieve. Par is what we got, what I wanted was better than that.

We can aim as high as we want, but finishing around where our ranking is, is by definition a par performance. Nothing wrong with aiming for better. Every time I play golf I aim to get a birdie, but the reality of my ability is that I'll either get bogie or double bogie on each hole. The way the...

My point was that we weren't able to afford him. It nearly sent us broke.

It nearly sent us broke when we didn't qualify. Our national team had nearly 18 months off and we required players returning from Europe to play for us to pay their own fare to Australia.

I disagree with you on a couple of points. All we have are a group of youngsters with potential. Only Bos and Circati are playing at a reasonably high level week in week out. They need to develop at club level. It's not the job of a National Team coach to develop them. Apart from tournaments...

For what we are what we achieved is an average result.

He also isn't really suited to how Popovic wants his "wingers" to play either as he generally prefers them to invert leaving space for the wing backs. Popovic's "wingers" suit people like Metcalfe and Volpato more ie an attacking midfielder.

If you read the forum you find that pretty much everyone here thinks that he doesn't like to change the style of play he prefers his teams to play. Some want him out now, some think we should move on after the Asian Cup. That's about the only difference. I'm not sure I see anyone here advocating...

If he wins the Asian Cup he will have no problem getting a job in Asia somewhere decent. The rest of your post is frankly speaking a rant not based in reality.

Supporters are always a bit emotional and volatile. I've always thought (and stated in these forums) that Popa and Arnold before him did a very good job with what we had and that we should stay with Popovic until the Asian Cup. Both of them had a group of players that on paper should be no more...

While you squad (depending on injuries and form) isn't too far from the mark you know that Popa's favourite attacking formation is a back 3, 2 reasonably defensive mids, overlapping wingbacks, inverted wingers and a single central striker. You also know that when we lose the ball he prefers a...

This is exactly the question we should be asking after the Asian Cup (even if we win it).

I don't think you have evaluated Egypt correctly. They aren't Bangladesh, they are good side of similar ability to nations like Turkey, Paraguay and the USA that we played in the group stage and Japan who we played in the qualifiers. Sure we could have gotten a much tougher draw in the R32, but...

Yes it's a par performance. The luck of the draw gave us 4 opponents ranked similar to us. No superstar teams and no minnows. We had a 1-2-1 performance against teams of similar strength. We came in ranked in the 20's, went out with that sort of ranking and where a team of that ranking should...

We might not have got what we (as supporters) wanted, but we played 4 sides ranked similar to us for a win, a loss and 2 draws going out on penalties. That's about what most neutrals would have expected from us and is a par performance.

I think you have it the wrong way around. While the calendar has the Asian Cup six months after the World Cup it's the World Cup, despite being the more important tournament, that is the rehearsal for the Asian Cup. The Asian Cup is the end of the 4 year cycle, not the beginning of a new one. I...

I'm thinking that as well.

Pim was a very good coach and did quite well with us. Van Marwijk "fucked off" because he was an interum coach who was available after being sacked by Saudi Arabia and the FFA didn't want to or couldn't afford to pay out the rest of Arnie's contract with Sydney FC. Popa has a pretty good...

I don't think Irankunda is a lone central striker at this stage of his development but he is young and I think with more experience he could handle that role if needed. At least he was able to keep a few defenders on him leaving a little more space for others.

Could have worked. Viduka was quite good when playing as a striker pair but we mostly used a single central striker in those days (still do).

We can always argue about fringe selections but I don't think anyone who missed the squad was anything other than a fringe selection at this point in time. Hopefully a couple improve to the point where they aren't soon. With one or two expected retirements and/or age catching up with a couple of...

We made the last 32 of the World Cup. That was looking pretty shaky when he took over nearly 2 years ago. While his tactics are a bit dour (not dire) I think his selections have proven to be pretty sound overall.

These games give me the opportunity to visit the only 2 major football stadiums I haven't been to It will be interesting to see how they compare. I also got my NRL Grand Final tickets yesterday in a spot I've never been at before (3 rows from the front of the top deck) so it will be a busy week...

I think Wilkshire knows a bit more about it than Basheer. If you are going for 1974 players then Alston is the one to pick rather than Abonyi. No way is Aloisi a better centre forward than Viduka. Aloisi was only ever a replacement for Viduka when Viduka was unavailable.

I'm down on the fence 2 rows back.

It told me that all tickets were currently being processed by other users. Maybe some will timeout or not go through with it. The graphic showed tickets available but I couldn't cart any at the time. (about 2:15)

I got my Brisbane ticket in the expensive section in row 2 of section 320-1. For Townsville I'm in s227 Row N. Having never been to either I've no Idea if they are great tickets or not. Row 2 sometimes worries when they put a lot of stuff on the sidelines.

I just checked tickets for both games. Plenty of seats available for the Townsville game but couldn't even get a single for the Brisbane game. Glad I got mine yesterday.

I've no idea, but I'm staying 2 nights in Townsville and 3 in Brisbane. Haven't visited either city yet so don't know what to expect.

Decided to bite the bullet and go to these games keeping up my streak of attending home games. Discovered hotels in Townsville are booking out very fast and prices in Brisbane are quite high on a Tuesday night. Staying within walking distance of both stadiums (which isn't that far for an old...

I may be being a little unkind to Tillio but I've always thought of him as half a footballer. He loves to attack and is quite good and entertaining with that aspect of his game but when the other team has the ball they his side are usually a man down in defence. Not sure about Arzani. He has...