The FFA did it before to Holger. Chinese Super League ends first week of November and there could be a couple of coaches that interest the FFA free by then. 3 month prep for the AC and then a contract for the next WC cycle.

Primarily rugby website with user submitted articles created in 2026. I’m going to guess this website is from the remnants of theroar.

Vague memories of attending that friendly, if it is the one I am thinking of. Homebush, Scott Mac should’ve scored and I think Kisnorbo made the error that led to the goal, or possibly the keeper (Jones?). Long time ago …

Aussie front three plus Rawlings. Might need to follow them this season.

Couple of people on this thread gonna run out and buy those jeans 😆

I really liked the look of the Colombian away kit and thought that if we replaced the dark blue with dark green, then the black shirts, Fluor socks and trim, it would make a great 2nd kit for us.

I think the MLS is about to blow up after the WC. There will be much greater local interest, investment, higher salaries and improvement in imported players. Any Aussies regularly starting will be doing well. It will be a better league than Scotland, Denmark etc. Now is a good time for young...

Does anyone with a better knowledge of West Asian football know why Herve Renard was sacked by Saudi before the WC? He was my preferred in place of Poppa after Arnie.

One of the reasons I’d like to see us go to a back four is that it enables Circati to move to RB. He’s never going to be a RWB, but he’s played RB before for Parma and the Roos. If it’s a matter of getting your best 11 on the park, then a back line could look like this Bos - Herrington -...

I hope he gets his career back on track and I hope no more Aussies ever go to Portsmouth FC.

Think Spain might have this.

I’m with you. Would’ve preferred to see Younis have his minutes and hope he never plays for us again.

We played a system that isolated the striker and required them to physically take up space, bounce the ball back to the midfield or wider players and occupy the centre backs. I’m certain Toure was struggling with the injury from the last games for Norwich and we all know now that Irankunda isn’t...

One season in the A-league followed by a move to the Bundesliga has not been a successful path for quite a number of Aussies, however none of them had successfully performed in 3 WC matches. Maybe (hopefully) Okon is the one to break the cycle.

You have a football blog! I’ll check it out

Who’s playing where again?

African teams will be even harder to beat in years to come as they get more and more expat players from Europe who come through European academies rather than African.

I think Waddingham was the big hope of that generation, but who knows what he’ll be like after 18 months of injury. Goodwin is probably the next best hope and possibly Botic if he can return from injury.

Leading with a 14 point gap just past halfway in the season. 17 games in, 13 to go.

Rivne suffered a drone attack in May and a number of people died. What’s he doing?

I wondered that too, but then I thought I was getting confused with his Spurs role, where he was 100% the set piece coach. The one time we did veer from the plan, we got a goal off their defenders head.

Skoko under the wall and Aloisi taking the keeper out.

Hoping for a few strikers to come through - Goodwin, Botic to return, maybe even a Waddingham sighting if we’re lucky.

Looks like Rhys Bozinovski and Josh Nisbet will also both be playing Netherlands Div 2.

I love that we’ve got a growing number of coaches to follow too, at least 9 head coaches by my count. I think Corica will be our only head coach in Japan, is that right?

I don’t know exactly what counts as a bolter, but I haven’t seen Cameron Peupion mentioned yet, but I think he could play 25+ games in the Erdivisie this year, which puts him in the frame for the Socceroos squad.

Hoping the next three years follows the same upward trajectory as the last three years.

We’re possibly in a better position to make predictions because the last u20 team are starting to break through at club level and they will likely be the additions to the next squad - guys like Younis, Okon, Bennie, Caputo, Leonard, Pearman, hopefully Badolato, the centre back for Victory. One...

Haven’t seen any news on Max Balard, looks like he’s destined to be playing Div 2 in the Netherlands, which is worse than the Aleague.

1. Jaylan Pearman, whether on loan or at QPR. 2. Daniel Bennie but not sure if he counts as a bolter. 3. Archie Goodwin will thrive with the wingers/mids Charlotte are signing. 4. Keen to see RBR in his second season. I don’t think Brondby used wingers last season but they have a new coach, so...

Ahhh, I feel like the spoilsport every four years when this thread comes up. In 2010 we were talking about Valeri, Vidosic, whether Holman would get better and if Kewell could last another four. Instead in 2014 we got a bunch of guys who had between 0-1 years in the Aleague like (off the top of...

Imagine everyone’s frustration when he set the team up this way during qualifiers against teams ranked 90th in the world while playing at home. Completely gutless. Poppa’s whole schtick was “we need to play this way to progress in the knockout rounds of the WC.” Look how that turned out. We...

And we never even looked liked scoring from it. This needs to be looked at as much as the penalty choices. I’d like to know who made the decision to take corners like this. Poppa as Head Coach? Did someone take on the set piece duties? Given our height, the number of wasted corners was a disaster.

It was the last thing we got right

The Socceroos are getting annihilated online from other countries for the penalty shootout, swapping keepers how bad Ryan was and especially having two CBs take pens. Also getting hammered for playing boring, cowardly defensive football, just like every other game we played too.

Truthfully though, Toure has always been injury prone and struggled to put more than 4-5 games together.

Question - can anyone recall us actually having a shot on target in this game?

Yes, that’s the post I was quoting. It could be like Bos to Belgium, where he gets gametime in the shop window. Kid could end up at Ajax!

Okon to mid level Eredivise would be the perfect move imo. Hope it happens.

It ain’t gonna work at all. I wanted to see him coach the Japanese national team.

The sad thing is any evolution of Poppa’s coaching style to be more attack focused will end up looking like Pim Verbeek’s teams. I hope he just heads off to China or something. Fingers crossed someone like Muscat comes next, otherwise someone from overseas.

Was he grabbing his knee? I’ll have to watch the reply, but I thought he was grabbing his thigh.

Could you imagine if after Metcalfe’s goal, someone told you that was as good as it would get for the next 3 games? Two good goals to start with and then 300 mins of crap for the rest of the tournament. This is on par with the 2010 Socceroos in terms of how boring, dreary and unexciting they...

Ultimately Trewin was 4th choice RWB and playing out of position. We lost Lewis Miller, Italiano and Bos to injury. However I agree that our depth is weak when we get to this stage of tournaments, but primarily in attack. In the last two games there was no one to bring off the bench capable of...

Don’t know what all the Norwich fuss was about. He was anonymous all WC. However the good thing about having him on the pitch is that he enables Irankunda to move to the sideline. I’d like to see how Archie Goodwin goes in the MLS and if he starts regularly, he should be in the squad.

I have a feeling Poppa has zero idea how to coach attacking football, as in, he simply has no idea how. He’ll be very focused on where defenders should stand, when to press, when to double team, when to jockey and when to go for the tackle, but in attack I think he just shrugs and says “ try to...

I know everyone will protect him, want to lay off him and talk about how other players should put their hand up, but his penalty was atrocious. The coaches should have some idea of who can strike the ball and who can’t. It’s like if Okon stepped up, everyone knows that’s not his game. I knew...

He’s so polite but you can tell he’s fuming

He just had to go down the middle. I can’t recall a more off target penalty. Benny Elias wishes he took that kick in the ‘89 GF for Balmain.

Tommy Oar too. He hates this defensive shit.

Couldn’t we have just grabbed Jedinak off the bench and subbed him on? Throw him in Degenek’s shirt

Souttar’s penalty was the worst I’ve seen this World Cup.

I would’ve trusted Beach to stop at least one of those. They were not unsaveable.

Worried he has a touch of the Arzani’s about him with no end product. Let’s see what else he can do.

Yeah get rid of him. Negative hoofball merchant. Shitty team to watch. Only goal in the last three games was an own goal. Defensive mindset but we shipped two to the USA and one to Egypt in the first ten minutes.

Herrington’s was the weakest penalty I’ve ever seen, keeper barely had to move

Poppa massively fucked this one up. Hrustic our free kick specialist doesn’t take one? Toure our striker? Herrington instead of Behich? Ryan for his first minutes instead of Beach? I’m angry

He picked the first one. If only he wasn’t the shortest international keeper.

Why the fuck we’re Herrington and Souttar taking penalties. Their kicks have been atrocious.

Matt’s not going to save a thing

See you on the other side 🫡

Pucker up

Give it to Beachy !!!!!!!! Why !!!!

Noooooooo !!!!!!!!!!!!! No one wants Ryan

At least hitting the wall is a change to a back post floater

We’re giving away so much. Fittest team my ass

Cheering for the clock now

Next one is gonna be a card

I’d like Poppa to be fired into space

Have you seen our set pieces?

This ref hates us

Mabil!! Where’s he been. Completely forgot about him

Volpato off instead of Metcalfe in a do or die game is inexplicable to me

Who replaces Metcalfe? Have we got anyone left? Okon to come on in midfield? I don’t see who scores for us.

We’ve got nothing to bring off the bench at all.

Beach!

What the hell was that Toure

Need to sub Metcalfe but Vellupillay is the only option we’ve got

Should have been Metcalfe

Toure!! Where the hell have you been

Can’t believe I’m saying this but Hrustic is actually a good call

All World Cup for us

Now watch the play acting stop

Egyptian no.3 is out best attacking weapon

We’re crossing to Behich now

Well that’s a promising start

Australian football is cursed.

Either Geria or Circati to RB and Burgess on. He won’t make any changes to the frontline and it will be rinse and repeat of something that hasn’t worked for the last 2 1/2 games

Thanks, but you haven’t watched the Socceroos recently have you.

We’ve resorted to crossing to a 5’7 midget who’s never scored with his head. Yengi on for Metcalfe, Irankunda out wide. We’re fucked. Toure is obviously injured.

He ain’t getting up from that

What the hell was that Behich

He’s had a week off

We’re going to go scoreless again, I can feel it

There is no plan.

For the last two games we haven’t had a recognised striker. I almost want to see Duke out there.

Omg Behich. Needs a walking frame. Our corners are total shit. Poppa as a coach should have changed something than floating it to the far post.

Irvines been shot. nessy is gonna get swallowed at CF

We’re going to struggle to score 2.

Haven’t seen it reported here but Eli Adams has left the Newcastle Jets for Gamba Osaka.

Partly, but if he can have a season anything like RBR did, who played 37 games, then it’s a great introduction to English football. I’m sure RBR developed a lot more than guys like Adamson or Pearman who rode the bench in the Championship. Both Luongo and Burgess played League One when they were...

I’d be very interested to know which leagues Aussies move on from the most, to move to a higher league. I can’t actually recall too many recent moves from the Erdivisie onto something better, maybe Ryan, Hrustic, Iredale, then back to Holman Oar about 10 years ago. I think Scotland would see...

Poppa set us up with this painful style at the start of his tenure with the promise that this was the best way for us to progress in the knockout stages of tournaments. We also have an opponent who is about the weakest level we could conceivably hope for after progressing out of the groups at...

Would prefer Irankunda to stay in England, but other than his goal against Turkey he’s been anonymous.