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Poppa Out

I don’t mind domestic coaches as a policy. Unless you can get a Hidink or someone of that stature, it’s usually not even worth looking. Otherwise you end up with garbage like Verbeek, Holger or BVM. Might as well give the locals a go.

It’s just a shame Popa isn’t much chop. We’ve had good luck with Ange and then Arnie. Popovic feels like a step down, at least in terms of tactics and playing style. I simply don’t trust him. I didn’t trust Arnie either, but he had an amazing World Cup. It’s surreal how much he got out of that team. He deserved his coach of the tournament award.

What happens after Popa? I can only think of Milligan, but he’s probably not ready. I would like Muscat, but he doesn’t seem interested. Who else is there? Aloisi? Corica? Kewell? Apart from Muscat, the cupboard’s a bit bare atm…

Up to now, there was a clear if implicit succession plan. It was always going to be Arnie after Ange, and Popa after Arnie. Now it’s not so clear.
 
derider said:
I don’t mind domestic coaches as a policy. Unless you can get a Hidink or someone of that stature, it’s usually not even worth looking. Otherwise you end up with garbage like Verbeek, Holger or BVM. Might as well give the locals a go.

It’s just a shame Popa isn’t much chop. We’ve had good luck with Ange and then Arnie. Popovic feels like a step down, at least in terms of tactics and playing style. I simply don’t trust him. I didn’t trust Arnie either, but he had an amazing World Cup. It’s surreal how much he got out of that team. He deserved his coach of the tournament award.

What happens after Popa? I can only think of Milligan, but he’s probably not ready. I would like Muscat, but he doesn’t seem interested. Who else is there? Aloisi? Corica? Kewell? Apart from Muscat, the cupboard’s a bit bare atm…

Up to now, there was a clear if implicit succession plan. It was always going to be Arnie after Ange, and Popa after Arnie. Now it’s not so clear.
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Our (esp. current)locals are mainly shit - that’s why it’s a problem. And don’t get me started on the whole pseudo-One Nation shtick of “foreign coaches don’t understand our culture/mentality”..👎🏼

Furthermore, one only ends up w/garbage like Pim/Holger/BVM due to not looking far&wide enough. No other reason💡
 
BA81 said:
Our (esp. current)locals are mainly shit - that’s why it’s a problem. And don’t get me started on the whole pseudo-One Nation shtick of “foreign coaches don’t understand our culture/mentality”..👎🏼

Furthermore, one only ends up w/garbage like Pim/Holger/BVM due to not looking far&wide enough. No other reason💡
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Yeah I said this on Reddit yesterday. Other than Big Ange, who else is good enough? We’ve got some good coaches at big Asian clubs but they need European jobs first.
 
derider said:
What happens after Popa? I can only think of Milligan, but he’s probably not ready. I would like Muscat, but he doesn’t seem interested. Who else is there? Aloisi? Corica? Kewell? Apart from Muscat, the cupboard’s a bit bare atm…
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I don't mind Harry Kewell becoming the new Socceroos head coach especially since his bold, attacking style of play means that we can play entertaining football as opposed to being bored to death by Popaball and its ultra-defensive park the bus mentality and he has experience head coaching in Europe.
 
My main issue with local coaches is that they all have different ideas and views that don't align with long term growth of the Socceroos. It's very much focused on immediate results and not on developing a long term sustainable pathway that produces talent to sustain us for a longer period of time.

I'm not saying that only an International coach can provide this, but they are more likely to be able to develop this over our local coaches.
 
HonestSpursFan said:
Yeah I said this on Reddit yesterday. Other than Big Ange, who else is good enough? We’ve got some good coaches at big Asian clubs but they need European jobs first.
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Harry Kewell would likely be the best fit to become the new Socceroos head coach apart from Ange Postecoglou but if we don't have any local head coaches who can get results then ultimately Football Australia will have to opt for foreign head coaching personnel instead.
 
rebelliousfeminist974 said:
I don't mind Harry Kewell becoming the new Socceroos head coach especially since his bold, attacking style of play means that we can play entertaining football as opposed to being bored to death by Popaball and its ultra-defensive park the bus mentality and he has experience head coaching in Europe.
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The flipside is that his coaching career, despite how well-intentioned his ⚽️ing philosophy, to put it generously leaves too much to be desired still. As w/Millsy, I’d gladly consider him in 7-10 years’ time provided he’s won silverware at club-level somewhere decent by then.
 
SocceroosFan84 said:
Milligan is still very inexperienced as a coach.

Yes he did unbelievable stuff in winning the Jets their first title in almost two decades but this was his first year as a senior coach, thrusting him into the national team set-up now would be a nonsense.
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If he was Brazilian and was coaching Sao Paulo or something they 100% would make him coach.
 
Encomium said:
It's mediocrity, that's what you are saying is par, or what we should aim for as par.
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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 handicap works a stableford score of 30 or more is a reasonable effort commensurate with my abilities.
 
Alex M said:
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 handicap works a stableford score of 30 or more is a reasonable effort commensurate with my abilities.
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We've gone from getting to the round of 16 was the goal and getting out of a much harder group, to getting to the round of 32 and getting out of a much easier group as one of three teams in four?
 
Alex M said:
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 handicap works a stableford score of 30 or more is a reasonable effort commensurate with my abilities.
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I bet you spend some time practicing your swing in the loungeroom or on the range. And when you shank it, you go back and reassess what you did, try to make it better.

Why can't the same apply to the coach. We go back and reassess where we went wrong and fix it. If the coach is where we went wrong, then nothing wrong in wanting to fix that.
 
Encomium said:
We've gone from getting to the round of 16 was the goal and getting out of a much harder group, to getting to the round of 32 and getting out of a much easier group as one of three teams in four?
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Now you’re just being absurd. Why would you think this group was easier than the last one? I don’t agree with that at all. This was actually a pretty tough group in which we did well to finish second. Take out France, and we got quite lucky with our 22 group. Denmark and Tunisia both turned out wayward and impotent. Paraguay was much better organised and much tougher to break down than either, and Turkey had the far better players on paper. USA was the host with all the advantages that confers. Plus we didn’t finish third. We were second, so why even bring up the three teams in four thing?

We made the knockout rounds again. Doesn’t matter that it was r32. The format changed since the last one. It’s actually harder to get to r16 now. Why do you not take this into consideration?

It obviously wasn’t a failure. It’s sad because it feels like a missed opportunity, but once we take the emotion out of it, it becomes pretty clear that we did relatively well. It was a decent World Cup overall. It could have been sensational but ‘decent’ isn’t bad for now. It’s fine to be ambitious, but it also helps to be realistic.
 
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Encomium said:
We've gone from getting to the round of 16 was the goal and getting out of a much harder group, to getting to the round of 32 and getting out of a much easier group as one of three teams in four?
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This is due to change of format.

The fact that we played teams in our group that were roughly around out ranking, including a massive home side, the fact we came 2nd in our group, the performance was above par, we then played a team roughly the same ranking as them & played out a fairly even 1-1 draw & lost on penalties was a par performance. I was more than happy with the performance, yes wanted & could have got more but proud.

Now, what we should be debating is the style of play we played, which was very defensive, structured, it was not a pretty sight & we had a decent team, no stand outs like in the GG era with Kewell & Dukes & really missing a player of Mooy or Bresc level in midfield, but a very good young potentially strong to work with side, but as Milligan says, how do us Aussies want to play, quite obvious most do not like the Poppa style despite it's results.
 
rebelliousfeminist974 said:
I don't mind Harry Kewell becoming the new Socceroos head coach especially since his bold, attacking style of play means that we can play entertaining football as opposed to being bored to death by Popaball and its ultra-defensive park the bus mentality and he has experience head coaching in Europe.
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There is something wrong with Kewell. It seems he’s just not good enough as a head coach. He gets sacked after a couple of months wherever he goes.

And apart from his extremely underwhelming stint in Japan, he’s only coached in League 2 and the conference (where he had no success at all). I just don’t think he’s an option. He has to prove he can coach before he comes into consideration regardless of his philosophy.
 
derider said:
Now you’re just being absurd. Why would you think this group was easier than the last one? I don’t agree with that at all. This was actually a pretty tough group in which we did well to finish second. Take out France, and we got quite lucky with our 22 group. Denmark and Tunisia both turned out wayward and impotent. Paraguay was much better organised and much tougher to break down than either, and Turkey had the far better players on paper. USA was the host with all the advantages that confers. Plus we didn’t finish third. We were second, so why even bring up the three teams in four thing?

We made the knockout rounds again. Doesn’t matter that it was r32. The format changed since the last one. It’s actually harder to get to r16 now. Why do you not take this into consideration?

It obviously wasn’t a failure overall. It’s sad because it feels like a missed opportunity, but once we take the emotion out of it, it becomes pretty clear that we did well overall. It was a decent World Cup. It could have been sensational but ‘decent’ isn’t bad for now. It’s fine to be ambitious, but you also need to be realistic.
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Our last group were Denmark, France and Tunisia. France like the USA were the powerhouse in the group, Denmark were perennial performers at the WC, Tunisia weren't bad. Turkey it was their first WC in decades, same for Paraguay.
Of which we got out of the Qatar group to the round of 16. The FFA have said they evaluate success on getting to the round of 16.
It seems like regression of ambition, or setting a standard of mediocrity to me.
 
derider said:
There is something wrong with Kewell. It seems he’s just not good enough as a head coach. He gets sacked after a couple of months wherever he goes.

And apart from his extremely underwhelming stint in Japan, he’s only coached in League 2 and the conference (where he had no success at all). I just don’t think he’s an option. He has to prove he can coach before he comes into consideration regardless of his philosophy.
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Harry Kewell is running well with Hanoi FC though and he has experience coaching in Europe albeit in the English lower leagues which other head coaches like Mark Milligan and Steve Corica are lacking in.
 
Encomium said:
We've gone from getting to the round of 16 was the goal and getting out of a much harder group, to getting to the round of 32 and getting out of a much easier group as one of three teams in four?
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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.
 
Alex M said:
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.
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The FFA expected to get to the round of 16 in the past, now it's changed to a lowered bar?
 
rebelliousfeminist974 said:
Harry Kewell would likely be the best fit to become the new Socceroos head coach apart from Ange Postecoglou but if we don't have any local head coaches who can get results then ultimately Football Australia will have to opt for foreign head coaching personnel instead.
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good grief, rf, how many clubs have to fire Kewell for you to change your mind?

My pick would be Aloisi, if we have to go local.
 
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