melbcityguy said:

Yeah I was six when in 97 so had no idea it was on. I was listening to graham Arnold speaking about it and thought I should check it out

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how'd you go?

melbcityguy said:

Yeah we dominated the match and it was good to see players I've never actually watched play.

Two really unlucky goals stung especially the first one we should have cleared it for a corner. I wonder if things would have been different if we made the 98 or 02 world cup? In the end we got 05 and you can see how much it means to us all.

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it did make it all the sweeter to qualify

it unfortunately meant that we all saw a lot less of the gg than we would have liked to

melbcityguy said:

Yeah we dominated the match and it was good to see players I've never actually watched play.

Two really unlucky goals stung especially the first one we should have cleared it for a corner. I wonder if things would have been different if we made the 98 or 02 world cup? In the end we got 05 and you can see how much it means to us all.

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any players standout to you as better/worse than you imagine or you wish you had today?

I think that game in 2001 v france that ended 1-1 was Harry Kewell's most impressive roos game I've seen so far. Looked on another level, even with that calibre of opposition we faced

NicCarBel said:

Are all the confeds cup games on FIFA+ ?
I feel like I’ve seen them on there

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I would love it if that's the case! I just searched Australia mexico which is a game I'd really like to find from the confederation cup but no cigar

NicCarBel said:

Just found the 2001 semi and third place matches (Japan and Brazil), and the 1997 semi and final (Uruguay and Brazil), and all 3 group games highlights only from 2017 (Germany, Chile and Cameroon)

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really need to find access to those games. The best of harry kewell is probably the level of the best of del piero/zidane etc and a level up from viduka at club level too

NicCarBel said:

I did find the Australia v Brazil 1997 Group Game - just making a placeholder post for if/when finding any of the other games

1997 Confederations Cup
Group Games
#1 - Australia v Mexico - ????
#2 - Australia v Brazil -
#3 - Australia v Saudi Arabia - ????
Semi Final on FIFA+
Final on FIFA+

2001 Confederations Cup
Group Games
#1 - Australia v Mexico - ????
#2 - Australia v France - ????
#3 - Australia v South Korea - ????
Semi Final on FIFA+
Third Place Playoff on FIFA+

2005 Confederations Cup
Australia v Germany - ????
Australia v Argentina - ????
Australia v Tunisia - ????

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Wish I could find those games against mexico!

I download old games and watch them on flights. I'm now up to watching some games for a second time and I'm sorry to say but Farina was incompetent as a coach and we deserved to be knocked out by uruguay in 2001

Against Uruguay we played kewell at 2nd striker but he always drifted out wide and rarely came central. I know he sometimes plays 2nd striker at club level, but he is surrounded by players that can compensate for the fact that he liked to spend a lot of time wide on the pitch. Okon and Skoko were pretty good at breaking lines in buildup, but they were often too slow to move forward for at least one of them to play in the space between viduka and the midfield. Vidmar was at left back with lazaridis playing wing but Vidmar did not like bombing forward and played like a flat fullback. The effect was that our formation was the dreaded U-shape with viduka completely isolated and no plausible plan to get the ball to someones feet in a dangerous situation, we looked like this
-------------------------------Schwarzer---------------------------------
----------------------moore-------murphy------------Vidmar-------
----Muscat--Emerton--Skoko-Okon--------Lazaridis-------
------------------------------------------------------------Kewell-----------
-----------------------------------Viduka-----------------------------------

Vidmar is absolutely wasted here since it makes a weird asymmetric defense, if he got redcarded it wouldnt' have hurt us at all. Murphy looked super shakey. We should have gone something like this (sticking with Farina's preferred 442 diamond formation)


-------------------------------Schwarzer------------------------------------------
-------------------------Moore---------Vidmar-----------------------------------
-Muscat--------------------------------------------------------Lazaridis-------
----Emerton-------Skoko---------Okon----------------Kewell-------------
----------------------------------Aloisi------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------Viduka-----------------------------------------------

You absolutely need someone to occupy that space in between viduka and the midfield since Skoko and Okon both seem to be more dms than cam and will be unlikely to bomb forward into a genuine diamond. Have Kewell as a genuine left winger backed up by lazaridis.

LFC said:

I'd say many we're sorry Farina took the helm don't be sorry he wasn't up to NT level and especially with the crop he had at the time.
Even though Farina wasn't the worst he wasn't the right fit - got a 58.6% win ration but thats not good enough.
Re Dukes why in part i get frustrated people judge his lack of goal return - that 5yrs of Farina and he was a loan duck countless games.
Sad as.
Look at those players names and careers compared to today (ok more competition but still they came form outback never never land) then what they achieved once Guus came along bang R16 WC.

Thanks NCB for that early game to view.

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It really was a waste wasnt it

The return leag we were pretty shaky at the back. Vidmar in place of murphy and lazaridis at lb probably helps a lot but i think lucas neill to cb to partner moore was a real game changer

Australia v Mexico at the confederation cup in 1997 was just uploaded by Footbalia! I've put the link in the op

Reckon this is easily in our top 10 wins and performances of all time

Just found the 1998 OFC final with New zealand and added it to the list

thanks Alex Mad. Some good fun watching that later for me

Kind of crazy how many times we were playing a b or c squad during that godlen period from 97-2012 where we had a bunch of players in top leagues getting regular game time

Makes it suck that a lot of games during that era arent available

I just fixed the link to the hungary game in 2000 which has kewell and viduka in the xi