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Poppa Out

Robbos said:
Now, I respect your analysis especially in your knowledge of youth football, also not sure what this ELO is (my bad), but while not at GG level, we did produce some decent players during this time Mooy, top 2-3 midfielders ever, Rogic, probably our most skillful midfielder, Luongo, high ceiling but poor decisions & injuries curtail him, but he did finally play EPL, Kruse also played Bunesliga & Leckie also Bunesliga is a socceroos legend.
We also won our only trophy during this time, we failed twice with the GG.
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I think home ground advantage is huge, recall qatar won twice at home their asian cup. We did produce some decentish players, but the gg produced 8 players that had 6 or more seasons of regular football in the top 5 leagues (i cap it at 25 games in a season) our best since has managed 3. I believe circati volpato and bos are the same standard as the gg (ignoring kewell who was a jump up from the rest). They are all from 2 birth years, with some luck we get players of that quality every birthyear and return to where we were. I dont think there is a great mystery, we produced players when nsl and a league clubs had underage teams/academies and failed to do so when we didnt. If the national youth league came back with a full home and away season, the remaining gap between the gg and todays youth probably closes entirely. So unfortunately poor youth development was a self inflicted wound imo.

For the other points:

There are players in every generation that could have done better if not for poor decisions or injuries, including the gg and generations before it.

Elo is a bit more of a rigorous calculation of rankings compared to fifa rankings
 
I'm not a big fan of Poppa and his selections against the US were poor, but he has objectively had an excellent tournament so far.

This is tournament football. The objective at each stage is to qualify for the next stage, which we did in the group stage over strong UEFA and Comnebol teams, which is a really good result. We were the better team against Paraguay - we had more of the ball, the better chances and we shut them out. They then went on and knocked out Germany.

We have played 6 halves of football in this tournament and only conceded in one. That should hold us in good stead going into the Egypt game.
 
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 the World Cup.

Ok Poppa, prove yourself right, it’s your time to shine.
 
grazorblade said:
I think home ground advantage is huge, recall qatar won twice at home their asian cup. We did produce some decentish players, but the gg produced 8 players that had 6 or more seasons of regular football in the top 5 leagues (i cap it at 25 games in a season) our best since has managed 3. I believe circati volpato and bos are the same standard as the gg (ignoring kewell who was a jump up from the rest). They are all from 2 birth years, with some luck we get players of that quality every birthyear and return to where we were. I dont think there is a great mystery, we produced players when nsl and a league clubs had underage teams/academies and failed to do so when we didnt. If the national youth league came back with a full home and away season, the remaining gap between the gg and todays youth probably closes entirely. So unfortunately poor youth development was a self inflicted wound imo.

For the other points:

There are players in every generation that could have done better if not for poor decisions or injuries, including the gg and generations before it.

Elo is a bit more of a rigorous calculation of rankings compared to fifa rankings
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Your mate from soccernomics has analysed the home ground stuff. I would need to go back and reread, but it is a meaningful advantage. Ange had a relatively weak squad in 2015 (no Rogic or Mooy at this stage) and being at home made up for a lot of these flaws.

Would a home and away youth league be preferable to them playing in the NPL against adults? Of course a second division with the youth teams would be ideal.
 
ClockworkOrange said:
Pim gets a lot of bad press. Yet we got 4 points despite playing a lot of time with ten men. Close to beating Ghana despite playing with 10 men for most of the match. Then smacked Slovenia with Kewell suspended.
Regardless of how he set us up (and the story of what went on in the dressing room will come out one day), our defence (Moore and Neil in particular) was woeful in that first half against Germany.
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Pim got a lot of bad press from an embryonic football media. There was no counterpoint to overly emotive rants from Bozza and Foster after the Germany debacle.

Pim didn’t receive enough credit for a 10 man Aus drawing with Ghana.

Or beating Serbia.
 
Cunningstunt said:
Your mate from soccernomics has analysed the home ground stuff. I would need to go back and reread, but it is a meaningful advantage. Ange had a relatively weak squad in 2015 (no Rogic or Mooy at this stage) and being at home made up for a lot of these flaws.

Would a home and away youth league be preferable to them playing in the NPL against adults? Of course a second division with the youth teams would be ideal.
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Simon Kuper is the big name in Soccernomics.
 
JRD said:
They then went on and knocked out Germany.
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I don't really like when people do this. "We lost by 1 to the eventual champions" "We held out for 90 minutes against the number 1 team" etc It kind of finds excuses for being poor.

I get that it seems impressive, but Paraguay won in penalties. That's a lottery. It's not a matter of being tactically or skilfully better. It also doesn't mean that because they beat Germany, drawing with them is any more impressive. You play the moment in front of you. We were better than them, and Paraguay have been woeful all tournament. Should have beat them. Paraguay were also very lucky because that foul on the keeper was very soft.
 
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Cunningstunt said:
Your mate from soccernomics has analysed the home ground stuff. I would need to go back and reread, but it is a meaningful advantage. Ange had a relatively weak squad in 2015 (no Rogic or Mooy at this stage) and being at home made up for a lot of these flaws.

Would a home and away youth league be preferable to them playing in the NPL against adults? Of course a second division with the youth teams would be ideal.
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Most countries have both a youth league and a b team in lower divisions. Thats also what most clubs had during the nsl era. You learn different things playing adults vs playing the best kids ur age
 
zimbos05 said:
I don't really like when people do this. "We lost by 1 to the eventual champions" "We held out for 90 minutes against the number 1 team" etc It kind of finds excuses for being poor.

I get that it seems impressive, but Paraguay won in penalties. That's a lottery. It's not a matter of being tactically or skilfully better. It also doesn't mean that because they beat Germany, drawing with them is any more impressive. You play the moment in front of you. We were better than them, and Paraguay have been woeful all tournament. Should have beat them. Paraguay were also very lucky because that foul on the keeper was very soft.
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I agree that Germany was hard done by, but that's not the point. Paraguay beat Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Peru (among others) in qualifying, and they have also beaten Mexico in recent times... now Turkey and Germany. They didn't beat us.

The point is that while the style might be ugly, we progressed from a group we were widely expected to be bottom of, and we did it ahead of teams in the top two confederations.

Against those teams, we got 4 points, scored 2 goals and conceded 0 goals. That would have been a solid result even for for the top teams, but for us is objectively excellent.

Popa is heavily criticised for his shape and negative tactics (including by me), but he does it because he thinks it's our best way of progressing in the tournament having regard to the players we have available to us.

So far he's been proven right and he deserves credit for that. That our opponents could or should have been better than they were is unhelpful, and is not a stick to beat him with.
 
JRD said:
I agree that Germany was hard done by, but that's not the point. Paraguay beat Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Peru (among others) in qualifying, and they have also beaten Mexico in recent times... now Turkey and Germany. They didn't beat us.

The point is that while the style might be ugly, we progressed from a group we were widely expected to be bottom of, and we did it ahead of teams in the top two confederations.

Against those teams, we got 4 points, scored 2 goals and conceded 0 goals. That would have been a solid result even for for the top teams, but for us is objectively excellent.

Popa is heavily criticised for his shape and negative tactics (including by me), but he does it because he thinks it's our best way of progressing in the tournament having regard to the players we have available to us.

So far he's been proven right and he deserves credit for that. That our opponents could or should have been better than they were is unhelpful, and is not a stick to beat him with.
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I would be less of a Popovic critic if he would loosen the reins even marginally. But looking at this tournament I think he has. I wish more but its been okay.

I wanted one progressive midfielder, which is actually a tick because he's been playing Okon.

I wanted a more attacking front 3, we got that v Turkiye and Paraguay. The US game was a bad miscalculation.

I wanted earlier subs. Got that v US. Also made some v Parguay. Turkiye was working well so later changes were okay.

I hope he continues with it v Egypt and doesn't get too clever for his own good like the US game.
 
JRD said:
I agree that Germany was hard done by, but that's not the point. Paraguay beat Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Peru (among others) in qualifying, and they have also beaten Mexico in recent times... now Turkey and Germany. They didn't beat us.

The point is that while the style might be ugly, we progressed from a group we were widely expected to be bottom of, and we did it ahead of teams in the top two confederations.

Against those teams, we got 4 points, scored 2 goals and conceded 0 goals. That would have been a solid result even for for the top teams, but for us is objectively excellent.

Popa is heavily criticised for his shape and negative tactics (including by me), but he does it because he thinks it's our best way of progressing in the tournament having regard to the players we have available to us.

So far he's been proven right and he deserves credit for that. That our opponents could or should have been better than they were is unhelpful, and is not a stick to beat him with.
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I'm not saying we did poorly. We definitely exceeded what many expected of us. TBH, I always thought that Paraguay and USA were there for the taking, and we could have beat them. It's why I'm a little frustrated we didn't take the game to those teams, and played the way we did.

Popa gets his credit for what he has done so far, but that does not mean he can't be criticised. He got it wrong against the USA, and was too defensive against Paraguay. He can still be criticised for that. It doesn't have to be that he only either gets adulation or criticism. He can get both.

What my main point is, is trying to minimise loss, or negative football. We have often played games and the reaction has been, "We were so unlucky to lose 1-0. We were so resolute in defence" or "full credit, they dug deep and to come away with a 0-0 draw in the Dubai heat, full credit". No, if you go to play defensively and invite the other team on to you, then you probably can expect to concede a goal at some point. If you are applauding draws against sides like UAE, it's not showing your ambition or status as a top nation. "We lost to the eventual champions, so it's ok". This is akin to what Poch was talking about when he took on the US. The mentality and how he had to change it.
 
zimbos05 said:
I'm not saying we did poorly. We definitely exceeded what many expected of us. TBH, I always thought that Paraguay and USA were there for the taking, and we could have beat them. It's why I'm a little frustrated we didn't take the game to those teams, and played the way we did.

Popa gets his credit for what he has done so far, but that does not mean he can't be criticised. He got it wrong against the USA, and was too defensive against Paraguay. He can still be criticised for that. It doesn't have to be that he only either gets adulation or criticism. He can get both.

What my main point is, is trying to minimise loss, or negative football. We have often played games and the reaction has been, "We were so unlucky to lose 1-0. We were so resolute in defence" or "full credit, they dug deep and to come away with a 0-0 draw in the Dubai heat, full credit". No, if you go to play defensively and invite the other team on to you, then you probably can expect to concede a goal at some point. If you are applauding draws against sides like UAE, it's not showing your ambition or status as a top nation. "We lost to the eventual champions, so it's ok". This is akin to what Poch was talking about when he took on the US. The mentality and how he had to change it.
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I get what you’re saying, but we didn’t have to beat Paraguay. This is tournament play. It’s about doing enough to progress. To do that you play to your strengths and you don’t take risks. In 2010 WC Spain scored only 8 goals in 7 games. I reckon not one Spaniard complained about them playing too defensively.
 
ClockworkOrange said:
I get what you’re saying, but we didn’t have to beat Paraguay. This is tournament play. It’s about doing enough to progress. To do that you play to your strengths and you don’t take risks. In 2010 WC Spain scored only 8 goals in 7 games. I reckon not one Spaniard complained about them playing too defensively.
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Exactly. Italy won a world cup without a win the group stage.
 
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