AUSTRALIA in WORLD CUP 2006

If we do make it we will owe it all to Guus.

I doubt we will do as well as the Koreans - I'd say they were much fitter, and more of a 'team'. The SBS commentators talked a lot about how in the past we'd relied on individual brilliance, Guus is trying to get them to support each other in a game where the players move more than the ball and each player on the ball has at least 3 clear options for a pass.

Seems like Under 12's stuff but the national team rarely seems to get it - the Jamaica game was a revelation. Trouble is Jamaica weren't at full strength and our guys won't have time to gel. We just don't play enough football together. The South Americans play 18 games over 24 months against each other. We'd be lucky to get 8 games in the same period, and usually against low quality opposition. In Uruguay's last game the beat Argentina.....

It seems that Harry Kewell is only a shadow of his former past at Leeds United these days, this is a huge blow for Australian football, as now we dont have a clear finisher on our side, other than the less talented Viduka.

I find it extremely ironic to see Australia having to play with Uraguay again this time for a spot in the world cup, imagine the dissapointment for Australians if we lose again this time....Ranking wise, we are ranked about 63rd in the world, and Uraguay is about at least 20 spots above us...

Scarier than that; Uruguay is currently ranked 17th.

I still think we're in with a chance but it will be by teamwork, not individual brilliance (aka Kewell).

Lots of our regular first teamers are not playing top level games for their clubs. And we're brittle at the back. At least the team has realised that it's no good giving Viduka the ball without putting yourself in a position to get it back.

Will uruguay use their superstar Recoba in their lineup?

Recoba is in the squad but his form has been patchy.

Looks like Forlan will at least miss the first game.

There's been a bit of a kerfuffle with the Uruguay's varying the kick off times in the first leg and FIFA suddenly changing the match officials from the Belgians to the Spaniards without explanation.

The plot thickens. Apparently the original 4pm kickoff was changed to 9pm because the Uruguayans thought the later time would make the Australians miss their flight back to Australia for the second leg and only have 36 hours back home in prep for that match (the UFA had arranged a charter flight)

But the FFA chartered a flight with Qantas' help and wasn't fussed. But now the UFA flight charter has fallen through so they want the kick off brought back to 5pm so they can catch a passenger flight.

They must be a bit worried...

Jamesw....
welcome to A2K. Where are you hanging out! I'm the resident cricket tragic - soccer seems to defeat me!

g'day hinge......
howya goin?

I reckon Australia doesnt have a good chance against them mainly because its such a hostile environment to play in. EG. When they get off the plane they will be abused and intimidated by large crowds, be spat on, be hit, etc etc..

IF you see a entire country showing loathe for your side, you will tend to fear for your own safety, and this is a huge mental blow to the players.

Uruguay is notorious for disabling the best teams in the world. When they know they are on the backfoot due to the superior tactics and talent of their opposition, they will play very very dirty on the pitch, and will do rough tackles to try and scare players on the other side into submission. I saw some of the footage against Argentina the other day on SBS, it was very scary to watch, they basically fowled a player every 10 sesconds and most of them got away with it without a card. Argentina tried to string together passes to break their defence, but the Uraguayans just kept on throwing in heavy tackles to stop the passes.

s'funny, I'm sure I saw on another A2K thread the comment that Uruguayans were seen as overly sentimental and conservative.

Australians love being the underdog.

In Guus we trust.

must have been a thread written by a uraguayan patriot

Actually it was by someone from a different South American country - apparently in latin circles theykid Uruguayans about being a bit soppy, like we kid americans about be 'irony-challenged'

Okay we lost today and i dont see us scoring against them 2 goals to 0 on wednesday. Looks like have to wait another 4 years until we get another chance. Australia is just not good enough from what i saw today, the south americans are much more dangerous from their breaks and set pieces.

Don't panic James. I thought the Uruguayans looked exhausted after the match. THough I thought we were lucky to keep it to 1 goal. Our back 3 looked ok but the wing backs kept losing their men. Passing was shoddy quite often too.

Both teams have got long flights back here and then get ready for Wednesday's game. If cool heads prevail we're still in with a chance. Provide the serial pest doesn't destroy us again like the 98 qualifiers...

Actually I am neither an "Uruguayan patriot" or a "South American".

I so a bit of the URU-AUS game and couldn't decide who to root for.
I like Uruguayans, but believe Aussies are somehow the Red Sox of World Cup qualifying... always left out, in the last minute, by a tiny margin.

the Australians suck at passing, during the second half they kept losing possession. so thats why we lost. if we cant string passes together then we dserve to lose the match.

It wasn't just that our passing was patchy, it was the amount of times a pass never came. Emerton in particular seems incapable of delivering a nicely weighted through ball. Uruguay's defenders always seemed to find our loose men before our guy with the ball did - not a compliment to Uruguay, just a statement of our lack of vision.

I though Harry Kewell played well but no-one seemed to be able get the ball to him when he found a space to run into.

The maths of it:

We need to win by two goals.

If we we win 1-0 I think it's a penalty shootout.

If we win by 1 goal but Uruguay score, we're out.

Any other result leaves us in the cold for another four years (where we probably belong - pity we didn't get Guus after Frank failed to get us into the confederations cup last year (sorry Frank, I know Soccer Australia (RIP) should bear the brunt of that failure, but....)

Frank Farina had too many chances already, We should have booted him out a long time ago, it should have been right after the time when he failed to get us qualification 4 years ago! Its so true what youve said about Uruguay's defence spotting our men before the midfield can pass the ball to them. In my view, our 4-4-2 system just doesnt cut it against a quality side. Relying on these long balls from the edge of the park just doesnt work for a side like Australia with its limited quality balls going in from the side. We are not an [England], so the tactics shouldnt be trying to replicate what they can do. Everytime someone from our side launches a long ball it almost certainly gets intercepted.

Yeah, the amount of kick and chase in the late second half smelt like desperation and lack of confidence to me. I'm sure Guus will be making them watch the Jamaica game again....

Speaking of omens - the only time we ever made the WC finals was in Germany in 1974. Will history repeat? 1.5 hours until kick off.