pretty clear bin hannond doesnt like us but geez, we wiped were first team to qualify for the previous world cup, the highest ranked asian country and dont get a mention.
Bin Hammam was the architect for Australia's entry. Trust me, he pleased to have us, primarily as we don't interfere in AFC politics.
However given that even some high schools in Japan have FIFA accredited coaches, whereas we are struggling to get them at the A-League level, that and the strengths of the K and J leagues ........ it's not such a bad comment.
Why am I here, blahblah, if you keep hitting the nail on the head like that?
To be fair, neither three will come close to the World Cup, Japan and Korea rely to much on technique to win games, and Australia rely to much on physical play.
That's really naiive. Korea Republic are arguably the best team in Asia in terms of balance between technical and physical ability. Their biggest downfall is their inability to have a very tactically-efficient league. (The K-League itself is a very stone age-ish league that relies a lot on brute strength, followed by some technical ability to kick a ball.)
Japan are also getting much, much better in their physicality, as shown by their defence during the World Cup (Tulio is still young enough to be playing through to the next World Cup, easily) and emergence of players like Makoto Hasebe at Wolfsburg and Eiji Kawashima, now at Lierse SK (just look at him; he's a tank).
Well I saw that coming from a mile away!
I acknowledge the wink, but do you really think I would be biased
against my own country? There's no shame in being realistic and honest about things if you know the region. If Australia really were superior (NT rankings aside), I would admit it immediately and rub it in the face of every other nation.
We have almost 20 members in our current squad who play in the first division of the top 10 leagues in Europe, Japan has less than 10 and Korea has 3(in current Asian cup squad, couldnt find extended squad list).
In the past few years we have had numerous youngsters going over there, the fact that a lot of them arent yet in Australias 1st team is testament to the current quality of the team (or the quality of our previous manager). Whenever a Japanese or Korean goes over to a European league they're touted as the next big thing and their current managers seem to be willing to give the youngsters a go.
Fair enough, I get the argument (and hear it a lot), but a lot of it is due to culture and the lack of scouting in those regions. If you take a look at the Bundesliga this season, you'll notice there has been a MASSIVE influx of players from the J. League. That's in no small part thanks to the recent success of a few Japanese players (namely Kagawa), which has led to a lot more attention from Germany and German agents knowing they can get a quick, easy Euro out of the trade.
As for the "next big thing" statement, the exact same thing applies whenever an Australian goes overseas, the same with Africans, et cetera, et cetera, so there's really nothing to that.
As a side note, there were more than 3 in the Korea squad.
The quality of the K/J leagues are arguably better than our own, however they have had much more time to establish themselves, let alone the budgets at their disposal. We are still producing quality players through our A-League, our best defenders are being poached by these leagues purely for the money on offer (and maybe a seachange) and our best young midfielders and strikers tend to go to Europe. Not to mention an Australian striker recently got the Golden boot in the J-League, and an Australian defender recently captained his K-league team to win the ACL, picking up Asian Player of the Year along the way.
In fairness, Korea is the only one taking our defenders (there are only two in Japan and those were very different circumstances), but to say it's just for money or "seachange" is perhaps a little off-putting and the bad light being put on these deals by the media really hurts our reputation. We should be really happy to see these players heading off to these leagues, where they will learn to play against more technically-proficient attackers (especially in Korea, where there are some great local and foreign forwards/AMs). The more they learn there, the better for us. Until we have more players of that equivalent, we have no right to complain or cry foul, because there's a serious chance that they'll stagnate.
Really chuffed for Josh, but a lot of that was due to the quality of crosses he received (and the fact that Dragan Stojkovic is absolutely amazing at finding solutions to get the most out of players) and not many of the goals were ball-at-feet. Fair play to Sasa, though. He's done superb and has really thrived and shows that he's a great defender in Asia. To say that because he's doing so well because he's an Aussie defender, though, is like saying McKay during the Asian Cup proves that all most A-League players would thrive at the tournament; one quality player does not prove the quality of the league or nation.
(It should also be mentioned that short-hair Jesus was dual-winner of the golden boot, alongside Jubilo Iwata's Ryoichi Maeda [starting striker for Japan at the AC]. It's something that hasn't really been mentioned here in Australia, probably with fear that it takes something away from Josh's success.)