sOCCEROO'S THE FUTuRE

[shinAUFC]

It was only 12 months ago the "armchair experts" were claiming there was nothing to look forward to after our golden generation have retired.

What do you guys see for the future?

Personally i dont belive you can look at a bunch of teenagers and judge their futures completely on the ability they currently have as players grow and matrue at different rates.

All of a sudden overseas fresh faces and relatively young players like Kilkenny,Jeninak, valeri have come on and had an impact.

With jason culina injured matt Mckay took his chance and showed an A-league player can hold his own on the world stage.

With great young A-league prospects ( some have recently left) like Matt leckie, Tommy Oar, Mustafa Amini, Ben kantarovski, Kofi danning , Nathan burns and Robbie Kruse will all surely be in the mix for the future.

Theres the experienced Socceroos who are liekly to stay on for the next world cup atleast. Holman, Wilkshire, Carney, Cahill, kennedy.

Finally our keeper stocks are wuite strong, after schwartzer retires we have federici, Coe, Eugene, Langerak possibly even birra for the long term futre.

Clearly there us alot to look forward to IMO, though even a year ago i was one to admit we have no Kewell or Viduka like prodigy's waiting in the wings.

But i feel there is every chance Leckie, Oar or Amini can become those game breakers in the future.

Also remember who was talking about Cahill and Neil when they were teenagers? Yet look how they have developed into key platers for australia.

/discuss.............or my long winded post is useless:P

[EdDog]

Shin I agree with a lot of what you are saying. However, I still see no Kewell's in our younger players. He was the best youngster I've seen come through the ranks.

I also don't see the leadership abilities that any of the young or new players have. This might just be because they are still young and inexperienced (which will come with time). But as you were talking about Holman, Wilks, Carney, Kennedy (I can't see Cahill there in Brazil) I don't think they have the same leadership capabilities of Schwartzer, Neill, Kewell, Emerton and without them I just feel we will be missing our heart. Having said that, I am hoping these lads don't retire straight away!!

I think it is most likely a sentimental feeling towards the older players, however I cannot throw this feeling that we will lose the fight that really made us who we are today. These players have come through the Oceania group failing many qualifying periods. They fought tooth and nail to make it to the World Cup in '06 with arguably the biggest victory in Socceroos history against Uruguay. It takes metal to do that after failing for so many years and finally coming up with the goods when it never seemed likely. You could see the desire in all there eyes and I just feel the newer lads are lacking in that department. The veterans played Football when it was called Soccer, they played around 3-4 national games a year and got absolutely NO recognition for their hard work. Yet they persisted and got their just rewards in a World Cup. The Asian Cup should have been ours too but I consider this Asian Cup a tremendous success.

That said, we do have a lot of promising players for the future and a good bunch of experienced players too. I dread the day we lose our captain, leader and centre back Lucas Neill who has been outstanding through out his reign and hope that he is around long enough to mentor new defenders and the like. Same goes for Schwartzer - enough said.

Another important thing for all these young kids rushing off overseas at the first offer they receive, is that they get some GAME TIME. I am happy for Leckie to be going to the Bundesliga (or perhaps the second tier league if Munchengladbach are relegated) but I can only see him playing a few games a month and really struggling to be a regular player (which lets face it, is vital for development). I hope I am wrong.

I'd rather a less talented player with regular playing time under his belt than a talented player who warms the bench. I don't avidly follow the performances of the overseas players but read the old "Aussies abroad" articles that pop up regularly and often see 50% of the players that were "unused substitutes" or "came on as a 90th minute substitute", I mean COME ON!!!

It is for this reason that the development of the A-league will be a huge factor for the strength of the national squad - take McKay for example. He plays regularly, he ran all day, he was in form, and arguably the best player this whole tournament. He doesn't have the flare that Kewell had, nor will he ever, but he works hard and gets the job done. Take a bow Matt and keep playing like that and we will see you in Brazil. And I think it's great he's committed to Brisbane for 3 years (although they will struggle to keep him after his recent performances), but he plays week-in and week-out for the Roar which is better than warming the bench for a strong overseas team. Ideally I would like the A-league to become strong enough that we could field a World Cup squad with players alone, however I cannot see that happen for a while. But sooner rather than later perhaps under OZ-ick.

There is a lot of positives that have come from the veterans of this squad and they have put Football on the map for large parts of Australia and we can only benefit from it. I know if I ever have kids they'll be playing the sport (and I was one of those people who jumped on the bandwagon when they qualified in 2005) - I was only 17 and from an AFL background so can I please be excused? But there will be more and more young players coming through and there will be some real jems in there. They just need to keep playing regular football!!

You made good points with Cahil and Neill - never well known when they were young, just played regularly and their efforts payed dividends.

These Socceroos are true ambassadors of our sports and deserve more recognition than they have already received. We are very lucky that the younger generation will have these lads to look up to and strive to mimic. The future for Football in Australia is looking good.

[shinAUFC]

Yeah Mckay was an absolute champion and i really hope he has shown A-league players aswell as the overseas boys that anyone in goof form can get game time for socceroos.

Maybe thats something Holger should be pushing, those that want to play for the country need to play for clubs that will give them regular game time.

Theres no point being signed to a premier league club and sitting on the bench when you could be in the championship or even A-league getting regular game time.. of course the money would be better though...

[ozisnowman]

The FFA needs to heavily invest in our Youth League and underlying grass roots. They should look at having better quality youth team coaches possibly overseas to help youngsters break the big time. They will need to also ensure that these youngsters are given a go in the A-league rather than filling the league with has beens like Muscat and Tiatto etc.

We want our youngsters to excell but the only way we can improve as nation is to have them play at the best clubs in the world but to get there they need to be highly skilled/trained in the first place.

We need our youngsters playing the highest quality in international competitions to attract the interest of the biggest clubs.

[General Ashnak]

The Socceroos future is the HAL, not in the sense that the stand outs in the Socceroos will play here but that the bulk of the squad will come from the HAL and the stand out players will come from overseas. We will end up looking like Japan in the future were a heap of their squad plays in the J-League and the J-League has been the platform that the others used to score overseas gigs.

As for generation next aiming at 2014. I have absolutely no doubt that we will make the 2014 WC and with a team that has an average closer to 25 than 30. We have a heap of young talented players (even though the nut jobs keep harping on about how crap they are and then will go on to say that a player they will have never have watched is the saviour of Australia, even though they are only 23!) who are in leagues all over the world and importantly in the HAL. In fact they are being picked up by overseas clubs from the HAL - and that is the key. The HAL absolutely must develop a reputation as a development league for emerging Australian talent and also for journeyman talent from overseas markets (for example Flores, Broich) to get a step up to a higher league. This will allow us to see a regular cycling of players through the clubs with the aim of having clubs turn over via transfers about 30% of their squads every 2 years. A way to assist this would be through the increase of the playing squad to 30 players and the expansion of the bench limit to 7 and a removal of the salary cap floor. The salary cap does not need to increase for this to be a successful move as it will encourage clubs to sign emerging talent and not force them to overpay players just to get to the floor of the cap.

[shinAUFC]

We have a heap of young talented players (even though the nut jobs keep harping on about how crap they are and then will go on to say that a player they will have never have watched is the saviour of Australia,

You made me smile . You just cant be a talented youngster and play in the A-league , clearly your only a good prospect if your in playing in a league like the israeli 2nd division shining boots lol

Id like to see the salary cap raised, but not to pay the players extra, to instead introduce larger squad sizes and a larger bench.

At 5 nil against fury basically half time if we had say 5 bench players, Monte may well have had a chance to come on and show something or some other young player not yet quite up to A-league standard.

I find it a little annoying when people say "FFA need to invest in youth, bring in the best youth coaches blah blah blah" not attacking you in anyway ozisnowman, but its all very easy to say this but the money needs to come from somewhere doesnt it.

IMO the FFA is already investing heavily in youth, and players we are watching come through like Leckie and Amini i would say are the first batch of A-league youth coming through the ranks, we are now just starting to reap the rewards from 5 years ago

[ozisnowman]

Yahhh yahhh yahhh the money needs to come from somewhere. Well $45 million that was wasted on the suspect world cup bid won by a footballing minnow in the middle of the hot arabian summer would have done very nicely in setting our nation up for the future thank you very much.

[shinAUFC]

Yahhh yahhh yahhh the money needs to come from somewhere. Well $45 million that was wasted on the suspect world cup bid won by a footballing minnow in the middle of the hot arabian summer would have done very nicely in setting our nation up for the future thank you very much.

Not much of that was the FFA's money in the first place, had they not have entered the bidding race people would be sitting here claiming FFA have no ambition.

[jasonkv]

sOCCEROO'S THE FUTRE

Learning how to spell?


Sorry couldn't resist.

[bundibundi]

learning how to use the keyboard. caps lock is a silly key that neednt be there anymore, days of dos are over. shift all the way.

JUMP ON THE SHIFT BANDWAGON PEOPLE! (I held shift using my pinky for that one)

[Steelinho]

What I can't stand is people saying we should be "blooding" certain players into the squad for the future.

What they fail to realise is that's supposedly the point of having Unders. Our Young Socceroos, Joeys, Olyroos and everything in between are the platforms for "blooding" players on the International stage, while the senior squad is exclusively for those who are the best available players of that nation, regardless of age.

The Socceroos should be selected based purely on form. If we happen to have, in 10 years time, a 38-year-old striker who is playing better than anyone of our 26 year olds, then yes, of course he should be selected, lest we shoot ourselves in the foot. Likewise, if we get to the next World Cup and have a 17 year old defender who is, without doubt, our best man for the job, then he should be selected, too.
Harry Kewell wasn't selected for the Socceroos at a young age because people were thinking, "Hey, this kid could be pretty good in a few years." He was selected because he was already a superb player, playing for a top club and playing better than a lot (if not most or all) of our Socceroos at that time.

He had earned his cap, just like everyone should. Playing for the Socceroos isn't a right.

[Interloper]

I predict that, barring injuries, every one of the 'old' players at the asian cup will still be good enough to make the squad come world cup 2014.

[Stuckey]

What I can't stand is people saying we should be "blooding" certain players into the squad for the future.

What they fail to realise is that's supposedly the point of having Unders. Our Young Socceroos, Joeys, Olyroos and everything in between are the platforms for "blooding" players on the International stage, while the senior squad is exclusively for those who are the best available players of that nation, regardless of age.

The Socceroos should be selected based purely on form. If we happen to have, in 10 years time, a 38-year-old striker who is playing better than anyone of our 26 year olds, then yes, of course he should be selected, lest we shoot ourselves in the foot. Likewise, if we get to the next World Cup and have a 17 year old defender who is, without doubt, our best man for the job, then he should be selected, too.
Harry Kewell wasn't selected for the Socceroos at a young age because people were thinking, "Hey, this kid could be pretty good in a few years." He was selected because he was already a superb player, playing for a top club and playing better than a lot (if not most or all) of our Socceroos at that time.

He had earned his cap, just like everyone should. Playing for the Socceroos isn't a right.

Totally!

I don't agree with other people saying theFFA should be investing in youth I really think if A-league clubs are smart they will be the one's investing in youth. You never know in five years time Adelaide United could do what Sao Paulo did with Denilson and sell a player more $30 million! (try convincing a kid or family to take up AFL when this kind of money is thrown around in our own town!) This is a huge untapped revenue stream most clubs are almost ignoring!

I think AU are making the effort now and maybe not next season but hopefully the one after we will start to see it pay off! We first need to work better with the federation clubs and get them on side with us.

I can't help but wonder how many juniors of Leckie's calibre or better are slipping through our fingers!
And the worst part about if these players slip through our fingers and go to Greek or Turkish clubs (generally countries of those players heritage) they may choose to play for the country who showed genuine interest in them.

[redhorse]

http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/au ... 6012666401

Langerak looks like a certain socceroo very soon

[davidbloop]

Personally I think the A-League standard is a lot higher than people give credit for.

I think you could make a starting 11 out of the best A-League players and they would do surprisingly well.