Olyroos qualifiers

[Adam]

6 games, and not one goal. That is terrible lol

[blahblah]

Uzbekistan u23's are playing UAE on the box at the moment. Sadly the poor buggers are playing on the same cow paddock we played on as Bunyodkor's home ground also happens to be the national stadium.

[Stuckey]

I read an article with Viddie saying he was pleased this today's result. I watched the first hour. The was nothing good about it. I'm glad we're not going to the Olympics. Its embarassing enough playing this way in Asia i don't want to see us do it on the world stange!

[sevengoals]

^^^
It could have been different.
Rough qualifying - good tournament and all that.
But now we will never know...

[Stuckey]

AURELIO Vidmar is safe. He'll keep a coaching job in the national teams system as long as he is doing what Football Federation Australia technical director Han Berger says.

But herein lies the problem.

Australia's 2012 Olympic Games dream was shattered yesterday when the Olyroos bowed out of London with a whimper, losing 1-0 to the United Arab Emirates.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/soc ... 6279961926
Val dropping the bombshells! Love it!

This system is extremely sad if true surely the cost of only selecting AIS funded players is too high if missing out on the Olympics and two terrible youth World Cup campaigns?

I have been thinking about this a bit and I'm finding it very conserning. Surely we need to pick the best squad possible and if we're just picking players that received federal funding maybe that funding needs to be put to better use?
Why don't we spend that funding at a state level giving all the fund divided up between the HAL clubs for them to invest into their own youth systems?
That way we find a good streamline for our youth talent, the HAL clubs benefit financially and on the pitch surely.
I think this would also lock our best and brightest into HAL contracts as well surely resulting in these kids being sold on once they reach a decent standard to profit the HAL club further.
It still doesn't fix the problem that Olyroo squads aren't pick on merit but surely then giving local kids the best chance of succeeding by not dragging them all the way to Canberra to be part of the AIS is a good thing. I know Mark Viduka really didn't like being there and almost quit a few times. Luckily for all involved he stuck it out!