I hope we start with a back four against Congo. But we need to be realistic, and AWs flexible with how we expect to play against bigger teams. Australia (FIFA ranked 27th), Greece (51st) & Ireland (55th) all have better players on average than us. Congo I don't know. Bazeley says he is monitoring 55 pro players overseas. They all have a talent pool several times that in size.
For example Aus midfielder 23 yr old Tyrese Francois, is ahead of Dibley-Dias in the pecking order at Fulham. He's been in 3 EPL match day squads already this season. However I doubt he'll be named in the Socceroos for October.
AWs are going to be without Bell, Lewis & no surprise Thomas. Garbett if he's fit will have barely played in a month. Dibley-Dias is hugely promising but has only really played boys football, and is a totally new to the group. He will have 2-4 training sessions with a bunch of complete strangers. Exciting times, but as above we need to temper expectations.
For example Aus midfielder 23 yr old Tyrese Francois, is ahead of Dibley-Dias in the pecking order at Fulham. He's been in 3 EPL match day squads already this season. However I doubt he'll be named in the Socceroos for October.
AWs are going to be without Bell, Lewis & no surprise Thomas. Garbett if he's fit will have barely played in a month. Dibley-Dias is hugely promising but has only really played boys football, and is a totally new to the group. He will have 2-4 training sessions with a bunch of complete strangers. Exciting times, but as above we need to temper expectations.
Same with the China games (comparing them to each other and the Australia games). None of the Chinese team come close to that Socceroos side, and the performance in Wellington was done with a better side (as the European guys had more time so started over the A League guys; I mean, Bell vs Rufer) and there were ten men in Auckland too.
Defensive solidity is probably easier to instill in international football than attacking fluidity given the very limited contact time, so that's why there are typically fewer goals (excluding the routs). Probably a factor why loads of international managers are unpopular: Southgate, Deschamps, Flick (gone), Santos (gone from Poland), Andersson (Sweden), Hjulmand (Denmark), Berhalter, Herdman (gone), Koeman (Netherlands), Klinsmann (South Korea), Arnold (until June last year) etc.
Bit of an arduous task to go through, but what a combined XI between NZ and each of the four countries we will play look like? Would Australia x NZ have the closest? Wood gets in Australia; DR Congo/Greece possibly? Obviously doesn't get in ahead of Evan Ferguson for Ireland. Cacace gets in Aussie too possibly, ahead of Behich, maybe not ahead of Masuaku for DR Congo and not ahead of Tsimikas. Stamenic/Bell hard to place. In current form (ie none really) hard to say Singh even, maybe Australia only.
He might be monitoring 55 players at 'pro' level, but that would have to be down to the Ljungskile guys and similar, which is a far cry from the Champions League. Their last three home crowds have been 361, 451 and 321, and the town has less than 3,500 people.
Anyway, I guess you can't have all: high quality opposition, attacking/dominant football and wins. Maybe you can get two out of three for the most part. But expectations have to be realistic.