Not sure if you read my last post.
I did say that they had a decent side and I never said I was comparing them to the All Whites.
I was just reflecting back that a then-Oceania side beat 5th place South American side.
All I am saying is, wait till the end of the OFC Nations Cup. Then we can all start talking trash.
Yes, but Coochie's point was that it was more than just a 'decent' side. In fact, it was the best generation that Australia had ever produced, and not really comparable to any Oceanian side since or from before. So it's not really a good measuring yardstick.
And, why wait for the end of the OFC Nations Cup before commenting on this?
The Socceroos were pretty competitive with CONMEBOL sides for more than twenty years in World Cup play-offs.
Even a more modest Socceroos side such as the one for the 1994 qualifiers pushed Maradona's Argentina close.
That squad mostly played in the Aussie NSL - only six of the starting eleven played in Europe.
In the Oct and Nov 1993 play-offs vs. Maradona, Batistuta et al, the Socceroos drew the first leg 1-1 at home and only lost the away leg to an Alex Tobin own goal. So the Aussies scored two goals to Argentina's one over two legs.
That Socceroos side was a mixture of pros playing in Europe and players from the domestic NSL:
http://www.ozfootball.net/ark/Socceroo/1993A.html
Fist leg side:
Mark Bosnich, Tony Vidmar (David Mitchell 72), Mehmet Durakovic, Milan Ivanovic, Alex Tobin, Ned Zelic, Aurelio Vidmar, Paul Wade (c), Robbie Slater, Graham Arnold, Jason van Blerk
Goal : A Vidmar 43
Second leg side:
Robert Zabica, Tony Vidmar (Carl Veart 64), Mehmet Durakovic, Milan Ivanovic, Alex Tobin, Frank Farina, Aurelio Vidmar, Paul Wade (c), Robbie Slater, Graham Arnold, Jason van Blerk
Bosnich, Zelic, Mitchell, Aurelio Vidmar, Slater, Arnold and van Blerk were good Europe-based pros. The rest were domestic NSL players.
In the play-off for the 2002 World Cup, the Socceroos beat Uruguay 1-0 at home in the first leg, losing 3-1 away in the second in November 2001.
It was a similar squad to the 2006 one with Kewell, Bosnich, Viduka, Schwarzer etc.:
All this is true (to a large extent at least), but it's actually embellishing the story quite a bit - take 'Maradona's Argentina' for example. This wasn't the 1986 World Cup winning team, but a side that at the time was seen in Argentina as a national disgrace, not just through the fact that they needed the play-off to qualify for the World Cup, but also the way they were reduced to that situation (which also included an infamous 5-0 home defeat to Colombia). Maradona of this side was an overweight, coke-laden caricature of himself, who would go on to actually embody the national disgrace a few months later at the World Cup. During which Argentina did not cover itself in glory - although they got out of the groups stage, it was largely thanks to a very lucky 2-1 win over Nigeria, and a terrible Greek side that got thumped by everyone in that group. They also lost to a good Bulgarian side in the group, and would be knocked out by Romania in the first knock-out game (in one of the better games of that World Cup actually). So Australian performance in the play-off was creditable, but that was not some awe-inspiring team that they were faced with.
The Uruguay example is also factually inaccurate - while Australia did manage to grind out a 1-0 win in the first game, they got thumped 3-0 (not 3-1) in the return leg, which frankly could have been more (though Australia did have a couple of decent set-piece chances). And again, the Uruguayan side that beat them was by no means on the same level as the Uruguayan side of the last few years (that side wouldn't win a single game at the World Cup). Four years later, both those sides were older - although that was an advantage for Aussie, and not so much for Uruguay. Even then, it was extremely close, which I guess illustrates the difficulties in playing opposition from that part of the world.
C'mon! We have to grasp at any straws when it comes to the future All Whites play-off vs. the fifth-best team in South America.
Maybe it will be Argentina we face and Messi will be a shambles after doing jail time for tax evasion (he seems to be off his game currently with a trial looming next month over last year's tax fraud charges and now a fresh investigation launched after the Panama revelations he has money stashed off-shore in tax evasion schemes):
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/sports/local/so...
True, it wasn't a well-performing Argentina side Australia faced in 1993 and Maradona was past his use-by date.
But even badly-performing Argentina sides contain some very good players.
It did include Argentina's top-scorer of all time Gabriel Batistuta, than aged 24 and early in his legendary career at Fiorentina.
I remember their mediocre display in the '94 World Cup.
As you say, it was a creditable display by an Aussie side which hadn't qualified for the finals for twenty years and Australia were not rated very highly in world football then.
Five years earlier, an Australian side of mostly NSL players thrashed then world champions Argentina 4-1 in the Bicentennary Gold Cup in 1988 in Sydney, lost another group game against Brazil 1-0 to a Romario goal, thrashed then Asian champs Saudi Arabia 3-0 and finished runner-up to Brazil in the final (2-0 loss). Argentina finished in third place.
Fantastic long-range free kick goal by Yankos for the Socceroos' second and an amazing cross and header for their fourth.
Amongst the goals for Australia in the tournament was Scott Ollerenshaw who went on to play for my local club Nelson United in our national league.