Australasian XI

Australasian XI

Cant find a link on stuff, but in nelson mail today they had an story dubbed the Australasian XI, but it biased it was towards NZ..

Paston
Reid
Nelsen
Neill
Bertos
Elliot
Cahill
Emerton
Smeltz
Fallon
Kennedy

What a joke of a team! I know Paston has done amazing, but over Schwarzer? Plus Wilkshire would have to be in there.. the worst part of the story was the end when they said "four aussies, unless you count Smeltz's aussie accent."

I cannot believe there are Aussies in there!

Tegal2010-06-25 04:54:54

Sleep deprivation strikes Tegal again.

ugh deleted.

as an aussie i find the list amusing but understanably the media is getting carried away. Nelson yes, smeltz good chance, and you can make a case for reid, i thought he played really well. paston did awesome but hes not a patch on schwarzer who has been playing in the premier league for over 10 years. bertos, fallon and elliot no chance and not wasting my time explaining why.

your argument is so good that its not even worth talking about? id look at it as more of a form XI

Holman's a bit stiff to miss out, don't you think?

bertos - i thought he was ineffective in the first game but had good patches in  the next two games, granted not easy for a winger when you dont have much of the ball. very good  a-league player only. emerton would be first choice at right mid.

elliot- thought he was awesome for u guys, best passer of the ball in your team and brought other guys into the game. but you cant tell me a clubless 35 yr old is better than valeri .

fallon- first time i saw him play, i dunno bout him,  i know he is a national hero after the bahrain game but i think i was expecting more from him. i thought he was largely ineffective at holding the ball up and  he gave away soooo many fouls with his elbows. he didnt learn at all, didnt that make you frustrated? a send off waiting to happen ( i know some of the fouls were rubbish and the other team was trying to get him send off, but why did he not adjust his game?).  As kennedy is a similar sort of player, i thought he didnt give away possesion as chealply as fallon did on many occasions.

so my reasoning is who is an out and out better player in that position. 3 aussies i named are better in my opinion and played well too (kennedy wasnt great but did more with the ball). But if its about who was more valuable for their team... then i think elliot should be included.

He is though, he has held our midfield together since the Confederations Cup last year, and does a great job retaining most of the possession that comes his way.

I still don't think there is much difference at all between the importance of any of the four great strikers we have. You can highlight strengths and weaknesses of all four and not really seperate them.
Current form says Smeltz would have to be there though.

Paston
Reid
Nelsen
Smith

Teza2010-06-26 10:17:21

Schwarzer was sh*t house at the world cup. This team is based on form no?

lets be honest, the AUS WC campaign was not better than NZ's.

Never thought id say this,but I agree with what whooooo said.

Neill was pretty average. Although yet again did he play better than Bertos? Aside from that it would be probably the best team.

i dont think you can say schwarzer was sh*thouse, his save against ghana was one of the best of the tournaments, and we wouldnt have beaten serbia if he didnt keep us in the match with a couple of great saves in the first half.

in absolute terms our WC was better than yours, 1 point more. i noticed on this forum many of you are claiming NZ had a better WC than teams from other groups based on points gained. So if we are consistent and apply this logic...

Of course you overachieved and exceding expectations far more than we did. but Dont be fooled by mainstream oz media who think we are a world player at football,  who also believe  that qualification for the round of 16 and beyond is a right for us. almost all the football fans i know werent expecting much and thought we were an outside chance of the round of 16 at best.

I thought 4 points was a great effort and exceded expectations. I was proud of the way we fought back and started to play some football. at 1 man down against ghana i was fearing implosion. and to beat serbia when everything was on the line for both teams was a great effort also.

but you lost 4-0 against a under25' Germany side..............

anyway the results don't matter. It's the performance and what you do ON the park that counts when we are comparing two teams that did not make it out of the group stage.

2 red cards to NZ's 0
6 goals conceded to Nz's 3

the list goes on mate.

but I mean obviously I will be biased to NZ and obviously you will be biased to AUS

so at the end of the day who gives a flying sh*t ?

THIS WASNT BASED ON FORM!!! that's the weird part. It said IF it was on form then they'd have Holman ahead of Bertos. If it was on form I wouldn't have Kennedy or Fallon Schwarzer, and I would include Paston, Holman, Tommy Smith and play a 4-4-2.

doenst matter how old the german side is, that is their first choice team. that game was a good example of the difference a coach can make with tactical formations and importantly instilling confidence and belief in a team. ie pim v ricki.  After playing 4231 for 2 and half years pim resorted to 442 (with no recognised strikers) and played a high defensive line (trying to play the offside trap which we never practised in a real game situation) with an old and slow defence. it was a total brain explosion by pim.

i dont know what you mean results dont matter. thought results would be an indicator of how successful you have been as well as your performance on the park. beating serbia was aus first win against euro opposition at a world cup, so i think that is a big step.

as for performance on the park, basically outplaying ghana with ten men was a great performance. its harsh to include kewells red card (by the way i agree it def was a red) coz  he couldnt have done anything about it .wrong place wrong time. them the breaks in football.

you were the one who intially compared WC campaigns. I just wanted to point out that aus also had a good campaign in many respects, two good performances and one of those in trying circumstances. both our campaigns show that if a coach sets out a formationthat  the players believe can get them a result and backs the teams ability then anything is possible. proof by your whole campaign and the last two games of ours. our natioons will prob never produce a swag of great techinally gifted stars, so our great strength is that the whole equals greater that the sum of its parts.

If one was a neutral one would say 4 points are beter tham 3.

my point was neither of us made it through the group stage so the results don't matter do they ?