Ridiculous Article - Why Oz should back Bahrain

Ridiculous Article - Why Oz should back Bahrain

Honestly James, you should delete this thread.  Perverse articles like this aren't worth the hits and help no one. 

Especially when there's such joyous anticipation in the air.

he makes good points but it is utter rubbish

I guess for me it's a bit of a worrying trend that SBS constantly seem to run artices undermining both the Phoenix and New Zealand's position in relation to Australia.

PWF, I don't know what you mean.

SBS are an irrelevance.  Foster's daily swinging views on things, Les Murray's advancing senility, then they give columns to this numtpy and Jesse Fink (he of the Nazi Phoenix logo).

The game has moved on, but they haven't and the 'new dawn's' slavering acceptance of anything Foster says is just cringeworthy.  A parade for the U-20 side who got creamed at the world champs after he tore Ange Postecoglu to pieces on TV for a similar record ?  How about a two year change from 'Branko is the answer' to 'the game has moved on and left Branko behind'.

The whole place is an agenda-ridden disgrace to the Australian game.

I'm sorry but what good points does he make?  That it would be an amazing achievement for a team that is state/royally funded by hugley rich oil sheiks, that has tremendous resources and assimiltaes players that have no link to the country to beat a team that has almost no resources?

HN, the parade article, I've tried looking for it for a laugh but can't find it.  Any pointers?

Also remember that the nix is preparing players for Malta and Barbados

Want to wade back in on SFCU as well ?

But if you follow, how will you be able to take a bullet...?

...and Melbourne Victory for Costa Rica.

I'll be shot in the back by some scarfed up wannabe ultra Socceroo fan with a weird sexual fixation for fake-tanned self-procalimed experts, previously voted as one of Crytsal Palace's worst ever players.

I agree JD, it's important to keep an eye on this sort of thing. It's his rationale regarding the Phoenix which especially annoys me. It continues to worry me that this kind of self-serving argument might take hold within FFA and eventually leave us without the crucial support we need to keep the club going. Maybe that seems like paranoia but I wont feel safe until the ink is dry and we have our licence renewed.

I don't think i want to know your world

One thing the likes of McIntyre never point out is that nearly all these players were playing professionally anyway.  They talk it up like the Phoenix has helped players step up, but it's simply not true.  Apart from Siggy they all had gigs elsewhere, some of them at A-League sides.

Of course, that doesn't tie in with their agendas so that point is ignored.

Honestly, when I take the rare dip into the Australian football forum scene - I just cut and paste your stuff...

StopOut, I'm genuinely concerned if that is the argument that the AFC is using.  It's such a silly argument, as HN says, all of those guys would have been playing in the A-League anyway just as other forsign international players do.  There does appear to be an agenda and we really don't need it taking hold.  There is plenty of balance in other media sources and that's a good thing. james dean2009-10-14 01:06:47

That probably says more about the average AFL bloke than it does about Football or the article.

I read another article yesterday/day before about how rugby in Oz was losing out to other sports (league mainly) but no mention of football. I guess being competitive in a truly global game doesn't rate against games that are only played by former Brit colonies and few other countries.

Now, if the French had got here before Cook and it was the Brits that claimed Akaroa as their own..

That article did mention football Junior, when it talked about who owned which "brand values"!

Just read the article....most of the Aussie comments in the discussion forum seem to support their kiwi buddies. Tried to make a post but couldn't get it too submit.

This article and several of the comments make my blood boil.

One thing interests me is that the AFC aren't interested in some form of merger for our .5 spot.  They only face this situation because Australia is part of Asia and we've now got a chance to qualify. A merger would make this scenario less likely, and they'd be more than likely to get the extra .5 spot at the expense of 'Oceania' until we can get to the standard of being consistently competitive across a combined Oceania-AFC confederation (i.e. that we or any other OFC member is unlikely to take the 5th spot if playing in a full AFC qualification).

They won't split Asia.  No way the Eastern side are going to agree to a split when they have tied up all (or nearly) all the World Cup spots.  With four of the 4.5 going to East Asia, West won't agree a split unless they get offered some spots and the East won't give them up.

It's a minefield.  Uncle Frank's (not Lowy) suggestion of the Oceania champions playing in the final round with an additional Asian side (to even the pools) has some merit, although some of the more blinkered Aus brigade say the Oceania sides should have to play another level down but that will never fly as before you do that there has to be Oceanian qualifiers.

I could go on for an hour on this and the challenges inherent, but I won't.

It's true that West Asia wouldn't agree to a split without getting their share of the WC spots but you could make a strong argument that given the strength of East Asia, even if the West only got 1 full WC place, that is 1 more than they have now (assuming that the AW's win next month) since all of the AFC qualifiers for SA2010 have come from the East.

Just a comment but what do we have to lose by retaining the current set up? Almost guaranteed qualification for all world cups below senior mens, almost guaranteed entry to confederations cup. play off in some way with an Asian side/s for qualification to senior Mens'World Cup and  use our new financil resources to play the odd other meaningful game against other national sides. As Frank VH said, being in Asia would be good from the point that our senior team will have some great games but having to qualify our youth and womens'team through Asia would be quite cost prohibitive.

Well, at the moment the .5 WC spot only applies to the Men's OFC sides [simply because the higher quality sides in the world and the money involved is huge. Womens and youth teams around the world can't compare to the professional development set up in these clubs for players who go out for their countries].

I can't see why having our Men's team in the final Asian groups as top OFC winner would automatically mean that our youth and women teams have to go through Asia. We are not part of AFC and that does not need to change.

Also having two groups of six teams means there is no bye to be played in the group which no doubt means there a higher intensity for the AFC teams to perform.

I can see that AFC may have a slight problem in justifying the extra spot for their own AFC final group because it basically mean that the best three placer of a group may have a place but there is 4 teams in a group in 5 groups. It would have been Syria by a one goal difference over Oman and the UAE team that was above Syria with the same points was only 2nd in their group by a single goal difference as well. In the final group stage, UAE had the worst team record with a sole group point.

So really to place an extra team in the final AFC group stage is a spot of bother for AFC without changing a successful format in the last two group stages. I really believe that the OFC runners up should take the final AFC group along with the OFC winners. The OFC runners up may be competitive enough to grab a few points if they get support with the rest of the OFC behind them and honestly if UAE is no better, it shouldn't be that much difference competitive-wise when the OFC winner can challenge for the top 5 places. I think that New Caledonia can upset and surprise a few of those AFC nations. Away game to New Caledonia is quite daunting for some AFC countries.