10:30pm kickoff tomorrow night. The match to decide who tops the table.
Arnie has confirmed that Duke is out injured.
Hamstring for Duke.
So we still want to finish first with Korea in second with Japan?
Much as it pains me to say it we might well be better off with Bruno up front. Duke’s massive work rate works against better teams, Bruno’s guile is definitely on point at the moment though and breaking people down is what we’re struggling with. Bos Miller and McGree badly need to start though
Korea finishing second doesn’t really matter because their R16 is against Saudi, so we’d only face one of them. That match has less turn-around time too so maybe a hard-fought 120 minutes for whoever wins works in our favour regardless.
Plus they’re pretty likely to run up a goal difference against already-eliminated Malaysia and top the group anyway.
I can see this being a dull scoreless draw. It secures Australia in first and Uzbekistan in second regardless of the other result.
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Mitch duke out is a significant loss imo. His work rate is immense and I see his height and size as an advantage in the style of football commonly played in Asia. I have more confidence in him winning fifty fifty balls and making space than small, short guys like Fornaroli or Maclaren.
I’d expect Uzbekistan to attack us more than the other games. They’d still want to top the group.
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On the other hand, if Syria puts a few past India, then playing too open and going down against Australia could put Uzbekhistan at risk of dropping down to third and having a much more difficult fixture. Second place means Thailand then probably Qatar for a place in the semi-final.
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Havent we historically just always been better than the Uzbeks?
Easy 1-0 after the worst game youve ever watched in your life.
I don’t think historically we’ve EVER lost to them in senior mens. 3 wins one draw or something…
Last time we needed a penalty shootout to beat them in the 2019 Asian Cup second round.
Know who I’m blaming when we lose later
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But I didn’t bet on the game!
No Gethin Jones (thank fuck, he was rubbish)
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They’re Khorasanis with a big pinch of Russki.
Got the tail end of NCIS this time, another cop show spin-off.
I don’t know how you measure these things but they seem more Asian than the Australians…
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