Australian National Team Thread - #ArnieOut!

By their standards they picked him up for a pittance. Euro clubs don’t care about player welfare in general and especially not for fringe prospects.

1 Like

Seem a loan move to Portugal mentioned. I think even if he put away 3 goals and 4 assists in our next two games he wouldnt be eligible for the visa yet

Look at Portugal’s 2nd goal against Ghana this morning.

We would have put our foot on the ball instead of trying to get in behind.

1 Like

The only Newcastle squad he’d be anywhere near in the next 3 years is their second div PL2 team.

Helps that Portugal have better players, but yeah, agreed.

Ok.

Take a look at the Iran goal vs Wales ruled offside. We would have at best played it into a forward pocket.

But probably would have stepped on the ball and consolidated possession.

We have names you know

Also called out in this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YVcWwwQL_rI

1 Like

5 Likes

Yeah, some bloke and his son. They’re names!

Was that you and your father? How can I not remember that?

Song is pretty aces.

Arnie got it as right as possible. That team win was much better than the sum of the parts we had available. And we played some really nice football in the first half. Like many, I was screaming for him to bring on Mabil and Hrustic and others early in the second half, but the first two looked so unfit and undercooked, clearly Arnie knows MUCH more than we do!

1 Like

France/Tunisia ex colonial biscotto coming up. Forget the ‘just need a draw’ against Denmark mentality, we have to win.

3 Likes

It’s possible but even if it were to happen and we didn’t qualify from the group, we surely have to look back to the first game, where we let the goal difference get out of hand.

Just like like our naive Australians general sports fans learned some hard lessons about one kind of football nefariousness in 2006, they may well learn a new one this year…

Like I said above, its possible. However, I also find it less likely to happen. For the most part, the French have incredible depth in that squad, despite all of the injured players that are missing. A squad player (or any of their players for that matter) being called up and then phoning it in against Tunisia isn’t going to convince anyone they should be involved in any of the knockout games. I expect they will take the game seriously enough. It would be a different story if their squad was top-heavy with world beaters but had very average players outside of that.

1 Like

:laughing: Haha, is this an Italian idiom?

1 Like

Yeah we all said their reserve side is probably good enough to do us, even if they rotate hard or at bare minimum rest those in card trouble, the replacements will still be going hard to earn their spot. Draw really should be enough, but we still gotta play for the win.

1 Like

The Deschamps France can be pretty dour and lacking in spark. They have lost plenty of times in the last year or two including to Denmark twice. The difference is that in Mbappe (and toa lesser extent Dembele) they have a couple of players who can just make anything happen. If these are rested, it can be pretty possible for a solidly set up team to keep them out and snag a winner.

Yeah, they are down to their second choice Hernandez brother!

1 Like
8 Likes

Brilliant. Thanks for the history lesson :grin:

1 Like